ARE YOU PoP? Powerful or Pitiful

2 Tim 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”

Marianne Williamson wrote, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Those are some pretty powerful words. Do you believe it as it pertains to your life? Have you ever dumbed down, acting like you didn’t know something when you did because you wanted to fit in? Were you ever afraid to shine in school because you didn’t want the other kids to make fun of you, call you names or not like you because you were too smart? While we’re here, let me just tell you there is no such thing as being too smart.

Ladies, have you ever acted like you didn’t know something to boost the ego of the man you were with? Men have you ever not spoken up because you didn’t want to embarrass your boss or you thought if you spoke up you might lose your job?

No one likes a “know it all” and no one on this earth knows it all, but we all know something. God has put something into each and every one of us, a gift, a talent, an ability, something that you were designed to do and you can do it like no one else. What is that thing that just makes you feel good when you do it? That thing that makes you feel all warm inside even if no one else knows you did it. Doing things we love should not be contingent upon others knowing we did it. It’s a pitiful thing when a person will only do something if they get paid. Whether that pay be monetary or some other form of payment or recognition, we should do what we do because we love and want to glorify God. Not so someone will call our name. When we can get to that point, it’s then that we become powerful beyond measure.

Our Scripture today comes from

King James says it this way – “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

Let us pray

So when we say a person is pitiful exactly what do we mean. Well pitiful is defined as “causing feelings of dislike or disgust by not being enough or not being good enough.” Who determines whether you’re good enough? It certainly should not be man. Man will love you when you please him or her, but when you get on their bad side, then what happens? They’ll sometimes dismiss you like yesterday’s news or throw you out like trash; then what are you left with, feelings of devastation and despair – pitiful.

Sometimes, it’s our fears and opinions about ourselves that make us pitiful. Have you ever been around a person who was self-deprecating? Putting themselves down all the time. In the beginning of the relationship, you tried to encourage them, but then it got to a point where you got tired of encouraging them or it began to feel like they did it just to get you to compliment them. So you ended up getting away from them. I met a person recently who has some very real spiritual warfare going on and part of her story was that once she told people what was going on they stopped talking to her. After I listened for a while, I realized people didn’t stop talking to her because of what was going on, they stopped talking to her because she wouldn’t listen. She had a rebuttal for why whatever you said to her wasn’t going to work. She had prayed for a whole week and God wasn’t doing anything, she wasn’t seeing any change. I finally had to say, stop telling people that story, if you want them to pray for you, then ask them to pray, but don’t tell that story anymore and wait on God no matter how long it takes. Pitiful – We think if God doesn’t move immediately, He’s not hearing our prayer and we need to do something else, talk to someone else or fix it our self. Pitiful, pitiful.

We all know someone who has been pitiful at some time in their lives and I would venture to say we’ve all had those days ourselves. We’ve all had days when we held a pity party and we got on the phone and tried to pull someone else into the pity party with us, then got upset with them if they refuse. The devil is a liar, we’re not going to spend a lot of time on pitiful, because there is not one place in the Bible where it talks about man being pitiful. There are places where we are to take pity on or feel pity for someone, but God did not refer to His creation as pitiful. So we are not to look at our brothers and sisters in disgust, but rather in an attitude of love with a mindset of how we can help them. Nor are we to feel that way about ourselves.

If we were to look deeper, we would find our feelings of self-pity usually stem from fear. Fear of not being accepted, not finding or not being loved, not having friends, not fitting in or we may fear rejection, but whatever your reason for self-pity, it all boils down to one thing –fear. What if Ms Williamson is correct in that, it’s not our inadequacies that make us afraid but that we are powerful beyond measure? Paul said, God did not give us the spirit of fear… fear is a spirit. It comes from the enemy like a demon hovering to pounce, during your time of weakness or insecurity, waiting to swoop down when you haven’t prayed in a while and your connection to God is fuzzy, like the radio when it’s not tuned all the way in or when you get too far away from the signal. The spirit of fear is there, just waiting to spring into your weak mind that has gotten that way because you failed to exercise it with your daily study of the Word. So if God did not give us a spirit of fear what did He give us.

Paul said he gave us a spirit of power, of love and of a sound mind. I’ll come back to the spirit of power and start with the last spirit on Paul’s list. God gave us a sound mind, some translations say self-discipline. This is a quietness of mind. You ever have your mind so full of stuff you can’t rest; you can’t focus on what you need to do? God gave you the ability to quiet your mind. He gave you the ability to have a peaceable enjoyment of yourself, you have to enjoy being with you before anybody else will. When you can enjoy being with you, you don’t worry so much about the rejection of others. We can often get discouraged on our journey and in our work by our own opinion and imagination, but a sober, solid, thinking mind would prevent and easily answer any discouragement that may come our way.

A sound mind comes by prayer and meditation. You have to stay connected to the source, staying connected to the source will keep your signal strong so you can hear what thus sayeth the Lord about any situation concerning you. Stay prayed up so your mind stays sound, and you can practice self-discipline.

The second thing Paul said God gave us is love and Peter tells us, “The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. Whether it’s our life or the world that ends first, we have a limited amount of time to do what God has called us to do. Don’t waste time on inconsequential things, things that don’t matter. A good way to judge whether or not something is really important is to ask yourself, will that issue you’re dealing with right now matter in five years, five months, five days or even five minutes; if the answer to any of those is no, then move on. How? With love, love the hell of that person that irritates you, because when you show kindness to your enemy it’s like heaping coals of fire on their head. You’ll have them so confused they won’t know which way to go and will ultimately bless you and not even know why. The Word says God will make your enemy your footstool and I am a witness.

When we we’re in CA there was a new person who came in and tried to move me from my job and put someone else in it. But God said no and our boss would not do it. A few months later, that same person who was trying to get me out of the position I had was begging me to take her position, which was a higher position than where I was. He’ll make your enemy your footstool. You keep and exhibit the mind of Christ and let him fight your battle. You stay busy on the assignment He has given you and everything will work in your favor. Remember, favor ain’t fair, but be glad you got it. Amen?

The spirit of love will carry us through any opposition we meet with. Love caused Jacob to work for 14 years to get his wife Rachel when her father tricked him and made him marry Leah first. Love will make you do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do; for your parents, your children, your spouse and most importantly God. The spirit of love for God will cause us to live above the fear of man, and all the hurt that man can do to us. What is the worse man can do to you; take your life? Well to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, so is that so bad?

Love, it’s the first commandment. The Pharisees in an attempt to trip Jesus up asked a question; “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Love, it’s in the first (love God) and second (love your neighbor) commandment, so tell me; do you think God meant it. Do you think he gave us the ability to love our neighbor as ourselves? He most certainly did, when the Holy Spirit dwells inside you, you see your brother and sister the way God sees them, you recognize that Jesus died for them the same way He died for you. You recognize that if they had been the only one, Jesus still would have taken off glory and come and sacrificed himself for them, just like he did for you and me.

And finally, Paul said God gave us power, Ms Williamson says “we are powerful beyond measure”. Where does she get that, in Philippians 4:13 we are told “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” All things, everything, there is nothing I can’t do through Christ. God delivered us from the spirit of fear and gave us the spirit of power, of courage and resolution to overcome difficulties and dangers when we encounter them. Power.

We have a spirit of power because when we speak the all mighty name of Jesus He gives us power.

- In the name of Jesus – we can cast out demons, because demons flee at the mention of His name.

- In the name of Jesus – Bodies are healed

- In the name of Jesus – Minds are regulated

- In the name of Jesus – Hearts are mended

- In the name of Jesus – Marriages are reconciled

- In the name of Jesus – Strongholds are broken

- Walls come tumbling down

- In the name of Jesus – Captives are set free

- Jesus said whatsoever you ask, ask in my name and it shall be given unto you - In the name of Jesus – Prayers are answered

- Jesus, the name above every name – because God highly exalted Him

- At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth and things under the earth

- Every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus humbled himself, came down through 42 generations as a man. He took the form of a servant, he was obedient, even unto the death on the cross, a death reserved for the worst criminal and he was sinless; he was guiltless. But he took on the sins of the world, he took on your sins and mine so that we would not have to pay that price – so that we would not be banished to hell forever, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus paid it all, we have a debt we can never repay and aren’t you glad He didn’t ask us to? Aren’t you glad it was a gift, aren’t you glad you don’t have to try to work off that debt?

But God ask us to do something, tell others about the gift. Don’t you tell people when you come across a really good sale. I had someone tell me about a sale on eggs the other day, so if you’ll spread that news why wouldn’t you spread the Good News of Christ? The news that Jesus died to give us eternal life and it is free.

Confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and

- You can have eternal life.

- You can experience joy, unspeakable joy

- You can have peace in the midst of the storm.

- You can have love overflowing, love to love the unloveable.

- You can smile when you’re hurting and no one on earth can help.

- You can have reassurance when there are no guarantees.

- You can have hope when the doctor’s report says there is none.

There is power in the name of Jesus, to break every chain, to destroy the yoke and to tear down every stronghold and nobody can tell it like you can what God has done in your life. Tell somebody, tell anybody, tell everybody; invite them to experience what God has done in your life.

God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Would you like to experience the power of Jesus, come now the doors of the church are open.