Offering message: Karen Burrows gave an inspirational word about finances. Is our praying complaining? God told Charles Capps, “I would appreciate it if you would stop telling Me what the devil said.” We bind God by the words of our own mouth. We must change our confession and agree with God’s Word. Confess aloud God’s promises. Sow more in tough times with joy. Sermon: Fear can influence our decisions and bind us up. Fear goes to whoever yields to it. Text: Mark 4:35-41. One way to get a truth down in you is to hear it again and again. Ask God to show you where you have yielded to fear, and then yield to His Spirit in faith. Fear is invasive. Choose to resist fear. Pastor Syd shares the testimony of overcoming fear which was trying to fill him and his wife in her high-risk pregnancy by confessing the Word and getting agreement with a faith-buddy. Pastor Dale used his authority to command the spirit of death to leave, and she was healed. During times when you are in the thick of things, you need to have someone, who is not emotionally attached, to come alongside to help you. We have authority over fear. The name of Jesus is greater than any phobia. Have a faith-buddy. Do not hide fear or be so full of pride that you do not ask for help. There is a spirit of faith (2 Corinthians 4:13). The Spirit of Jesus is the spirit of faith. Both the spirit of fear and the spirit of faith want to use your tongue. What do we do with fear? #1) We resist it. #2) We replace it with the Word of God. For every fear that would bind you up, there is a truth that will set you free. Where there is fear, there is no rest. Paul said that they had no rest, because there were troubles and fears, but God comforted them (2 Corinthians 7:5). To get rid of nightmares, go to bed without fear. No demon can force you to fear. Pastor Syd shared about the ALS challenge and what he learned about ALS. As he was reading that it can happen to anyone, fear tried to come in. He immediately replaced it with the Word. The first person mentioned having his part in the lake of fire in verse 8 of Revelation 21 is the coward (Revelation 21:6-8). The other sins named are based on fear. When you have the truth before you, but you are afraid to operate on it, there is no more help for you. Yielding to fear keeps you from being an overcomer. Those who believe, enter the rest (Hebrews 3:12-4:12). Monitor peace and joy in your life. We can be at rest believing in His promises and His Word since the foundation of the world. We can rest in the truth that our righteousness is in Christ, not in any works. Make every effort to enter into His rest in the Word. Declare the Word as truth over your problem. Live in love and have boldness. Love drives out and has no room for fear (1 John 4:15-18). Fear is a form of hell on earth. Heaven is living love, peace, and joy. Job yielded to the spirit of fear. Psalm 91 is a place of resting.

Text: Mark 4:35-41. God’s Word carries us to the power of God. God had to speak to bring forth the power of God (at and since creation). Do not hide fear, but walk in faith. There are times when you need to command, rather than to pray. When you have God’s Word, and He has already said something to you, you command whatever would try to hinder or stop that from happening to leave in Jesus’ name. Jesus could command because He was saying what the Father had already said. Praying is asking; the disciples were praying because they were in fear and did not yield to faith in what Jesus had said. There are difference levels of fear and faith. The difference is how much you yield to one or the other. Fear is a spirit and must be dealt with spiritually, not mentally. Resist and command fear to go (John 14:1, 26-27). We have believed and therefore speak because we have the same spirit of faith (2 Corinthians 4:13). The spirit of fear and the spirit of faith are both looking for someone to come into and express themselves through. Speak His Word. The spirit of faith will come because you have yielded to it. Romans 10:17 says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word. Fear of death is the power of death (Hebrews 2:14-15). Beware that many ads use fear to get you to buy their products. Do not let fear come in, but yield to faith. Satan cannot force you into fear, nor can Jesus force you into faith. How can you tell if you are in faith or fear? Faith accompanies hope. Fear accompanies dread. If you have no rest, you are in fear. Job said what he feared came upon him. Fear starts an expectation of whatever you are fearful of. That expectation is a force that causes an intersection later. What do you do with fear? You resist it and replace it. Guard your heart and do not yield to fear (Isaiah 7:2-4). The Lord is with you to fight your battles (2 Chronicles 32). Faith never brags on its opponent. For every fear that will put you in bondage there is a truth that will set you free.

In Mark 4:35-41, after His teaching on the Parable of the Sower, Jesus told His disciples that they were going to the other side of the lake. That word was the seed, and His disciples heard it. However, cares and fear overtook them when their boat was filling up because of a violent storm and high waves. Jesus was sleeping, and after rebuking the wind and calming the sea, He rebuked them for not believing His word. Everything that God tells you to do has the grace in it for it to be done. Being obedient does not mean you will never have storms. When storms come, the devil will tell you that you were not obedient, and if you believe him, fear and doubt come in. Psalm 34:17 tells us that God delivers us from destructions. He does not say that we will not have problems but that you can come through them unscathed. Get rid of nightmares by changing what you are thinking about when you go to bed. Fear is a spirit. It does not go away by mental exercise. The enemy will often tell you that God does not love you. Do not question God’s love for you or His character. Faith works through love. We must believe that He loves us. God will NOT abandon you in any crisis. The power is in the Word of God. When He gives you a word, speak to the mountain, and it must be removed. Find God’s Word and speak it in Jesus’ name. In Acts 27:9-24 Paul spiritually saw trouble ahead on a voyage he had to take, but when the storm lasted for days and days, he did not command the storm to stop. Why? An angel of the Lord told him not to be afraid, that he and all the other people on the ship would arrive. Why did the angel tell him not to be afraid? It was so that he would know the will of God in the situation and so that fear and doubt could not get in, if he believed the angel. Faith begins where the will of God is known. God leads you by a spirit of peace, but you need to follow His leading. Determine God’s will for yourself and let Him guide you by His peace. How do you know if it is the devil putting fear on you or God warning you? If it inspires fear, it is of the devil. If it is of peace, it is from God, even if it does not make sense. We need to have a sincere and genuine faith that believes what God has promised. We should build each other up in our faith (2 Timothy 1:2-5). Fear is a spirit, so take authority over it, and even better, do not let it in. Only Caleb and Joshua believed the Lord when they spied out the Promised Land. Caleb had a different spirit – one of faith (Numbers 14:24). Listen to the Holy Spirit; He will guide you (John 14:1, 26, 27). Speak to fear and tell it to get out! Make null and void any agreements you may have made with the devil. Do not let fear in!

Message is similar to July 26, but is condensed. Pastor Syd has found three conditions in the miracles he has seen in his own life. They are: #1 Having a great desire or desperation; #2 Finding the Word of God concerning your situation; and #3 Releasing your faith by speaking it out and acting on it. Luke 18:1-8 tells about persistent faith. The trial of your faith is patience, the lapse of time until you see the manifestation. The gospel is the power of God (Romans 1:16-19). We will press in when we see God as our only source, and we don’t back off of it. Pastor Syd shares how he believed God for a set of new tires and how God provided for them without his sharing the need with anyone else. We have God’s thoughts, and He has revealed the deep things to His people. Find the will of God for your situation by getting His Word on it, and then you can pray according to it. Don’t be money-led. His power is in His Word, and when you take it like a pill, it releases His power and faith. Pastor Syd relates how the Lord supernaturally told him to which school to send his son. In Luke 17:11-19 the ten lepers were cleansed because they were desperate and acted on Jesus’ word to go to the priest. The one leper who returned to thank Jesus was saved and made whole – spirit and body (sozo). Pastor Syd demonstrated point #3 by the supernatural way God took care of their need for their house after the economic crash in 2008. In Acts 14:7-10 a lame man heard the gospel, had faith that could be seen, and then released that faith by acting on it by leaping up and walking. You can stand on the Word, because it will work for you. Release your faith by speaking and acting as though it is true.

Pastor Syd has found three conditions in the miracles he has seen in his own life. They are: #1 Having a great desire or desperation; #2 Finding the Word of God concerning your situation; and #3 Releasing your faith by speaking it out and acting on it. Luke 18:1-8 tells about persistent faith. The trial of your faith is patience, the lapse of time until you see the manifestation. The gospel is the power of God (Romans 1:16-19). We will press in when we see God as our only source, and we don’t back off of it. Pastor Syd shares how he believed God for a set of new tires and how God provided for them without his sharing the need with anyone else. We have God’s thoughts, and He has revealed the deep things to His people. Find the will of God for your situation by getting His Word on it, and then you can pray according to it. Don’t be money-led. His power is in His Word, and when you take it like a pill, it releases His power and faith. Pastor Syd relates how the Lord supernaturally told him to which school to send his son. In Luke 17:11-19 the ten lepers were cleansed because they were desperate and acted on Jesus’ word to go to the priest. The one leper who returned to thank Jesus was saved and made whole – spirit and body (sozo). Pastor Syd demonstrated point #3 by the supernatural way God took care of their need for their house after the economic crash in 2008. In Acts 14:7-10 a lame man heard the gospel, had faith that could be seen, and then released that faith by acting on it by leaping up and walking. You can stand on the Word, because it will work for you. Release your faith by speaking and acting as though it is true.

Genesis 2:16-17 and 3:1-6 tell of Adam and Eve hanging around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve became deceived by what she was looking at, and Adam was deceived because he obeyed his wife rather than God. Looking at the tree brought desire, which is a great motivating force. You will go after the greatest desire you have. Desire will lead to action. Keep your eyes where God wants to take you. Husbands and wives should make a list of the positive attributes of their spouses and keep focusing on the positive list. You become what you look at. Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:15-26). If you look at the wrong thing long enough, you will become dull and insensitive. If God tells you to do something new and difficult, don’t look back longingly. Make sure that what you’re looking at brings light and not darkness (Luke 11:34-36). Desire the best gifts, the gifts of the Spirit, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Expect miracles. [Other Scriptures: Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Peter 2:2; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; 1 John 3:2.]

Texts: Proverbs 4:18-27 and 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. There is natural and spiritual seeing. Spiritual seeing is getting an image from the Lord. David was able to defeat Goliath because he built a desire by his repeated asking about the reward for the one who would defeat him. He did not want the giant to keep defying God, so he kept his focus on the promise. Don’t look at the fear side of things but on the faith side. Keep God’s Word in your heart. Guard your heart. Look straight ahead. You go where you look, so don’t look at the problem. Proverbs 29:18 says that we need revelation (prophetic vision) and to listen to instruction to be happy. Otherwise, we’ll run wild, casting off moral restraint. Habakkuk 2:2-3 tells us to write down the vision. This is so that our eyes will be focused on it. Hebrews 10:38-39 and 11:1-12:2 tell examples of people who lived by faith by focusing on the eternal and spiritual (not seen) promise. Psalm 123:1-2 tell us to keep our eyes on the Lord.

The path of the just shines brighter and brighter, and the just shall live by faith (Proverbs 4:18 and Hebrews 10:38). We are different because of the light in our lives. Our future is brighter and brighter, and we are going forward with increase. Looking backwards will cause you to stumble and fall. Pulling back is the opposite of going forward in faith. Keep your eyes looking ahead. Complaining is looking back longingly. The Israelites couldn’t enter the Promised Land because of unbelief (Hebrews 3:7-19; 4:1-2; 1 Corinthians 10:1-12). What you look at, you will desire. Look to the future, where you victory is. It’s ahead of you (Exodus 14:10-23; Number 11:4-20). If you look behind yourself, you miss the miracle that you’re experiencing now. Don’t hate the provision of the Lord. Rejoice in His provision for you today. Look forward in faith. Philippians 3:12-15 says to forget those things which are behind and reach forward to the things that are ahead. 

We have more and more of God in our lives (Proverbs 4:18). God gives increase (Psalm 115:14). Isaac sowed in famine, and he went forward and got richer (Genesis 26:12-15). The believer should be the envy of the world. God told the Israelites to obey His voice and walk in His will, that it would go well with them, but they disobeyed and went backward (Jeremiah 7:23-24). We are family. Don’t look back and think about those who have left. Be committed to one another. Sit down with the person who wants to leave. Release them and forgive them. Walk in love. We’re in covenant. We need to be committed to each other. Ask people who come to your church why they left their previous church. The only reason should be that the Lord told them to go. There is a place where you are supposed to be. Be in His will. When leaving a church, pray through it with them. The timing and the place are important for a blessing. Your leaving should leave everyone brighter. Submit to authority and repent if you left a church the wrong way. Some of the people Jesus called were looking back in a longing way (Luke 9:59-62). Look to the future. Hebrews 10:38 says that if anyone draws back, God has no pleasure in him. God’s time is now. Step into obedience.