Intimidation

DO NOT BE INTIMIDATED

So last night I heard a message on intimidation that kind of rocked me. It was not one of those lay on the ground slobbery knocking down messages, but more like once I got home and looked over my notes again and then looked at some other notes I had in my journal that God started pulling together this blog.

Please understand, I don’t blog about every good message I hear, if that was the case, I would be writing huge blogs each weeks when I listen to my own pastor. He’s a pretty amazing communicator and I always glean something new out of what he teaches. But there are those messages that you NEED TO HEAR so that God can just reaffirm some things in you that a person seems to forget about over time.

So it was last night. I missed church on Sunday because my medication zonked me out and I overslept. So a friend posted on his facebook that their church was having services this week with Tommy Tenney so we went out to listen. We like Tommy Tenney; we had read some of his books, heard him preach before and trusted his ministry. He is teaching on not being intimidated, not a topic I would have expected from him – but obviously the word in due season that I needed to hear.

Here it is a glimpse at my notes, a glimpse into the Word, and a glimpse into my heart. The text for my blog this morning comes from Joshua 5:13-15; 6:1-10, 20; Hebrews 10:38-89.

513 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?" 14 "Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, "What message does my Lord [a] have for his servant?" 15 The commander of the LORD's army replied, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so. 6, 1Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. 2 Then the LORD said to Joshua, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. 3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. 4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams' horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in." 6 So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, "Take up the ark of the covenant of the LORD and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it." 7 And he ordered the people, "Advance! March around the city, with the armed guard going ahead of the ark of the LORD." 8 When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the LORD went forward, blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the LORD's covenant followed them. 9 The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding. 10 But Joshua had commanded the people, "Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!" 20 When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city.

Okay for some background, three things I did not know. Joshua is not young here. He is about 80. Secondly, I never saw this until last night, but how many times have I read this story of Joshua and the walls of Jericho and never realized before that the giant with the sword drawn was a Angel of the Lord. Joshua was not intimidated by the size of the guard, he just walked right up to him in his old age and flat out picked a fight – “are you with us or against us?”. Cracks me up!

We can take the following nuggets out of this story from Joshua:

Joshua was not intimidated. He had a promise from the Lord that he would possess the land. When God has given you a promise, it matters not what you have in your hand, but what is in your heart.

Think about it. Earlier in this book we see the 12 spies being sent out scope out the land. Ten of those spies came back with a negative report, only Joshua and Caleb came back and said “heck yea we can take this land!”. This is the land flowing with milk and honey that has been promised to us, and yes there are giants there – but we can take them. I can almost hear him saying now – C’mon Moses let’s take these guys!! Make a note here readers, out of Joshua’s generation only he and Caleb walked into Jericho and inhabited the land. Their entire generation who walked 40 years in the wilderness died. It was the following generation that inherited the land.

When we are intimidated by our enemy, we can be intimidated out of our promise. Don’t do that.

Joshua had been there before. He had seen the giants in the land and he was not intimidated 40 years earlier, and he was not intimidated. I guess he woke up one morning looked across the land and decided he was going to figure out what ground he was standing on and just how big and bad was this enemy. What can we learn from this? I think we can learn that the longer we whine and complain the more surmountable our situation becomes. Engage the enemy early, cut off his head and let him know you are not afraid of him! Imagine Joshua’s surprise when he realized the guy at the gate was on his side. Now I wonder about this, were these giants armies of the Lord the entire time and out of fear Israel walked 40 years in the desert for no reason at all? Too bad they could not see with God’s eyes the way Joshua did. We are no different, one day a light bulb goes off and we get it.

Sometimes faith is what you do before fear takes hold.

I believe it takes more bravery to step out in faith and trust God than it does to stay in the place we are at and allow the enemy to engulf us in fear. My momma always told me “it’s hard to hit a moving target”. I hate fear. I hate what it does to me, how it causes me to shrink back, how it refuses to release me until I seek the face of God. I hate that the enemy has no new tactics and will always use our own fear as a way to cause us to not trust what the Lord has promises us, cause us to take control of a situation, or get angry at bitter at God for not moving on our behalf. If we will just step out and reach for Him, we might see the armies of the Lord moving on our behalf in our own situations.

Fear magnifies your problem, faith magnifies your promise.

Our lives tend to be ruled by us seeing a sickness, problem, struggle, etc., and then if we can’t figure it out we become afraid. I think most of our fears are a direct result of our inability to release. I have always been plagued by this. In all my years of walking with God, I can tell you that if there is one thing more than anything that t he enemy uses to engage me it is fear. I have been ruled by it, I have been intimidated by it and frankly I’m pretty sick of it. Fear takes my struggles and makes them look like giants in my land that I have no control over and I have no ability to conquer. I know this woman who has spoken more truth into my life than I can ever grasp. She understood my struggle and would constantly speak into my life the word “release”. Not an easy task for me. But I have found that when I do that, and I release my fears I am much more able to walk in faith in a situation and trust the Lord to do mighty things on my behalf. I am learning how to do this all over again. I have had a horrible 18 months that have been plagued by illness, instability and yes fear. I wish I could say I looked at each of these instances in my life and used the faith I have to activate something that I could tangibly trust. I have not stopped praying, I have not stopped believing but I have stopped trusting the Lord to cause me to overcome my giants. But instead I have looked at the continual report of doctors which have not been good, I have had a enemy in my face most of this year slashing away at the very core of my being, and I have done something I swore I would never do when I returned from Mexico over the holidays – I HAVE SHRUNK BACK.

Our WORSHIP ACTIVATES WAR!

I love this part. Notice it was not in battle but before the battle even began that the Israelite's had victory in Jericho. It was after they (1) obeyed the Lord and (2) worshiped the Lord that the walls came down. When the walls came down they had complete victory over their enemy. If we would just learn to praise our way through our circumstances instead, we just react and surrender to what we see with our natural eyes. Oh that we would look beyond our circumstances and the world and listen to the report of the Lord. Worship activates war. I think we see this principle throughout the bible. It has always been when we just stood back, worshipped, prayed and trusted the Lord that things seemed to move. It is not rocket science – really it’s not. There is no mathematical formula that is going to move God, we can’t outgive him, outlast Him, or even outlive Him. It is simple obedience that moves His hand on our behalf. At our church we have incredible worship, it’s the kind of worship that no matter what you face walking into the door, when the worship starts, you can feel the Lord begin to move in and among us. What is the Holy Spirit looking for during those times. I don’t think he is looking to see who is clapping, who raises their hands, who has eyes closed, or who is reading the words from the screen. I believe the Holy Spirit is looking to see who is willing to engage! I can’t prove it scripturally (yet), but it makes perfect sense to me. As my friend says, I’m just sayin…

Which brings me to the 2nd part of my blog Hebrews 10:38-39.

38But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him." 39But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

I have blogged this passage before, but it hit me like a ton of bricks last night, and it ties so well in with Joshua that I can’t help but include it as the closing of my blog.

Remember this, the Israelite's believed the negative report, they SHRUNK BACK and then they endured dying in the wilderness instead of taking hold of the promise God had for them. For 40 years a entire generation of God’s chosen people walked around the land that could have probably been theirs from the get-go. The problem and the promise had the same name. The problem GIANTS in the land, the promise was that they would be GIANTS in the land.

I have decided I do not really want to die in this land. I don’t want to keep going around the same old mountain full of fear and intimidation and self-control. The question I keep hearing over and over from the Lord, is whether or not I am willing to release that fear and allow freedom to come through it. I don’t think God expects me to just give in too easily. I know he wants me to, and I press on trying harder than ever to not be ruled by my circumstances or what I see in the natural – but what I cannot see. I wish I could – but if I’m gut level honest, I can’t. I am willing to spend more time in His presence, pray harder, release more, and trust more. But I’m sure there will be days that I fail, and run back. One thing for sure, I hate feeling like God can have no pleasure in me. And whatever it takes to stop feeling that way – I will embrace!

So I close with this to my friends and readers. We are not created to be intimidated by our enemy. We are created to engage the enemy and defeat him. Whatever your GIANT is, I pray you will call it out by name. When David engaged Goliath he called him out. You can go read it for yourself in 1 Samuel 17, but I loved that David was not intimidated by the size of Goliath. In fact he walked right up and said to him: “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head.”

Tommy Tenney said this last night and I wrote it down, and think it holds true. “God’s answer to a giant problem was a shepherd with a bag and a stone”. I can’t help but agree with him.

Let us engage in the battle, let us cut off the head of our enemy, and let us not shrink back.

Peace be still,

Cindy