The Prayer Journey

in mobile and i did that day after day after day after day with very little to no movement my muscles would become weaker and weaker and weaker so we need to do something in some capacity for our physical body even taking vitamins people you know some especially during the flu season we tend to maybe take extra vitamins because we need a boost but now let's flip the coin turn the page and let's talk about our spiritual being we need to stay spiritually healthy our faith needs to be exercised we need our faith when we go to prayer situations that may arise we're not sure what's going to happen we choose faith it's an exercise of faith and we get stronger so we need to exercise our faith and something that happens and helps from time to time is testimonies when whether it's something that you're sharing with someone or someone is sharing with you they tend to encourage us why because and we talked about this before over the past few weeks when we look back and we hear or we remind ourselves what god did for us and where he brought us from and the things that he he's helped us with along the way that encourages us and we shouldn't keep those things to ourselves we should share those things because it is a faith builder it's a faith boost you don't know who you're going to encourage when you do not keep that testimony to yourself but you share it people need to be encouraged sometimes you have to encourage yourself in the lord have you ever had to do that i have and sometimes that's when it does come in handy to go back and think about where god has brought me from what prayers has he answered even the things that seem maybe small to others but it doesn't change the fact that god answers prayer think back to those things and it you can feel your faith begin to rise you can feel yourself getting encouraged because you're like god still god so testimonies are a big thing i think in our daily life it encourages us it encourages others so if you've got a testimony share with others you do not know on the workplace in your neighborhood kids that are at school you don't know what your testimony is gonna do for someone so don't let the enemy keep you quiet because there's power in a testimony there's power in a spoken word especially when we are testifying of the goodness of jesus so saying all that i'm gonna actually ask sister karen gibson to come she's gonna come up and she's gonna share a testimony i do not know what the testimony is i'm sure that she has many things that she could he could talk about tonight but we're gonna give her the mic for a few minutes and she's going to talk to us and we're gonna enjoy her testimony and let's be encouraged by what she has to say sister karen gibson when she mentioned to me about me speaking about an answered prayer i thought oh this is gonna be easy and then i got to thinking and i was like okay which one do i tell and it was actually very therapeutic for me because we all go through seasons where it seems like every prayer we get to know and our faith kind of takes another hit and another hit and i guess i needed that walk down memory lane to remind myself of all the things that he had done and most of you have already heard the story of katie and her healing and how that basically she's a miracle she's still here and so didn't want to tell that one and each of my family members have a miracle a physical miracle in their lives and i chose to do a physical miracle although we have other answered prayers as well because you know emotional or or financial or whatever a lot of times people can well that they can explain that one away but when you have a physical miracle documented medical miracles it's kind of hard to argue with and so that one i chose to to share with you tonight is my husband during the chapter of katie's illness you know this this horrible stressful situation of dealing with a child who could not be left i was offered the perfect job and had to turn it down because i couldn't trust anyone else to stay with my child because you had to be cpr certified and you had to be able to use an oxygen tank and you had all these requirements to be able to take care of her and in our tiny little village of less than a thousand people i just didn't trust anyone else to have her but at my home on tuesday mornings i had a lady's prayer meeting and several of the ladies not members of our church would come to my house and gather for prayer we would share needs from the town we would share a scripture or some encouraging word and we would pray together we would make a list and each of us would take that list home with us to share well of course since its lady's prayer my husband was not there normally he was usually at work and all of a sudden he comes in on that tuesday morning and i'm a little confused by what is he doing here he had gone by the doctor's office he wasn't feeling well and my husband's you know you hear about these the the guy flu or whatever were they about died well he's not really that way he's not one who stops when he feels bad so i knew he had to be really bad if he came home and went to bed he had gone by the doctor's office they were running tests and they thought he had appendicitis and so as soon as the ladies had left we had included him in our prayer and i went to check on him with a doctor called and said it's not appendicitis that's the good news but the bad news is you're really sick and you need to get to er well we lived 3045 minutes from the hospital we took him to er they immediately admitted him they're running tests all kinds of tests and of course i'm sitting there horrified what am i going to do i mean we're a young couple we have three little girls one of who is in her own right very ill i have no family in this immediate area and i'm just like god what are you doing why are we taking another hit what and i began to pray and and there was a church and i foresaw what church they are clothes that i passed going back and forth to the hospital and i just stopped in one day and i told the pastor i said i need you to pray you know us you've sent they used to send their evangelists on their night off they would pay for them to come preach at our church because we were the little church down the road and they were just really good to us and so i was like i need your prayer i just need you to pray and so they began to pray with us and the hits kept coming the diagnosis didn't sound good they finally decided that he had colitis it's an incurable disease sometimes it can actually be life-threatening and they they told us he'll have to be on these meds for the rest of his life and as bad as his is we're gonna have to be very aggressive with this so finally they send us home with all these medications and all these instructions he can't eat anything he's lost down to like a hundred and seventy-five pounds i mean he's just skin and bones and he has this weird greenish gray color because he was going into liver failure and we are sitting here watching my husband who's young and vibrant suddenly going down the tubes i'm thinking what am i gonna do with three babies and no husband and i am trying my best to be hopeful and faithful and praying and fasting and the church is praying and the hits just kept coming the diagnosis kept sounding worse come to find out the medicine they gave him to treat the colitis was toxic to his liver so now they're saying okay he's going into liver failure he may have developed liver cancer so they're sending us to specialists for this and it was just one thing after another after another after another and all of a sudden we were just like okay that's it stop all the treatments we're going home it's up to god all you're doing is making him worse it's up to god and we went home and we prayed and we believed and he got better and he got better and finally he seemed pretty good but you know it's incurable so in the back of our mind there's still that little niggling idea that this could come back we may just be in remission so we in the years of past we moved in around 2002 he had another little flare-up with something and so knowing his diagnosis our doctor sent us to a specialist who thought okay he's probably having a flare-up let's let's do the test again and see where we need to go from here and doctor bride came in and he looked at us and he goes where was he diagnosed with colitis and we told him and he looked at us and he goes colitis doesn't go away and this man has no signs of colitis and for several years even after the symptoms had gone away and the medicine was out of his system his liver enzymes were still sky-high and i finally decided that it was i've forgotten the medical term but the word was that he had hepatitis as a result of drug toxicity it's not a viral it can't be communicated it's just because you've damaged your liver and so we lived with that and the issues around that and finally i was working in an oncology clinic and my doctor told me he said you know that patient that that terminal patient that you're treating every week and i said yes he said that's what your husband has and he gave me the name for it and i just looked at him and he said diagnosis to death is 10 years this was in 2002 my husband has eight years past his expiration date because my god healed him completely there is no sign and no symptom and he is full and well can eat and and he fusses at me because he gains a little weight because he can eat anything he wants he's healthy as a horse and that's just one miracle god's done for me and thank you for sending me down memory lane i needed that can we just clap our hands let's lift our hands together thank you jesus thank you jesus thank you jesus thank you jesus for that testimony thank you for that healing jesus for that miracle thank you jesus as i was saying a testimony don't keep it to yourself at all because someone whether it's yourself that needs to be reminded just like sister gibson talked about going down memory lane think back to what god has done and when you find yourself in a situation a new brand new situation whether it's a sickness of disease whatever whatever it is you can remind yourself by making those trips down memory lane what god had his hand on us then he'll have his hand on us now talking about faith and i plan to have some more faith boost faith builders whatever you want to call it between for the month of february because i do believe that it helps us we come to church on wednesdays we come to church on sundays we come to the you know there's prayer things there's other events that take place and but we're still human and we still get discouraged and things still happen to us we are not on an island all by herself and when you come to god and you get salvation doesn't mean that you're over here and you're secluded and nothing can touch you now things happen to us things happen to people that are faithful in the church but it's just a good reminder to hear that testimonies thank you again sister gibson that encouraged me and blessed me tonight gonna talk about faith for just a little bit hebrews chapter 11 and verse 6 but without faith it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to god must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him and i too i doubt there's anybody here tonight and whether you're listening on facebook or whatever or wherever you may be that if you're a believer that you don't there's something inside of you that you want to be found pleasing to god but if we don't have faith the word says it but without faith it is impossible to please him so some things i was thinking about faith and things that kind of go together i was thinking peanut butter and jelly i think of for most for most people peanut butter and jelly eggs and bacon tom and jerry pie and pie and another all kinds of pie coughing cream and obedience they're things that absolutely do not go together absolutely not and i'm not going to get into the superficial silly things right now but right now talking about faith fear and faith they do not go together they cannot coexist they contradict each other one cannot exist where the other is it is literally faith versus fear say both of those things faith and fear they both demand that you believe in something perhaps sense something that you cannot see but it's a choice that we make every single day every day as a believer because we are human things do happen that can fear can rise up in us but we have to make a choice every day that i'm going to choose faith over fear faith in fear they can't live in the same house faith activates god faith moves got into action when you go to the lord in prayer and that's you've got that faith and you're seeking him you have his attention we've talked about prayer for this would be our fifth week it's a communication between us and our creator well i want to get god's attention i need faith when i talk to him i want him to hear me 2nd timothy 1 and 7 says another familiar scripture for god has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind the amplified version which i know i used this a lot that same scripture says for god did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear but he has given us a spirit of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline abilities that result in a calm well balanced mind that's the amplified version of that scripture now we all have things that we're afraid of and some of those things may seem silly to some some not so silly i don't want things that's i you if you recall i'm also a little terrified of baby squirrels that get in your house as y'all was thinking about that just take a minute when i'm outside my home i see a little squirrel my oh how cute in the home not so much inside my house it does not belong but there are some things that you know we we're scared of i used to be and still little i am a little bit sinkholes i know my husband shakes his head why sinkholes have i ever been around doesn't know never but anyway that's just where you know sinkholes but we may have up some people are scared of the dark they're fearful fearful in the dark but the thing is all joking aside you can paralyze us in the natural in the physical fear can paralyze us but in the spiritual it does the same thing did anybody ever growing up or even as an adult wake up from a dream in the middle of the night and you were so scared but your voice was gone you wanted to call out for somebody in jesus or anybody but your voice was just you would open your mouth and nothing would come up it was just fear fear paralyzes us it stops us it cripples us in the physical but also in the spiritual it cripples our faith it's a handicap fear is a handicap for any believer our faith in god has to be bigger than any fear that we have i don't know i don't know if this will be a very teachable night well we'll just bear with me sometimes things pop up you're just like it's the unexpected now some people like surprises i'm not a big fan of surprises really i sigh i'm not a real big fan of surprises it makes me uneasy but it's those circumstances that happen in life i'm not gonna go into detail and i could tell story after story after story testimony i guess is what we could call that but monday night here two nights ago monday during the day i had spent a lot of time in the word i had been praying was just really feeling spiritually on a high i was feeling good making preparations for tonight and i looked at the time i thought well only i need to be getting my stuff together i'm going to go to church go to prayer prayer meeting well i had not left the house i had not been gone long at all and my phone rang and i had a phone call that was devastating it's devastating nobody passed away but devastating news and i had to pull over actually i had to pull over because all of a sudden guess what gripped my heart fear here i have been all day long but her just oh god is good i was hearing from him i felt the holy ghost i was getting there all excited about wednesday night and fear just i was frozen i had to pull over on the side of the road i had to stay there because it had paralyzed me it had stopped me it's those unexpected things and i wanted to say why why why why and i'm not gonna try to pretend that i was some spiritual superpower and i just was like okay okay no it took me a little while and i'm still struggling today but i came on to prayer we've prayed i walked around the sanctuary i talked to god and i began to feel a peace but i still had to get up on tuesday morning and i had to choose faith over fear today i got up once again because that situation has not dissolved into nothing it's there it's very real but i had to make a choice i choose faith in my god my god has not given me the spirit of fear that's the word of god he has not given us the spirit of fear so i have to make a choice no matter what the circumstances are that i choose faith in god because he's faithful i can't see what's happening i don't know the outcome i don't know the i have a lot of questions i guess but the answer is jesus i have to choose faith that he has the answer he already knows faith is an expectation of something good so i may have to get up and i may have to take a walk down memory lane and remind myself of wait a minute remember when you face this situation remember when you went through this god was faithful then he is going to be faithful now so i am covering this situation with fervent prayer and i am believing i am believing god that he is going to provide and he is going to move and i will not give in to the fear that the enemy is trying to feed me i will not both fear and faith require similar amounts of energy it's true we're either going to yield and submit to the fear because i could have because i almost turned around on monday call the sloane's send messages who's coming to prayer i can't be there something's come up because that was the fear that was getting ahold of me but then something in my spirit thank you jesus said you need to go pray you need to go pray but it those things require energy we yield we submit to one or the other when we submit to faith isn't it amazing when we say okay god i don't understand i don't know what's going on but i trust you but all of a sudden you begin to feel something rise up in you and god's encouraging you and all of a sudden you know it's going to be okay do i know how things will play out no i do not but i do know that god's hand is on us he is faithful and we've got to choose faith over fear every single time fear is a prison it is a prison for the believer will lock you up and it will keep you there but i'm so thankful for the key the key that unlocks us from that and that's faith say fear told hannah remember hannah in the bible fear told her you can't have this baby you're not gonna be you're not gonna know what it's like to have a baby the lies of the enemy just flooded hannah her heart was heavy but faith stepped in and said in 1st samuel 1 in 20 it came about and do time after hannah had conceived that she gave birth to a son she named him samuel sing because i have asked him of the lord she had faith she she could see the evidence she wasn't expecting months two months harab time would pass day after day she you know this story no baby but she went and she fell on her face and she wept out wept and cried out to god because i have asked him of the lord god provided fear said no faith said here samuel so that's the god we serve fear said the walls are too high they stepped up and by faith the walls of jericho fell down fear says you're going to lose isaac your son your promise i know we talked about this story a lot i actually think pastor even maybe talked about it sunday recently anyway abraham sarah they had received a promise but and they laughed even we're too old but god's word is true but so they have isaac they have the son the promise but then what's required fear says you're going to lose your promise you're going to lose isaac your son face steps in and says hey there's a ram in the thicket our god jehovah he's jehovah jireh he's a provider so we've got to shut down the voice of fear because the fear says i'm going to take this away and face his no i'm not you've got this this is your promise one thing abraham did do is he was obedient he didn't go up that hill kicking and screaming and yelling that god no he gathered things up he did what he was supposed to do there was obedience there and god provided that ram in the thicket moment genesis 22:13 and abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns and abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son we have to choose faith because god is faithful fear said you're crazy if you do that don't you dare build that boat noah you crazy man that's what fear is screaming don't do it don't do have you ever had the fear say don't you step out and do that for god don't you step out and talk to that person at work don't step out and do this just don't don't people are gonna think you're crazy the faith says build the boat no build the ark and you know what faith built the ark that saved noah and his family when we step out in faith our families are gonna be saved i believe that it's a promise and i believe that we have to choose faith over fear fear said jo jo jo poore jo you've lost it all you've lost your wealth you've lost your children you've lost it all you know what go ahead curse god and die fear is crippling fear is something that we don't need fear says joke curse god and die faith steps in says naked came out of my mother's womb and naked shall i return thither the lord gave and the lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the lord he worshiped and what happened after he went through trial after trial loss all the story of job is so well known in the end he got more than what he ever lost god's a provider he's faithful fierce says and screams that fire is going to destroy you can you imagine one of my favorite stories i actually loved the old testament i loved the old testament but and one of my favorite stories is three hebrew children those boys that would not bend their bow i still think about and we don't know this in the bible we don't know really down deep where they fit well they having to fight fear because i doubt i doubt very seriously that they were looking at that fiery furnace they knew what was coming but they had they were they were standing they were not going to bow down to another god but they're also looking at a fiery furnace and i can't imagine they were like woohoo fiery furnace today it's gonna be great he's gonna rock no one doubt it i'd say there was some things going on in their mind internally there might have been a battle going on but their faith was firm it was fixed their god they were not going to bend about it but to the one true living god so fear says that fire is going to just it's going to burn you you're destroyed this is the end of you faith steps in and says i see a fourth man in the fire and daniel 3:25 he answered and said lo i see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire they have no hurt and the form of the fourth is like the son of god you may get thrown into a fiery furnace if you get find yourself in the heat of a battle in situations that seems like it's overtaking you just stand there have faith in god because you know what happens he shows up just like he did in that fiery furnace for those three hebrew children god shows up and he saved them from that and that to me just that builds my faith that encourages me today right here tonight in a situation that i'm seeing unfold and my family i am trusting god that he's going to show up right in the middle the enemy is a liar fear is a liar fear says that line is going to chew you up there's not going to be anything left of you that line is going to devour you faith says i'm going to keep praying i'm going to keep praying to the one true living god daniel replied to the king in daniel chapter 6 verse 22 my god had sent his angel and shut the lions mouths that they have not hurt me see god allows things to come into our lives but none of it catches him off-guard the situation monday that i was talked about just a moment ago i wasn't expecting that i wasn't expecting the phone call i wasn't expecting that i had to remind myself gotten you all along exactly what was transpiring he knew it was coming we've got to understand that we trust him in the process when we're facing the fiery furnace when we're facing the lion's den whatever it is we've got to choose faith over fear fear says the giant in front of you is too big to defeat too big you're no match for that giant but faith says the god in you the god you serve is bigger than the giant you face i feel the holy ghost we all have different battles we all have different sometimes they're physical sometimes they're financial sometimes they're things in the family say no matter what it is no matter what we're facing when it's something that overwhelms us we have to make a choice right then i can either let this situation overwhelm me and i can be afraid or i can choose faith that god is here with me he's not caught off guard he's not surprised and he's faithful david said to go to goliath and samuel 17:45 thou cometh to me with a sword with a spear with a shield but i come to thee in the name of the lord of hosts the god of armies of israel whom thou hast defined oh my goodness when we face the enemy head-on and say i don't care what weapons you have i don't care what you're wearing i don't care what you look like i come to you in the name of the lord the enemy's already defeated he's already defeated i get excited about david the young boy david i'm going to step away from my notes for just a minute when i think about david out there on that tending sheet the little runt of the family out there by himself probably talking to the sheep you know he had to fight off to take care of the sheep he had to fight off predators little did he know that date little did david know that every time he had to fight off some type of wild animal that was coming after the sheep that god was prepping him for that battle that he was going to take down a giant see sometimes we go through things and we want to ask why maybe if we just trusted the process and said you know god is taking you through this because he's preparing something so great for you later on we've got to understand that the tests and the trials they're building us and i choose faith david was so rock solid in his faith this little boy that was just taking a lunch to the soldiers he ends up i can almost envision it you know he's out there he's little shepherd and he you know shepherd boy he's running an errand for his dad's and hey take this take this food to our soldiers take this you know to the men they're fighting the battle and he's wandering he's looking at them what's wrong with you guys i mean can you imagine and i can almost even imagine these big i mean in my mind i see everybody else but their armor on and just all prepped and you know navy seal kind of guy in my mind's and there's a little david just you know skipping around and say hey here's you some food why are not taking down this giant david's thinking wait a minute do you not know the god you serve i do i'll do it i'll do it i'll do it can you imagine those big burly soldiers and what in the world that's what faith does because faith david wasn't looking at his size david wasn't looking at in comparing himself to the soldiers that had been training for this moment but out there on that field tending those little sheep almost forgotten that little boy david he was being prepped for this moment and we all know the story of david i we could talk about david for days but that encourages me i want to have that faith they said goliath or this giant that's facing me and my family you may be really big you may look really scary but you're no match for my god you are no match for my god i choose faith over fear without faith peter would have never stepped out of the boat i remember the boat jesus out there now i know i know he had his moment of weakness he looked down what did he do he took his eyes off jesus but without the faith peter would have never even stepped out peter answered him and said this is in matthew chapter 14 28 and 29 peter answered him and said lord if it be thou bid me come unto thee on the water peter kind of asked for it too didn't he what do you think about it anyway i'm not gonna go there because i could what does it pastor calls rabbit holes i get so many messages when i'm talking about something else i have to shut it down 29 and he said come this is jesus tells peter to come when peter was come down out of the ship he walked on the water to go to jesus see when we keep our eyes on him faith got him out of that boat now not my notes but we know that he had that weak moment where he looked down when he took his eyes off jesus but then there's that to me there's that picture of who our savior really is peter was walking on the water he was walking on the water and even when he slid and he made a mistake by taking his eyes off jesus and he began to sink what did jesus do he didn't let him drown what did he do reach down and that's what he does for us so even in a weak moment when maybe the situation has gotten a little overwhelming and you may slip a little and you may be feeling like you're going to go under just reach out and jesus will take your hand and he will pull you up out of that situation that seems like it's drowning you fear says you're sick there's no hope it's a diagnosis that brings a death sentence that's what fear says you know what faith does faith gets down on the ground and crawls crawls on the ground reaching out to touch the hem of his garment the woman with the issue of blood she had tried it all spin it all she was desperate and that day she chose faith over fear matthew 9 and 22 daughter be of good comfort thy faith hath made thee whole and the woman was made whole that hour even if i've made the mistake of going to other sources of help now i'm not saying all things are bad that's not me saying i was just a sitter shouldn't go to the doctor that is told i'm saying i'm saying that when i put everything else before i put god and he's my last resort see how merciful he is but it was faith she got in a desperate place i'm gonna try this jesus and what did she get she didn't get reprimanded for spending years going other places and spending all our money no you've been made whole this very hour sometimes we just need to fall on our face and start reaching for the hem of his garment fear says screams you're in chains you're locked up you're trapped you're not going anywhere fear says throw yourself a pity party faith steps in and says you know what no pity party here we're going to have a prayer meeting and behold in acts chapter 12 verse 7 and behold the angel of the lord came up on him and a light shined in the prison and he smoked peter on the side and raised him up saying arise up quickly and his chains fell off from his hands when we pray when we choose faith over fear whatever has us bound whatever has us feeling trapped we're set free faith sets us free that fear the prison that fear put us in today we need to choose faith over fear fear reminds us of our past oh my goodness doesn't it you can't do this for god do you not remember when reminds you fear reminds us of our mistakes our failures our shortcomings our inadequacies but faith steps in it says wait a minute corinthians chapter 5 verse 17 therefore if any man be in christ he is a new creature old things are passed away behold all things become new that's what faith says don't listen to fear fear is a liar oh fear screams screams oh boy and he's been screaming the enemy has been screaming screaming you're being attacked you're under attack your family is under attack and fear the enemy wants you just to be paralyzed because this is your family you're talking about this is you you're talking about you're being attacked faith steps in and says in isaiah 54 and 17 no weapon one of my favorite no weapon that is formed against the shall prosper every tongue shall write that rise against the in judgment shall bow condemned this is the heritage of the servants of the lord and their righteousness is of me sayeth the lord that's our heritage and the bible doesn't say the word of god doesn't say anywhere that weapons are not going to be formed you may get a new weapon formed and thrown at you every single day it could happen sister gibson talked at the beginning about they were dealing with katie's illness and then here comes her husband brother gibson with a diagnosis and sometimes you get in situations where you're like you know have you ever been just walking along and in the ocean and the waves come at you and knock you down a little bit and you try to get back up i mean it's actually kind of funny and physical but but not in the spiritual okay but in about the time you stand up here comes another wave and you've been knocked down again well that's the same thing that happens to us spiritually we can get knocked down over and over again we feel like lord i cannot even catch my breath but the weapons are going listen say it with me weapons are going to be formed they're there they're going to be formed but when they are formed i choose faith over fear i will not fear that weapon i will not fear that weapon because even though it has been formed it cannot prosper it means the enemy is already defeated i choose faith in god fear says i cannot do this i'm not equipped i can't do it and you get discouraged faith answers in philippians 4:13 another familiar scripture i can do all things through christ that gives me strength where does our help come from where do we get our strength i choose faith over fear every day the fear fear is going to come to you the enemy remember god did not give us a spirit of fear so if god didn't give us the spirit of fear where is this coming from it's coming from the enemy of our souls the one that wants to destroy us fear says i am alone i feel isolated i have enemies i have people attacking me i'm afraid i'm weary and faith answers and replies in the 23rd psalm the lord is my shepherd i shall not want he maketh me to lie down in green pastures he leadeth me beside the still waters he restoreth my soul he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake yea though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death i will fear no evil for thou art with me you are my rod and my staff you comfort me now prepares to table before me in the presence of mine enemies thou anointest my head with oil my cup runneth over surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and i will dwell in the house of the lord forever i choose faith over fear god is faithful and he's with us every step of the way in the heat of the battle when you're facing a giant when you're facing a fiery furnace you know i think about on that going back to the to the water the disciples on the boat and the storm started raging and well where is jesus he was asleep and the disciples people that disciples y'all the ones that are with him all the time they've watched him do these miracles they've seen it they've witnessed it firsthand but what happened to them they got scared the disciples disciples that literally walked with jesus talked with him physically everyday and they got scared of the storm on that boat jesus wake up we're gonna die have you ever been there where are you i'm dying down here will you help me and jesus calmly i mean you know i've got a visual going on in my head you just have to work with me here okay but he just walks out i almost feel like he's like really have you not seen enough have you not heard enough have you not spent enough time with me to remember who i am i almost feel like you know he's just like okay peace be still but are we any different we may not be going through a physical like well we have had a lot of range scratch that but in our spiritual walk we always talk about storms of life it's that diagnosis we don't understand watching someone suffer it may be a family that has fallen apart there's divorce or split families there's this there's that loss of job financial problems whatever the storm is all we have to do is not panic not choose fear but say hey jesus i know you're here he's gonna step out and you know what he's gonna say to our storms peace be still he sees us he doesn't enjoy watching us suffer he doesn't enjoy watching us go through things what he's wanting us to do is just be still and know that i am god he's holding us he's walking with us through every storm through every situation isaiah 41 and 10 fear thou not for i am with thee another one of my favorites i've got so many be not dismayed for i am thy god i will strengthen thee yea i will help thee yea i will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness i fear not this is god speaking to us don't fear choose me it's god saying choose me don't choose the enemy because when we choose fear we're choosing the enemy over god and when i say it like that i'm ready to whip myself into shape because shame on me let's choose faith over fear because god's faithful if parent fear will paralyze us faith sets us free i stop and think about what fear might have stopped me from doing in the past but i stand here tonight resolved with a resolve in my heart and in my mind the enemy's not gonna stop me the enemy's not going to take my family the enemies no not the enemies not gonna rob us of what god has given us just like abraham and isaac that's a promise isaac was that promise we each have received promises from god don't let the enemy come line that prodigal sons coming home fear says no no give up no you do not give up on your prodigal family or those that have never been in church fear says quit praying stop praying you've prayed and you've prayed and you've prayed and you've prayed and look they're nowhere close to coming back to church or coming to church for the first time just stop of course fear the enemy wants you to stop praying because he knows praying works he knows that's a communication with our creator and god's going to hear we're about ready to close this i was thinking about what i said about the disciple i mean peter walking on the water and how he had taken his eyes off of jesus i thought about that old song and it goes for us too we no matter the circumstances no matter how grim it may seem desperate it may seem hopeless it may seem i choose faith if we will look at jesus if we will keep our eyes on him we get that help we get that encouragement we get the strength to make it that song and i won't sing it because i don't trust myself i don't sing turn your eyes upon jesus look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace let's turn our eyes on jesus let's keep our eyes on jesus and let's choose faith over fear fear is a liar and when we place our faith in god we're safe we're safe in his everlasting arms he's taking care of us can we just all stand because i feel like that we do and i praise you and i worship you jesus i thank you their god for your power and your strength god no matter the circumstances no matter the situations i am going to choose faith in you i'm gonna choose to be faithful to you into your word god your word is true your promises are real god you love your children you take care of your children and i choose faith over fear tonight there is no weapon that the enemy can form against us that's going to prosper i choose faith in you tonight god and i thank you in advance for the victory i thank you in advance for the victory thank you jesus thank you jesus thank you jesus hallelujah thank you jesus thank you jesus i worship you jesus hallelujah hallelujah thank