WE WELCOME WHAT WE FEAR

WE WELCOME WHAT WE FEAR

  • Authority, Fear

WE WELCOME WHAT WE FEAR

I once asked several seasoned parents for parenting advice, and all of them said, “The one thing I feared is the ONE thing that happened.” I feared that my children would consume drugs, drop out of college, and get discovered, and in each case, it happened. We welcome what we fear. Something happened with my son, and I called my mentor, saying, “My worst fear came true.” We talked it out, and it ended up being a much smaller ordeal than my heart originally felt. At the end of the conversation, she said, “Lisa, the problem with this whole thing is your opening statement. You were carrying around fear over your son.” She was right. I was partnering with fear long before anything happened. We invite what we believe and partnering with fear actually gives it a legal right to influence circumstances. God has not designed us to manage fear but to trust Him in all circumstances. Peace and authority are my weapons in the face of fear. 

HeartWork – Whatever your greatest fear is, surrender it to God and declare His truth over the situation. Fear is not your friend. Spend some intentional time today surrendering the fear and exchanging it with His Truth.

BABY FEAR

I once saw a young single mom asking for help on Facebook. She told this story: Suddenly, her baby daughter didn’t like her car seat and was having difficulty getting her strapped in. There were THIRTY-FOUR responses: give her a treat when you put her in, give her a new toy, etc. One response even said to give her Tylenol every time they had to go somewhere. The key word in her story was “suddenly.” I asked her what happened leading up to it. And she explained that the baby had been really sick for a week with a high fever. They all were itching to get out after a week at home and thought the baby was well enough to go to Wal-Mart. The minute they pulled onto the highway, the baby started violently throwing up. And since then, she wouldn’t sit in her car seat. Can you picture being so small and having your body violently throwing up for the first time? You are strapped tightly into a car seat and can’t fully heave forward (talk about restraint!). You have vomit all over you and aren’t old enough to communicate with your mom. That is a scary situation for anyone, much less a helpless baby. I told her that I believed she was dealing with a spirit of fear. The enemy doesn’t care how little or cute she is. She opened the door by being afraid, and he jumped! It’s his job, and he does it well. A week later, I ran into the grandma and asked how it was going, and she told me that now the baby would scratch herself to the point of bleeding, and it took two adults to get her strapped in. I will be honest in saying that my blood boils when the enemy is all over our children, and parents are clueless! This is where we have been so duped by the church and need to wake up!

I asked Grandma if she knew how to take authority over the spirit of fear, and she said she didn’t. I walked her through her authority and the prayer that said something like, “Fear, I see you, and you have to go. In the name of Jesus, you have no authority in my vehicle or over my granddaughter. I release peace now over my granddaughter and her car seat.” Done! She messaged me later to say they did it on the way out of church, and the granddaughter immediately went right into the car seat as if nothing had happened. It wasn’t the car seat she was reacting to. It was a demonic spirit that was sitting there waiting to torment her because it had a legal right to be there. Fear is not an emotion; it is a spirit that must be dealt with using our authority in Jesus.

YOUR VOICE MATTERS

As believers, we have a mandate (an official order or commission to do something) on our lives to carry things to the throne. Pick an area that you want to lift up today and release your prayer. While personal prayers are so dear to the Lord, I encourage you to widen your eyes, and together, let’s cover issues and topics that affect our culture and generation (ex., abortion, drugs, leaders, homelessness, salvation, etc.). Your voice matters!

GOD-GIVEN AUTHORITY

Giving up control-based parenting does not mean giving up your God-given authority. It does not mean the child is in control, nor does it mean they get to make the decisions. I am not sure which is worse – a parent who partners with the spirit of control or a parent who allows the child to be in control.

PROPER AUTHORITY

We don’t want to use our parental authority to control our children to keep our childhood wounds comfortable. We want to use the way our children trigger us to get healed so that we can respond to them as a loving parent.

DUPED!

I hate that many people have been duped! They think that the fear they feel is real. If only they could see it for what it is – a smoke screen from the enemy to get you to partner with letting go of the goodness of God. Satan can’t alter the finished work of the Cross, nor can he change God’s love for you, so he strives to make YOU believe something else which diminishes your experience with the Cross and His love. But it is just all a big lie! “I can’t trust God,” “I am afraid of the unknown,” “What if I can’t handle what He tells me,” “I will be out of control,” “I am afraid I won’t hear right,” “I am afraid that I will lose my family,” “I am afraid that…” on and on!

PEACE IS A CHOICE

Repeat after me…

“I declare PEACE over my heart.”

“I declare PEACE over my home.”

“I declare PEACE over my marriage.” 

“I declare PEACE over my children.”

“I declare PEACE over my friendships.” 

“I declare PEACE over my day.” 

“I declare PEACE over my mind.” 

We can walk in the peace that surfaces all understanding. The kind of peace that makes no logical sense based on external circumstances. But it is a CHOICE! Today I choose PEACE!

SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY

When my kids come home with stories about how someone was unkind, rude, or disrespectful, we walk through forgiveness and then release the opposite back to them in the spiritual realm. You can’t be a victim when you are partnering with the Creator of the universe.

Homework – Call a family meeting and ask your children what would happen if you walked into the middle of a busy street and held up your hand. Nothing would probably happen. Next, ask what would happen if a police officer walked in the middle of a busy street and put up his hand. Because of his badge, he has authority. Not only that, but all of the courts back him up. We get to be police officers in the spiritual realm because of the badge of Jesus, and all of heaven backs us up. We get to tie up the bad and then unleash all the good stuff. 

MY AUTHORITY IN JESUS

God spoke to me years ago and said, “The same spirit you are encountering in the church is the same spirit that was in operation in your childhood. The reason it is so painful is that you endured it in childhood but did not overcome it.” It was so true. When my mom passed away, I no longer encountered that spirit with her and never learned how to defeat it. When I was faced with it again in the church, God was teaching me not to endure it, as I did as a little girl, but to rise up and defeat it. While I have no authority over someone else’s free will, I had all of the authority given to me by Jesus to demolish that spirit from operation in my life and coming under it. After God spoke this to me, this is how I responded: I had to first discern that it was a spirit and not me. Then I had to discern what was the spirit in operation. I asked Jesus to give me the strategy to defeat and overcome that spirit. I am intentional about releasing the opposite spirit. Where I wanted God to save me from it, He wanted to teach me my authority in Him.

FEAR IS NOT PROTECTION

A mom asked to meet with me and began to share how she is deathly afraid that her children would be violated sexually. She won’t let them spend the night at a friend’s house, does not like for them to be outside alone, and worries about them all the time. We began to process with Holy Spirit, who revealed there was a sexual door open in their family. The previous generations opened the door through affairs, porn, and living a perverted lifestyle. Her mom (grandma) grew up with the tension and fear of the atmosphere. When there is an adult who is not managing their sexuality well and is making comments or jokes, welcoming pornography into the home, or acting in inappropriate ways, it causes children to feel unsafe and unprotected. The mom (grandma) partnered with a spirit of fear over feeling sexually unsafe. Because the fear, even if the threat was real, was never addressed and resolved, she carried around a fear of being sexually violated and passed that atmosphere on to her daughter. So while my friend was not abused in any way, she grew up with the fear of sexual violation through her mom. And now she was partnering with the fear for her children. 

Let me spell that out – one man’s choices affected his daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandchildren. I am so thankful for the blood of Jesus and the work of the Cross. I helped her forgive her grandparents for opening the door and her mom for introducing her to it, and she confessed her own partnership with the fear. We closed the sexual door and broke agreement with the fear. We invited Holy Spirit to be their Protector. She suddenly felt a deep peace because that spirit that had been following her around was finally gone.