Cede Control

Job 11:^13-18 “Surrender your heart to God, turn to him in prayer. . . Then… you will be confident and fearless. Your troubles will go away… and your darkest night will be brighter than noon. Then you’ll rest safe and secure, filled with hope and emptied of worry!” (CEV, emphasis added)

Yesterday, we looked at the woman of Shunem and how the fear of disappointment would have stopped her from receiving God’s blessings for her. However, Elisha said to her, whether you believe it or not, whether you like it or not, you will have a boy next year. I pray that you will get to a place where God’s blessings will overtake you. That is what it means to overtake, it means to catch up and get ahead of you. A place where you cannot dodge God’s blessings; where, if you run as fast as you can, the blessings will catch up and overtake. If you turn as fast as you can, the blessings will turn and overtake you in Jesus Name. That is the place to be.

God said fear not to Mary, fear not to Joseph, fear not to the shepherds, and fear not to Zechariah. But God did not say ‘fear not‘ to Herod, but he handled the fear anyway. The question is how do we defeat these fears? Firstly, like Mary, I Surrender My Life Completely To God Every Day. Luke 1:³⁸ “Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant, and I am willing to do whatever he wants…” (TLB, emphasis added). In other words, Mary was saying, ‘I am the Lord’s servant, and I am willing to accept whatever God wants for my life!’ When you get to a point in your life where you can say, ‘I am willing to accept whatever God wants for my life’, fear can have no place in your life. You become fearless when you are willing to accept whatever God wants for your life. It is whatever God wants, not whatever your parents want. If it is in God’s will, or whatever your friend wants if it is in God’s will, or whatever your siblings want if it is in God’s will, and not even whatever you want if it is in God’s will.

It is, I am willing to accept whatever God wants and this is a huge statement. Are you willing to accept whatever God wants? My pastoral journey started with my Pastor telling me to go and start a church. How? I have not been to a Bible college. I did not make it past two days in Bible college, how can these things be? But he insisted, ‘Go and start a church.’ So, I wrestled with it until I got the point Mary got to and I said to God, ‘I am willing to accept whatever God wants for my life.’ At that time, I embraced it, and thank God I did. When I resigned from my previous place of Pastoring and felt it was time to move on, one of the options before me was to go back to school and do a Ph.D. But I felt that God was saying, ‘go back and start a church – God’s Favourite House.’ Honestly, it may not look like it, but I was scared. When I told someone I was scared, he said, ‘Pastor, how can you be scared? Do you even know what fear is?’ I do but I know how to handle it, that is the difference. Starting God’s Favourite House was going to be like starting from ground zero, but I flowed with God, and here we are today. If I had not started, you and I would not be here today. The point is you will be glad you followed God.

Prayer: Father, I surrender my life completely to You, according to Your Word, I am confident and fearless, secure, filled with hope and emptied of all worry, in Jesus Name. Amen!