Breaking Free from Fear

Well, I know that's good, but things don't work together for me. I must be for somebody else. I don't know. I know that's good, but you know, no, no. It's God's promise. God didn't play around. God is God. God is God. Do you hear me? God is speaking to you right now. And He's saying to you right now. I will make everything in your life work together for good. He's saying that to you. Welcome to the Ignite with Barry Maguire podcast where Barry's book and passion for spreading God's love are guaranteed to ignite your life. Now listen in and prepare to have your life ignited. Hi everybody. I want to talk to you for a few moments about fear. Apparently it's a big issue. Can I have had no fear for decades? So I have to go back and actually remind myself what it's like to be fearful. But I was reading a study the other day that said that over a 70% of all Christians, now I don't know what they mean by Christians. There's Christians and there's Christians that didn't stipulate. But it did say that over a 70% of Christians are living in fear. I mean, how's that possible? You have holy God almighty all over you and dressing your steps and protecting and doing everything. You're living in fear. Do you know it's been said, I actually have a sign in my house. It says 365 times in the Bible. The Bible says fear not. Now I don't know if that's accurate up but certainly in that it's a lot. If there's anything that God says to us, don't fear fear not. I find about that a bit and you know when you're living in fear, what you know what you're saying to God, you're saying to God, I don't trust you. What does that say to God? I mean, what does that really say to God? How does that hurt God? How would you like your child to say, Dad? Mom, I don't trust you. It stabs you to the heart. And according to this poll where 70% of Christians are doing exactly that, you know what's worse? The author of fear is Satan. You do know that, right? And when he traps you in fear, he's laughing at you. Now think about those two things. One, you're telling God you don't trust him. And the other hand, Satan's laughing at you. I don't think either one of these are good options. So how do you get out of fear? How do you escape fear? And the more you want to escape it, the more you have, right? And there are so many things to be fearful about. My health, my marriage, my kids, my schooling, my job, my country, the world. You know, once that were worried about stuff, I'd be really worried about things. We can't change anyway. So why are we worried about them? It doesn't matter. But that's where we are. We love to fear. Satan's the author of fear. I think fear is his number one weapon against Christians. There's about 10% of us in America, 30 some odd million of us. That actually no God or born again. I believe he's not a way to heaven. And our goal, obviously, is ignite that 30 million. And we ignite America's revival one person of time. We can do this. Over 70% of the church already have a Christian friend in life. We can do this. We can actually do this and spend no money. I mean, we just need to do it. But we're not. Why? Mainly because of fear. He is paralyzed the church in fear and laughing at us. I would go beyond that. He's sterilizing the church. He's sterilized the church. You know why? Because if you're living in fear, you can't share your faith. How do you share your faith out of fear? You don't have faith yourself. Without faith that's impossible, please God. I mean, the scriptures are overwhelming on this subject. And yet we practice it. I've heard it from the pulpit. Pastor's talking about how the struggle is something they're worried about. What are you worried about? God's on your side. If God's in it, God's ahead of you. How do you get to that place? I've no fear. It's very easy. I can explain to you right quick. But the thing of God dealing with your fears, the scriptures are are plentiful and explaining what it means when you have fear. He also explains what it means when you don't have fear. Okay, let me give you an overview of the contrast here. James chapter, I don't you love James. I mean, it's the only book that I've actually memorized. I memorized last year too. James the one book, I memorized this to tell you this. It's so rich. And the first chapter, James, he says, I want to see your prayers. I'm the only guy. I want to see your prayers unless you're wavering. Unless you're mixing fear with faith. And you know what he says. He says it's like you're like a way with a sea driven by the wind and toss. You're a double-minded man, unstable in all your ways, and then the killer shot. I mean, the debilitating side of the faith just wipes you out and tells you, you can't live there. He says, don't let that person expect to receive. God can do anything. Thank God he's answered my prayers when I didn't deserve it. He can do that. He's sovereign. But he says, don't let that person think that I'll answer their prayers. Believe it. Trust that I answer prayers because there's no reason for that trust. That's where it would sound like most Christians aren't today walking around in fear because they don't believe they can't have it. They don't have a status to believe that God is going to direct their steps. Oh, but when you have whole-hearted faith, when you have faith, then everything happens. That verse you all know, the power of 3.5, trust in the Lord with your whole heart, right? Not half-hearted. When you love God, you love God. There's nothing even remotely close. Love God fills your life and it pushes the darkness back. When you trust God, it pushes fear back. Fear is gone. It's banished from your life. You can live there. Would you like to live if you're struggling in fear right now? And you can't imagine how to get out of the grips of fear. All the supplements going on. Would you like to know how to escape? I'm going to tell you right now. It's so simple. And you never would have guessed it. The solution is doing the one thing you don't want to do and may never have done. Share your faith. What? What is sharing my faith? Have to do with getting in a fear. I'm afraid to share my faith. And that's part of it. Or afraid to share it. Oh, I don't have the right words. I will know what to say. I'll embarrass myself. I don't have the right person. We have all these excuses. Do you know we actually have a place at our website? Most frequent excuses. That takes everyone of those excuses and destroys them. He didn't say go into the world. All you who are gifted are all of you who can quote eloquery scripture. Do you know the most aggressive faith sharing Christians are new Christians? I mean, they don't even know scripture. You know who they know? They know God. And they're open. And God is overwhelming them. And they're hard and so big. If God's filling their life and the God flows through them out to everybody else around them, that should be you. That should be all of us for the rest of our lives. And that pushes them back for you. There's actually a promise to that. If you've watched me very much, you know the promise. But I'll bring it more pointedly now. And that is the scripture that says all things work together for good. Do you understand if you could really believe that God is promising you to make everything in your life work together for good. That's the end of fear. There's no more fear. You're just this. But how do you get there? Oh, I know that scripture, but things don't work together for me. I must be for somebody else. I don't know. I know that scripture, but you know, no, no. It's God's promise. God didn't play around. God is God. Do you hear me? God is speaking to you right now. And he's saying to you right now, I will make everything in your life work together for good. He's saying that to you. If you follow the two provisels in that scripture, you know, we're not good at quoting all scriptures. We paraphrase. We don't like to paraphrase what we do. All things work together for good. We leave it there. Oh, some servants will say, when you love God, I grabbed ahold of this scripture 50 years ago. And I've heard it preached a hundred times since. And maybe four or five times I've ever heard them preach. I quote the entire scripture, which says, I'll make everything work together for good to those who love me. And that's all out love. Just fly down. I love you. God bore anything else. I just love you. I love you, God. You owe me. Holy, everything. To those who love me, and many, he gives the description what that means. To those who live for my purpose. What's God's purpose? Well, you don't have to question that. You know there's a lot of theological arguments going on. I can't even figure out how theologians can spend a lifetime hung up on a certain scripture. It's meaningless as far as getting saved. But people do. Listen, they don't. You know what God's purpose is. Everybody knows what God's purpose is. God made us for heaven. He didn't make us for heaven. He made us for heaven. At his purpose of those who live for his purpose, his purpose is to seek and save the lost. We say that so freely. We say it so often lives as it's meaning. He said, when you live your life to seek and save the lost, it mimics what he said earlier. It duplicates what he said earlier. When they ask him, what's the most important commander? If you love God, you'll keep us commandments. What's the most important commander? He says, when you love your neighbor as yourself, it is just as important as loving me. In fact, the two go together. You can't love God without sharing your faith. I got to tell you, if you love God, you're going to share your faith. Whatever you love, whatever you're excited about, you're going to talk about it. Guaranteed. I had a great hamburger last night. I'll just say this, but I had another one last night. It was crazy good. And I've been telling people about it. Whatever you're excited about and love, you're going to talk about it's natural. It's human. It's what you do. You can't stop yourself. How often are you talking to people about God? The degree to which you're talking to people about God is the degree to which you love God. I'm not saying you're not on your way to heaven. I'm not saying that. But does he, does he owe your heart? Are you excited what he's doing in your life? That holy God lives in you and has a plan for you and is taking you to heaven and he's giving you the opportunity to lead other people to it? Are you excited about that or not? If you're not, you need to do an inventory check. You need to start thinking about what's the priority of your life? Yeah. But when you do, the bottom line is, it's so simple. I think it's the second most important promise of Scripture in the entire Bible after John 3.16 because he says, John 3.16 of course says, except the Lord Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior. And he gives you eternal life. But after that, he says, from now until you get to heaven, I'm going to make everything in life work together for good. If you do two things, love me. And when you love me, you'll share me. And when you're in that mode, nothing can hurt you. Nothing can stop you. Unless God allows it. And that's freedom. It's freedom. It's unbelievable. I told this story often, but a bearish repeating right now, I had a joint venture partner. My family sold to a joint venture partner. And after five years, he took over my board. And I found out the next way, he's going to throw me out of my business. I was 65 years old. It's my family business. My grandfather started in 1901. And now I'm 65 years old. And my joint venture partner owned half the company took over the board. And tomorrow morning, he'll throw me out of my business, okay? And this is my response. I've heard the stories for my life. You've heard the story probably many times. The bearish repeating is somebody you haven't heard it. But it proves the point. I'm living proof. I'm 82 years old. I live. I live the life he talks about. I'm a product of the promise he's given to all of us. And I said, God, I ask you for nothing. Nothing. Because you know I live for your purpose. No, it's not a gray area all day long. I'm focused on moving everybody closer to you all day long. There's no gray area here. You know I live for your purpose. And I know you under your word. And you said all things. You make all things work together for good. For those who do what I do. And I went to sleep. Here's the proof positive. And I often say, God, strike me dead this moment. This is not exactly what happens. Because it is. I curled in bed. I went to sleep immediately. I did not toss and turn. I never got up. I woke up fresh the next morning. And went to my attorney's office. Or taking this conference call. Everybody was at their conferences. And I will go into the details now. Well, I can't tell you this within eight minutes. He turned. God turned my joint venture partner upside down to the point where he was cussing at me. He needed to see me. There's a GD of this and F of this. And they couldn't see me. And I'm belly laughing. I just couldn't believe it. I just said, when all it is a God. I had nothing. I was toast, but I had you. That's all I needed. And you came through for me as I knew you would. This is the promise. When you hand the promise. When you're sharing your faith, it's no fear. Do you get it? I brought this book, Ignite your life. Ignite your life. This is the message of our ministry. Ignite your life. When you share your faith, when you share God, that's the only thing he's asked for you to do for you. It's hard to your life when you do that. Ignites your life. And the byliner book is to feed fear effortlessly. Effortlessly, automatically. Just right, living the life and the promise and the direction he's giving is called the Great Commission. To move everybody. To protect our services. Starting right now. Congratulations. You