Winning the Battle Within

Welcome to our second week of the series Asking for a Friend. The are the questions that your friends keep asking you but are too afraid to ask the pastor so they send you to do it. We all have those friends who have these problems but they are too afraid to ask for help themselves. I mean it is questions like these...

(Insert questions here)

Just like last week, if you have some questions from your friends, then put them on social media, tag the church and maybe yours will be highlighted here next week.

So last week we talked about knowing the will of God for your life. I gave you three things that you needed to do in order to know that. If you didn’t catch it or you werent here go to our facebook page and watch it. Then put it into practice amen.

This week we are dealing with a bit tougher questions. There were actually quite a few responses dealing with the two of these things. I mean the responses about these two topics took a few different forms but they were all the same. Here they are.

How do I overcome fear and stress?

So let’s deal with the first one. Have you ever noticed that our society is almost addicted to fear? If you dn’t believe me turn on the local news. Everything is breaking news and everything is going to wipe out the planet at any given moment. Those of you like me can remember a few things that according to the media would end human existence as we know it. The main one being in my lifetime Y2K. We should all be done. No lights, no comptuers, no cell phones. Cars would blow up on the highway. Computers would literally melt before your eyes. We were told to get our rations buried away in some bunker and just stay there with you water and MRE’s because it is going to be bad. You go back a bit further than that and there was the Cold War and everyone knew that a nuclear bomb was going to land on us at any given time because of Russia. Speaking of that, what is getting under a desk going to do with a nuclear bomb? I mean come on. They might as well have told us to go stand outside and let the bomb hit you. But just look at this list according to news outlets that could be bad.

Y2K, Anthrax, Swine Flu, (The pigs went nuts.) Then Bird Flu, (The birds went crazy) Sars, (Then the cows got angry)Mad Cow, Ebola, ZIKA, Nuclear War, The Banking Industry, The Fed, Vladimir Putin(He is thinking about you right now. He doesn’t like you), Al qaeda, Isis, Taliban, Hamas, China, Russia again This time with meddling, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea Short little crazy man, Iran, Global Warming, That didn’t work so we changed the name Climate Change, water shortage, food shortage, over population, asteroids, Aliens, Now the most dangerous threat Artificial Intelligence, The internet is after us, social media, Not Posting that Christian image of Jesus like this, Obama, and then This Guy He is out to get us also. He is going to get us killed.

We have an addiction to fear. Facts don’t matter to people any more. We are just addicted to fear. In fact we created a holiday just to go around and try and scare people. In fact right below Christmas and Thanksgiving is Halloween. 84 Billion Dollars with a B are spent on that day. That ain’t all spent on Candy becuase I have seen the dollar general bag of suckers yall be buying. We have a fear problem.

There was a college professor that did a survey of his students. He had 500 total students and asked them what they were afraid of. He combined all the list and removed all the ones that were the same so that there were no repeats. The total of all the things they were afraid of was 7000. 7000 fears. Do you realize how big that is. That is 14 fears for every 1 person. We are wrapped up in fear. There are three kinds of fear 2 of the 3 aren’t bad. You need them.

Helpful Fear

This is the fear that keeps you alive. It keeps you from being stupid. It is the fear that is greatly diminished upon consuming certain types beverages. It is the fear that is completely gone when the phrase: “Hey man watch this!” Comes out of your buddies mouth. It is the fear that keeps you from running onto 65. Its a good thing. It is sometimes fear I don’t have because when the bear comes out of the woods I run after it to get the picture.

2. Holy Fear

This is the fear that we want our kids to have of us as parents. Not that they are shaken to hug us or afraid we will smack them. But it is a respect level. Its about the authority people have. This fear has been all but removed from most people in our society in dealing with teachers, principals, and police. This is the fear that should govern our relationship with God.

Proverbs 9:10 NKJV

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

This fear all about the position of someone in or over your life. You need to have this.

3. Harmful Fear

This fear is the one that we need to get rid of today. They keep us from fulfilling the call that God has on our lives. The extreme version of these are called phobias. Just a quick fact there are

530 documented phobias

You can see all of these. I pulled a few of them out of the top 20. So in the list of top 20 phobias here are some.

Monophobia-the fear of being alone

Alektorophobia-the fear of chickens

Trypophobia-the fear of patterned holes

Ailurophobia-the fear of cats

Just for the sake of your knowledge not in the top 20 but on the list is the most self defeating phobia name I know. It is this

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia- fear of long words.

Finally I know no one coming here has this phobia

Pogonophobia-fear of beards.

Now these are extreme cases but some of us have fears that we deal with every day. Fears of stepping out. Fears of witnessing. Fear of the health of your kids. Fear of getting your heart broken.

Our fears cripple our future.

I don’t want that and I for sure knw that God doesn’t want that. Especially because all of that fear causes another word that we all despise in our lives called stress.

Listen to this stat.

44% of Americans say they have more stress now then they did 5 years ago.

I would easily say htat is true and I think most of it is due to technology. We are constantly with something in front of our face. Scrolling to the next post or checking the latest email. There is a constant go go go. I think the other side is with me for sure when technology isn’t working as it is supposed to. That stresses me.

The average American’s stress level is growing at a rate of 10% annually.

1 out of 5 American’s is living in extreme stress.

Extreme stress is the stress that causes you to not eat or over eat or not sleep. It causes you to become depressed. It causes you to get sick. The stat is this...

The stat is

60% of all illnesses and diseases are rooted in stress.

I know this isn’t for everyone. Because some of yall have this reaction when people talk with you.

I am too blessed to be stressed.

I am too anointed to be disappointed.

You are too Fake to be Great.

Let me ask you a question, if you had a disease and there was a cure but the cure was to take a pill. You had to keep taking the pill over and over everyday until the disease was gone. Would you do it? Yes of course you would. Some of yall might quit after day 7 cuz you start to feel better even though the doctor and bottle clearly said take it all 10 days. You rebels.