There's a spiritual atmosphere come around you, and you're yielding to the fear. Paul wrote to Timothy: “God hasn't given you a spirit of fear”. It shut down your gift, when you yielded to it. Fear allows control; it shuts your gifts down.
You have to war against those things. You have to break out. That's why God says: awake! Awake! Shake yourself! Rise up out of the dust, and begin to put on the beautiful garments: praise; worship; and the authority Christ has given us.
Are you passionately doing what God told you, or is it a long time since God spoke? Think about that; then ask yourself: I wonder what spirit has pushed against me - and I've allowed it to do so. Like Samson, it's taken my vision and my destiny, and I need to repent.
Closing PrayerFather, we thank You Lord that You are challenging us to become spirit people - aware of the spiritual atmosphere around us; sensitive to the Holy Spirit; and strongly rising up to take dominion.
I was just reading an email from Andy Mason this week, and he was talking to me about people we sent out. He said: people have gone out to nations from this house. He went to Bethel, and within a year and a half he's risen up, he's now having influence at a top leadership level at Bethel. We sent someone else, now they're a top influence in IHOP (International House of Prayer). We sent people to Hillsong in Australia, who rose right up the top. I got one of them back, and I said: why is it you rose to the top? What was different about you that caused you to be chosen out from everyone else? They said: I've got some grunt - I've got some horsepower in me. I've got some life inside of me. I said: exactly, how did you get it? He said I got it here. How did you get it?
He said: we had to learn how to stand up and push against heavy atmospheres. Learn how to stand up, and push back what comes around us, to depress, defeat us, and make us negative. We had to learn to STAND UP in the spirit, and stay awake! I said: exactly. That was the training ground God used to launch you, to now where you have great influence.
Always appreciate where God brought you from. Always appreciate how God got you there, and then teach others to do the same; but we're here now, and you and I need to rise and stand up!
Are there any people here today, and you're living under heaviness, living under oppression, living under fear, living under compromise?
Like Samson there's something gone on in your life, and it's blinded your eyes. You need to say: “God, forgive me” - I want out, and I want to get back into my place of strength again.
Perhaps you're like Elijah (and Peter) - fear got around your life; you've yielded to things; and you've let go. You say: “God, I want to get back into that place of freedom again”.
Maybe like the disciples - you're full of sorrow; and you've just fallen asleep. Your prayer life's stopped, you're not even aware that you've entered into that pressure, that you've surrendered to it. Say: “God, I want out - I want to get up out of this thing. I want to rise up, become a man of prayer, woman of prayer.”
Maybe there are others, and for different reasons - there's oppression, heaviness come around you. We can pray with you, and help you, and stand with you. You'll get a momentary and a brief release - but you must decide to fight.
“The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent (those who are assertive - those who know what God's word says), and will hold onto heaven until it comes about”.