I sought the Lord, and
He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears (Psalm 34:4)
How can a young man
cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word (Palm 119:9). The entrance of Your words gives light; It
gives understanding to the simple (Psalm 119:130)
The Word cancelled fear in my life! Due to circumstances
when I was young I developed a fear of rejection. I developed a
self-consciousness that feared people’s responses to my words and actions. I
would walk into a room and immediately size up who was there and how people
viewed me. My thinking had a default setting that assumed others did not like
me and wanted nothing to do with me.
When I entered ministry as a young man, this rejection
syndrome worsened. I would preach and then have a terrible next day while
thinking of all the reasons no one received what I was saying. The focus was
all on me and not on the blessing the Lord wanted me to be to others.
The Father began to show me the self-centered thinking that
was producing these emotions and feeling of rejection. He gave me this
scripture on day: But as a matter of
fact, it matters very little to me what you, or any man thinks of me – I don’t
even value my opinion of myself (! Corinthians 4:3 – J.B. Phillips).
I began to see that
my thoughts and emotions were fear based instead of Word based. I had developed
a habit of allowing my mind to set me up to be dominated by the fear of others
rejecting me! This was a deep seated ingrained behavior in my life. I knew that
there was no way that I could survive in ministry with this kind of thinking
ruling me.
I cried out to the Father and He showed me this scripture in
1 Corinthians and then led me to 1 John 4:18 in the Amplified: There is no fear in love [dread does not
exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and
expels every trace of terror! For fear brings with it the thought of
punishment, and [so] he who is afraid has not reached the full maturity of love
[is not yet grown into love's complete perfection].
I began to meditate daily on these two scriptures. I let
them revolve over and over in my thought life. I said them slowly to myself. I
spoke out loud when alone. I did this several times a day. This type of
meditation dropped the Word down deep into my personal belief system, my
underlying thought patterns, or as Ephesians 4:23 calls it, the spirit of my mind.
I also developed a siege
mentality with respect to my wrong thinking and emotions. Your mind will
try to convince you that what it is thinking and what your emotions are feeling
is reality. And often they are not. So I deprived my mind and emotions of power
over me by following the principle of a siege.
Enemy armies in Bible
days would often siege a city in order to conquer it. Cities in that day had
very high walls erected all the way around them to keep out predatory animals
and enemy forces. Sentries were stationed on top of the walls providing a
lookout for detecting the enemy. This made a city basically impenetrable.
An enemy army would simply surround the perimeter of the
walled city far enough away as to be immune to arrows shot by the troops on the
wall. And they simply cut the supply lines of food and goods to the city. It
may take several years for the city to run out of food and supplies, but
eventually the enemy would defeat the city. The only factor was time and the
siege.
Using this principle along with meditation on the Word cured
me of this fear of rejection. My mind and emotions would tell me people did not
like me, and I would simply call the person or see them personally and engage
them in conversation. I was really conversing with them to see if my mind and
emotion were telling me the truth, and I found that the majority of time they
were not!
So the siege began! I refused to give in to my thoughts and
feelings of rejection! Every day I would siege my thoughts and emotions,
refusing to allow the thoughts to remain in my mind, and refusing to believe
what my emotions told me. I meditated on the Word and then purposely called
people just to talk to them to prove that my perceptions of rejection were
wrong!
The siege worked. Now the Word has replaced the fear of
others! Meditation on the Word along with actions that demonstrate belief in the
Word will change your wrong belief system and produce a change in your
behavior. The Word did it for me! And the Word will work for you too!
What an excellent word!!! I was sharing something quite similar last night! Thanks for sharing you wisdom Pastor! ;0)
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