Fear is a reaction of anticipation that is triggered when a situation that is at risk
for our safety is perceived.
Preparing the body to face danger which can evoke the freeze, flight, fight and fright
reactions dramatically impairing one's life.
In this episode of Keep It 100 we tackle the monster of fear and give a blueprint for how
to break through.
Stay tuned to the end for our special guest who will give a breakthrough key to overcoming
fear in your life.
Hi, this is Matt.
I just want to tell you that.
Keep It 100 is 100% the real deal.
For those of you needing some voices of wisdom in your life that are culturally relevant,
prophetically accurate and spiritually powerful, look no further than Sean and Christa Smith.
Hey, Keep It 100 Tribe, we are so excited you're with us this week.
What's going on everybody?
Everybody?
As you know, it's Sean and Christa Smith.
We're super excited about our time with you today and we are talking about a topic that
we feel like is critical for this hour.
Right Sean?
Yes, yes, yes.
It's in fact the street everybody is living on right now.
It really is.
And we're calling it fear, phobias and anxiety.
And for any of you listening today, I tell you what, I think there's a key for many of
you that are listening today because it's an issue that a lot of people struggle with.
But you got to start us off with this Sean because you found some hysterical phobias
and they were cracking me up and I just thought they'd be perfect for our listeners to hear.
That is true.
You know, there are in fact some 280 known phobias depending on who you ask.
And so here are some interesting ones.
One is called chetophobia, which is the fear of hairy people.
Okay, there are certain nations you just need to avoid then.
My goodness, right?
Or you become like a perpetual partner of laser, right?
Because you're like, you are the most hairless person.
That waxing tape stuff that you just rip it off your back.
No, just laser it.
Just a laser if you want.
All right, here's another one.
Bromosephobia is the fear of body smells.
Man, I mean again, just don't do public transport.
That's all I'm saying.
I think I had had a little bit sometimes.
You do.
You have like the most intense sense of smell.
I do.
Like you're very dialed into that.
That's hilarious.
Here's another one.
Electrophobia is the fear of chickens.
Oh my gosh.
Okay, right?
Because chickens can live without their head for like a minute or so or a few minutes.
I saw that.
I did too one time when I was a little kid.
My dad told me not to look.
Of course I looked.
And that would make you afraid of chickens.
Yep.
But all I got to say is Chick-fil-a.
I don't have a fear of chickens.
Can you imagine being a chicken of chickens?
That's like, okay, that's another conversation.
All right, here's a legit phobia.
Now, I don't admit to phobias, but this is legit.
It's called chima phobia.
It's the fear of cold.
That's for real, y'all.
I don't like cold water.
I don't like cold weather.
If there's white stuff on the ground, let me just say at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, water
isn't moving.
Neither should Sean.
That's my philosophy.
Okay, fun.
You know, I have to add this.
You know, I do.
Fun fact, whenever we're in super cold areas and we come out of the hotel and our ride
said pick us up to go to a service, if it's like in the teens, zeros below, Sean will instantly
start speaking out in tongues because he can't even find like English because he's so overcome
with the coldness.
That's true.
It's so cold.
Man, I got to do something.
Now, here's one last one.
I think people could also relate to.
It's called ententhephamophobia, which is the fear that people were talking about you,
but stopped as you entered the room.
Oh, that is a terrible feeling if you think that's real, but to have a phobia of it, because
then you'd be believing that everyone's talking about you, like every conversations about
you and if anything ever happens to stop, you're like paranoid.
They say according to Chapman University, who recently took a survey of American fears,
they say 47.5% of Americans are afraid or very afraid of the outcome of the 2020 election.
How key is that right now?
I think because there's such extremists on both sides, I think everyone's kind of afraid
in it, that apprehension of how the other side's going to respond.
Right?
Yes.
That's a real uncertainty that is what's going to be the feel of our country.
How are we going to feel stable?
That's for real.
You know, you watch any regular news service, you're looking at social media feeds, and
the likelihood is that you will be bombarded with reports and posts that will raise your
posts.
Today, mass media insurance companies, pharmaceutical corporations, advocacy groups, and politicians,
for them, your fears were billions of dollars.
Wait, what?
Billions of dollars, sad to say.
And for them, it's easy to manipulate your fears.
The truth is that we're hardwired to respond to fear above many things, which is probably
one of the reasons why God lets us know above all else fear, we should fear the Lord, have
a reverence for the Lord, because when you have a reverence for God, it subjugates all
other fears.
You know, we're seeing so much fear integrate the different spheres of society right now.
I mean, it's infiltrated not only news, media, blogs, websites, conspiracy groups, whatever
you want to call it.
It's like it can consume you, it can depress you, it can lead you into poor decision making,
make you prone to knee-jerk reactions, make you very reactionary versus logical and rational.
Fear can also incite hatred, violence, and even cause societal setbacks, which we've
seen in this 2020 season of our life.
And what's really interesting is we're seeing such a rise of anxiety, fear, and phobia,
and there's certainly some stats to prove it.
That's why we really wanted to talk about this today, because we know there's some listeners
today that are dealing with very real anxiety, fears, and phobias, and there is freedom in
the Lord, but we want to kind of break it down.
What are we dealing with today?
An estimated 264 million people worldwide have an anxiety disorder, an estimated 31.1%
of U.S. adults experience any anxiety disorder at some time in their lives, an estimated
19.1% of U.S. adults have had anxiety disorder in the past year, and anti-anxiety medical
prescriptions have spiked 34% during this pandemic time.
Anti-anxiety, how many people are just freaking out understandably?
You're looking at the situation of the pandemic, you're looking at the situation of economic
downslides, you're looking at the situation of civil unrest, you're looking at the upcoming
election, you're looking at family crisis, you look at all that and you think, man, another
34% of people are on med prescriptions.
That brings us to this interesting fact and here is a word of the day.
It's called amygdala.
Let me explain it to you.
The amygdala is the name for your brain's fear center.
The amygdala is a tiny almond-shaped region deep in each hemisphere of the brain and it's
the home to our emotional responses specifically fear.
So now they develop a term called amygdala hijacking and is used to describe inflammatory
rhetoric and imagery that is designed to trigger it but for the logical portion of your brain
has a chance to stop it.
And so amygdala hijacking is the admitted abuse of certain news media or certain people
with certain agendas to try to provoke fear inside of you because they can get you on
a point of fear that they can get you to begin to move towards things or react towards things
without giving things the deep thought.
And so the reason why we're susceptible is author Frank Ferretti accurately states in
one of his books he argues that one of the main drivers of our culture of fear.
He says we have a culture of fear and he says one of the main reasons why we have a culture
of fear is the unraveling of moral authority.
Wow.
In other words, fear creeps in when there's moral uncertainty.
Woo.
Think about that.
That is a sale a moment.
That's like a sit there.
Think about that when there is moral uncertainty, fear increases.
Yes.
Right.
When you remove the absolutes, right?
Yes.
And people are like, what is right?
What is wrong?
Right.
There is this apprehension, anxiety.
There's a fear that increases.
We used three words in our title today to really discuss in this episode and we titled it,
you know, phobias, fears and anxiety, but we want to kind of break down what is the difference
between those three things.
Fear and anxiety are simply an excessive fear and anxiety related to specific situations
out of proportion to the actual danger.
So it's an exaggerated response to a situation.
So you're responding at a 10 when it's really a two.
Fear is natural when people feel they're in imminent danger.
Fear is a natural response, but anxiety is defined as apprehension without an apparent
cause.
So those three definitions really help us understand what we're talking about and why
we're talking about it.
Those definitions are helpful because a lot of times we discuss things and we don't come
in agreement in terms of what they're defined by.
So when you think about the fears, phobias, anxieties, which I'll kind of lump for a moment
and just call it fear in general, there are three effects of fear.
And these are three reasons why this episode, I believe can be very crucial.
Number one, fear will keep you from loving that when you have fear in your life and the
enemy uses fear, I believe so much today of what really when it lands on the ground as
racism.
I believe it really begins with fear that the enemy tries to put unnatural fear that because
I'm afraid of you or because I'm afraid of people that are different than me because
of the fears that's in my life.
It keeps me from loving.
The Bible says that perfect love casts out fear.
Well, I believe the opposite is also true that perfect fear will cast out love if you
allow fear to stay there.
The second effect of fear is that fear will keep you from living.
It will cause paralysis that if you allow fear in your life that it will not only keep
you from loving, it will keep you from living that you don't take necessary opportunities
that are afforded to you because you're afraid that you may fail.
You have this fear and so all of a sudden insecurity set in and as a result of the insecurities,
you feel insufficiencies and insufficiencies lead to inadequacies and inadequacies lead
to illegitimacies.
It goes on and on and on before you know it is that you're paralyzed.
You're not leaving the house.
I think there's even a phobia called agoraphobia, which is the fear of open places.
And then third of all, the third effect of fear is fear will keep you from leaving your
comfort zones and fear ultimately will make you a prisoner because you'll always do what
you've always done because you feel like you know what you'll get.
You know the sample run of your well-worn customs, but at the same time, you're not
going to step into the new thing God has for you because you're trapped in the old.
And so it's so important that we break fear and that we're tackling this monster.
Oh man, that is so good.
I love hearing the effects because when you hear how something negatively affects you,
it puts a fire in you of like, I'm not going to allow that influence on my life, right?
Because that's not connected or agrees with the identity of who God's called me to be.
You know, something I really wanted to bring to this episode because I think a lot of our
listeners will probably be able to relate to me because fear is so prevalent.
It's definitely something that I saw throughout a lot of my life and it really began to manifest
as a young girl.
I had an absolute fear of Spain the night at people's homes and I found myself just
so homesick at sleepovers and birthday parties and I would go over there wanting to be social
and have fun, but I found myself absolutely terrified and I wouldn't have known at the
time that I was actually having a panic attack, but I was overcome with the fear that I just
needed to get home to be with my parents and through a sequence of events, I found myself
feeling unsafe at other people's houses and I just wanted to get home.
And that fear really affected me for a few years during my elementary years to the point
where I remember being at my friend's house during one of the sleepovers that I was at
that time and I remember being on the top bunk of her bunk bed and I remember thinking
if I throw myself off the top of the bunk bed and I hurt myself, it might be worth it
because I just want to get home and I remember thinking how illogical that would be.
I just go wake up her parents and get her parents to call my parents, but I didn't want to be
a burden.
I didn't want to put anyone out, but the fear was so real.
I just had to get out of there and it's amazing when you are in sheer panic, you will do anything
to get out of that situation.
I found myself as a little kid just not even wanting to spend the night at anyone's house
anymore and then fear kind of goes dormant, but if you don't deal with fear in your life,
even if it's dormant, it doesn't mean it's resolved, they're done or broken.
And then fear manifested again in my 20s and it looked like panic attacks, it looked like
phobias.
I found myself if there was any symptom in my body that I thought it was worst case scenario,
I would see a mole and I'd be like, oh my gosh, it's skin cancer or I'd have a pain and
I'm like, oh my gosh, this is happening or that is happening and I spent so much time
and money actually and emotional worry and concern and I wasted so much space and time
in my life obsessing over fear and I wanted to bring that fear has many different faces
and fear is not logical, it's not rational, but the reality is so many of us deal with
it and because it was dormant for a period of my life and yes, I had breakthrough in
that one face of fear, when it resurrected itself again in my 20s, I had to figure out
new methods and ways to actually uproot fear and I had to get to the root of it and order
to actually have it broken in my life and there's a difference between something being
dormant and something being broken and we want things to be broken in your life because
God, I love this, He gives us the ability to walk in full freedom from fear and there
were some real practical things that I feel like the Lord took me on this journey, my
mom was so instrumental in helping me walk through the freedom, but one of the things
I discovered was I had to expose the private battle I was in, the more hidden and the more
secret I was embarrassed about my fear, I didn't want anyone to know my struggle, I came across
as this confident strong woman and yet I felt very vulnerable, very susceptible to fear
and very overcome by fear and in that vulnerability, I felt so weak and I hated that feeling and
yet I felt so alone in the privacy of the battle, it's when I exposed the darkness of
my battle, I exposed the demonic thoughts, the harassing, tormenting things that were
coming at me and I brought someone into my battle which was my mom and some of my really
close friends of that time and I brought to light what was happening in the dark places
and so when I brought to light, it exposed and I remember sharing the silly thoughts
of this, fear is irrational, it's silly, it's ridiculous and when I brought those ridiculous
things I was hearing the enemy whisper and I said them out loud, I would hear how stupid
they were and all of a sudden they lost their power because I brought darkness, the whispers
of the enemy to light and when you bring darkness to light, it loses its power and then I had
someone speak truth to me, so I'd say to my mom, speak truth to me, she'd remind me of
who I am in Christ Jesus, she would remind me what the word of God says, she would remind
me of who God is and when I heard truth, all of a sudden it would shift me out of that
spiral at place and it would bring me to a place of freedom and so I just learned, don't
do it alone, bring God into your journey and bring your community, your spiritual community,
people that are more mature than you that can walk the journey with you.
You know the real second practical thing I felt like really brought me to a place of
breakthrough was it's really kind of connected to what I just said, declaring who God is.
I really began to learn through my mom what the blood covenant was and I learned it was
actually illegal for the enemy to harass or torment me and then I also learned that Jesus
had already defeated everything on the cross, I didn't have to win anything, so the pressure
was off me to win anything and so all of a sudden I realized it's already been defeated
so I enforced the blood covenant of Jesus over my fears, over the anxieties that I was
being riddled with at that time and it also came when I just whispered four simple words
that were Jesus come, Satan flee and those simple four words were establishing who God
is and the authority of Jesus Christ because the enemy has no power and he certainly has
no authority and when I establish who Jesus was and is, Satan had to flee and you know
it talks about in James 4, 7, resists the devil and he will flee from you by me establishing
those four words which sometimes it felt like I had to do over and over and over but eventually
that devil had to flee from me, why?
Because I was establishing that I was rooted and grounded in Christ, that I was covered
by the blood of the Lamb and I was enforcing the covenant I was in with Jesus and the enemy
cannot stay and the last thing I really learned in breaking anxiety and walking through freedom
in my life really getting that root of fear was I refused to get on the what if train because
you know the word of God talks about don't borrow trouble from tomorrow, tomorrow has
enough trouble for itself but today the Lord is going to cover you today and so for me
it was don't borrow and focus on hypotheticals and that was the what if train that woo woo
come aboard, go to the most catastrophic worst case scenario which is never going to leave
me in a good place and so when I don't have control over something you know the word of
God talks about when you've done everything you know to do just stand and stand in the
armor of God, stand in the blood of Jesus and stand on who Christ Jesus is and I begin
to walk in a greater level of resting in God and the anxiety had to leave me.
Those are some practical things that I felt like I experienced in my own journey that
I want to share with the Keep It 100 tribe.
Come on get off that train I love that that is so powerful.
My story as it relates to fear is that I would really kind of characterize my fear as kind
of the fear of fully going public I think growing up without a dad one growing up being
raised by an alcoholic two and then a mom who's working a lot so I'm not really seeing
her a lot during the daytime hours and of course at night I'm sleeping she's she's working
I think I really developed some insecurities and I just wasn't confident in myself and
so there's a German proverb that says fear makes the wolf bigger than he is and I think
that's what fear really does it makes whatever it is that you feel like you've got to face
down it feels that much bigger so I remember right when I gave my life to the Lord my campus
pastor he wanted to meet me in the middle of the student union and we were going to
have like a little sandwich together and he was going to have our first discipleship time
and so while we're out in the middle of student union there's three levels and so there's
students all around it's crowded it's the student union people are hanging out and so it was
just my campus pastor Donnie he loved to do this he loved to grab hands like literally
grab hands and pray like I've blessed food before you know my grandmother blessed the
food but we didn't necessarily hold hands while we did it but also man being from inner
city Oakland I'm about to grab a dude's hands out in the middle of public and bless food
with everybody looking but it was huge because it was like a baptism into fully identifying
with Christ I mean it's so good my water baptism I was less conscious about than grabbing
a dude's hands in public and blessing food and so he put his hands out and it was a quick
snap judgment I grabbed his hands I closed my eyes I didn't want to look at who's looking
and I felt like the whole world was looking he blessed the food but I think it was so
important because I've noticed something interesting our greatest struggles with fear always have
a significant relevance to what God is calling you to do perhaps I could best put it this
way fear always stands as an obstacle for filling the call of God on your life and so
I'm thinking about the fear fully going public well that's totally what the call of God is
on my life and for that matter it's the call on every single believer's life but the funny
part about it is when I conquered the grabbing the hands fear and that was something I'd
wrestle with within one week I was standing up in the same same student union and giving
my testimony impromptu I wasn't even organized by my student minister I just stood up and
felt like I wanted to tell everybody about Jesus so I go from being afraid to hold hands
with a guy one minute to the next minute stand up in front of my campus and sharing the gospel
but then I would feel it again there'd be another time where I'd stand in front of fraternity
and I was kind of a little embarrassed about what I believed and then I just from being
I remember being reminded that all the opinions of all men of all time added up all together
will equal absolutely zero zilch goose eggs nada the only thing that matters is what I'll
do for Christ.
From that I've discovered three things that the three major causes where fear and anxiety
slip in and begin to rob you of an exploit.
Number one is when you focus on your circumstance fear always comes when you focus on your circumstance
whenever you look at the circumstances I look at all the people around me who don't know
the Lord and I'm the owner and it does know the Lord or I look at man all the people and
how vociferous and and how antagonizing they are towards the gospel and their and whatever
cause they stand for but you always open the door for fear if you focus on your circumstances
rather than focus on your God.
David defeated Goliath because he said I don't come at you today in a sword I come at you
in the name of the Lord and so he focused on God.
The second I think major cause where fear or anxiety can slip in is when you focus on
past failures.
I think a lot of my life I focus on past failures and I and I feel like there's somebody listening
right now that you have beat yourself up because of past failures and your fears that you will
repeat the cycle once again.
You have a fear of failure and a fear that what happened in the past will happen again
but I'm telling you God always brings a new day.
God makes you a new creature in Christ Jesus that he brings a new day old things have passed
away but hold off things become new God changes things so don't focus on failures focus on
what God intends to do through you.
And last and final is many people focus on unresolved issues and we're all a progress
we're all we might as well have a under construction sign on our chest at any given moment.
God is always at work on us but you don't focus on your unresolved issues you focus on
your identity in Christ which is solidified which is established you may not your emotions
may try to tell you otherwise but the truth be told is when Jesus calls you the righteousness
of God.
That is your designation when he says you are son or daughter of the most God that is your
designation.
Keep it 100 tribe we've got a super surprise for you guys.
It's so good.
My next friend that we're going to introduce right now is a friend of Christ and I both
he is one of the most profound prophetic evangelists I know this guy has been used in Coliseum
events he's been used to raise up teams that have canvas with prophetic evangelism at major
outreach rallies he travels across the nations and my great friend is his mighty revivalist
and evangelist Richie Seltzer you're going to enjoy him.
Hey everybody keep it 100 tribe you are in for a special treat and so Richie how you
doing man.
Man I'm so good man so good to be with you love being with you.
And man you're such a pioneer such an honor to be on keep it 100.
Come on buddy.
All right Richie I got this question I know our viewers will so profit from your wisdom
and your response to this here's the question Richie you ready.
What do you do when fear hits but you know that God has an exploit for you.
Man I like to tell people this the Bible clearly tells us you know Billy Graham would always
say that.
The Bible tells us in Romans that you have not been given a spirit of bondage again to
fear which you've been given the spirit of adoption by whom you cry out Abba father.
And then another place in Timothy it tells us you've not been given the spirit of fear
but of power of love and of a sound mind both places it describes fear as a spirit.
So when when the body of Christ gets this simple revelation that fear is a spirit and
it's not yours it changes the game.
You know when I feel fear I'm not afraid people like to say that all the time I'm afraid I'm
just afraid no no no if you're in Christ you can't be afraid it's not your identity you're
a child of God perfect love cast out all fear you just feel fear when you feel fear if you
immediately recognize it's not who you are then you recognize it as an invitation.
The dogs of doom bark the loudest at the door of your destiny and so when you feel fear
it's actually an invitation into an encounter.
So I like to tell people this if I feel fear everybody's getting Jesus.
Oh my he's going to get the gospel love that I know the enemy is trying to hide my destiny
he's trying to hide an encounter from me.
That is so good man that is so good you have any examples where God asked you to do something
and it was a bit out of the norm man and you had to conquer that foreign spirit of fear
that the enemy tried to put on you.
Yeah man many many times you know because here's the thing courage isn't the absence
of the feeling of fear.
Courage is not letting fear tell you what to do just because you feel fear doesn't mean
that it's yours and so oftentimes I'll feel fear I'll feel the fear of failure I'll feel
the fear of man I'm going to get laughed at or I'm not going to have the right words to
say but in the middle of that if I run through the fear and not from the fear then oftentimes
I find that God shows up in those moments.
When I come to the edge of my ability then his ability takes over and so I remember one
time I was in a cafe we weren't there on that outreach we were just me and my buddy and we
step out of the cafe and we see this couple screaming and yelling at each other I mean
it's a bad argument I mean her neck vein is even bulging out they're screaming at each
other the spit's flying and you know common sense tells you leave them alone like this
is not a good time to tell them about Jesus you know like.
Right.
But you know I have this core belief that there's not a problem in the world that doesn't
have a solution and even though I don't know what the solution is my best friend does is
to Holy Spirit and like I said oftentimes your greatest encounter will happen when you put
yourself in a position to where if God doesn't show up it ain't going to turn out very good.
So I didn't know what I was going to say all I knew is there was a problem and so I walked
up and I knocked on the window and I immediately began to feel fear because the dude was look
like the rock man I mean he had muscles up on muscles he was angry the skin had looking
dude with like tattoos everywhere and he was angry at his girl at first and now he's angry
at me he's looking for somebody to take some anger out on man.
Wow.
My heart's racing I'm like feeling the fear but at the same time I have this quiet confidence
that this is going to turn out good if I put Jesus in this position where he's got to show
up.
Amen.
So remember what I end up doing is I knock on the guys window he turns around and he's
like what what do you want you know and I'm like oh man I don't know what I'm going to
say I went into like emergency tongues on the inside I don't know if anybody you know
listening can identify with that when you don't know what to do.
Oh yeah.
I'm like oh God God God God you gotta tell me something if you don't tell me something
I'm gonna make it up you know and suddenly I just get this simple little phrase that
goes through my heart I like to tell people often times that's how God's voice is like
this still small voice on the inside and I heard this great evangelist one time in the
past tell me that the secret place is the practice place for the marketplace.
Come on man.
And I just recognize that still small voice and I remember I felt the Holy Spirit speak
to me he said ask him about his daughter and tell him.
Oh.
According to her life.
When you put yourself in those positions where when you feel fear and you don't know how
it's gonna work out and you put yourself in that position like I like to be like the
sandlot you throw your hat over the fence you know like ain't no return like it's the
place in the return I've stepped over the edge like Indiana Jones like I put myself
in that position you don't have time to overanalyze thing you just gotta go with it you know
and and I remember I was like hey do you have a daughter and the dude was like yeah why
do you ask and and I'm like this might sound crazy man but I'm a Christian and God spoke
to me did not sit on your window and ask you about your daughter and I know you're arguing
with your girl and whatever but I don't want to be disrespectful but the Lord told me to
tell you that you're important to her life and the dude starts weeping.
Oh my gosh.
And I mean he's uncontrollably weeping and crying and he's like today we were gonna commit
couple suicide and we were arguing about what we were gonna do with our daughter when we
were gone oh my God. And then I was giving the share of the gospel and the guy gave his
life to Christ instead of committing suicide. Straight up. Bro like amazing the dude gave
his life to Christ but I like to tell people this even more than that Sean courage inspires
courage. Yes. And you know you see this all throughout scripture with David and with different
ones throughout scripture somebody steps out in boldness and it inspires the armies of
God to follow the lead. My friend Tom turned around and I mean he saw that whole thing
happening and he turned around he looked for the first moving target in the parking lot
bro and he saw this dude like with a Walkman on. Oh I told me no I had one back in the
day. Yeah man that dude was trucking across the parking lot smoking a cigarette and my
friend Tom's like hey hey you know he's calling yelling at this dude across the parking lot
the dude's like either ignoring him or or can't hear him or is like deaf or something and
my friend Tom takes off running bro after this dude because courage inspires courage
man he this dude's like gotta tell somebody about Jesus now and he taps that dude on
the shoulder and and the dude turns around and's like what what do you want you know
like why why are you stopping me and my friend Tom he says he doesn't know what he's gonna
say he ain't thought that far yet you know and I like to tell people this yawn whenever
you don't know what to say just tell a testimony be locked and loaded with like an arsenal
of testimonies. Amen bro. You're ready in season and out of season my friend Tom doesn't
know what he's gonna say so he just tells this dude hey he'll never believe what just
happened over there and he tells this guy what just happened and the dude starts weeping
he's like stop it. My way to kill myself right now. Oh my. Tom shares his testimony
of which he was delivered of methamphetamines and drug addiction and gang life and the dude
gives his life to Christ so three people in less than 20 minutes give their life to Christ
simply because two guys were drinking coffee and would not bow down to the spirit of fear.
Richie bro can't thank you enough dude that was so powerful dang man that's great dude
love you man Chelsea. Bless you bro. That was so good Richie's perspective is so profound
and I love love love the takeaway it's not yours because it's not your identity and I
feel like for all of the Keep It 100 tribe that is such an essential takeaway from Richie's
what he downloaded of course he said so much more than that but that was just a really
significant takeaway for me I mean that was so good. That was awesome Richie just brought
revelation as always Keep It 100 tribe we want to give you five Keep It 100 takeaways
that we believe will help you as it relates to defeating fear in your life and the number
one thing that I want to begin with is that you need to reevaluate your expectations when
I say reevaluate your expectations what I mean is your fear is a habit that's been ingrained
in the way you think fill and act for a long period of time and sometimes you just have
to patiently apply the word of God pray stem before God do all the things that you would
normally do but recognize sometimes it's a process sometimes it's not like fear disappears
the very moment you decide that you don't want it in your life sometimes if you've had
fear in place for a long period of your life decades of your life quite possibly and sometimes
it may take a while but understand this you do have the victory you will achieve the victory
if you don't quit the enemy is going to be the one scurrying off into the shadows not
you and so the first thing to understand is reevaluate your expectations and what I love
to say oftentimes is sometimes you reevaluate your expectation but you strengthen your motivation
yeah you know a real practical takeaway and just overcoming fear in your life is understanding
that courage actually breaks a stronghold of fear and the difference between fear and
courage is courage is not the absence of fear it's actually doing something despite the
feelings of fear and I think that that's a really important discrepancy that we understand
the difference between those two things because so many times we wait to make movement we
wait to do the exploits of God we wait to take risks in our lives for that inspired
feeling or when we don't actually have any nervousness or there's no fear there's no
feelings of apprehension and we're like okay there's a moment that moment sometimes may
never come until you actually step through the obstacle step through the barrier and
when you step through the barrier you step through the obstacle and you do something
simply out of courage and you step through that that's what breaks the fear and what's
interesting is that the more you do it the less fear you'll have and another way to say
it is lack of action actually fuels your fear so if you don't make movement if there isn't
those steps of courage in your life you'll often stay stagnant in your fear and your
fear takes your fear takes a deeper root because of the inactivity because of our disobedience
because of our insecurity we actually reinforce fear when we lack courage or we lack the grit
or the pursuit to push through you know really another takeaway is I like to call people
you know say renew your mind I actually think it's bigger than that I actually think we
need to renew our soul your soul is actually your mind your will and your emotions we need
a whole makeover in our soul and so it's about bringing your soul into agreement with the
word of God really understanding what we come into a place of agreement that he didn't give
us a spirit of fear but a power love and a sound mind when you step into a place of understanding
he didn't give you that spirit of fear you're renewing your mind through worship through
prayer through pleading the blood of Jesus that enforcing the blood covenant like I talked
about earlier you're going to renew your mind your will and your emotions to come into agreement
with your God identity that's important understanding who you are and what you're standing on and
who's dwelling within you so good Christa the fourth way to defeat fear is to pray right
yeah for 667 says do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer notice
said do not be anxious which is where we would get the word anxiety in other words don't
have anxiety but in everything by prayer supplication with Thanksgiving let your request be made
known to God and I recognize when I begin to thank the Lord for things that he's already
done in the past that I want him to begin to do in my present it already begins to bring
a calmness it brings a peace and the more I begin to pray with God the more I invite
Holy Spirit in on exactly what is going on that invitation also causes me to feel his
presence and the more I feel his presence the more bold I feel the less fear I feel
and so what I believe it's so important there is as we pray we're accessing what heaven
is made available and we're resisting the spirit of fear because fear is not just an
emotional response it is a spirit you know and the last takeaway for overcoming fear
in your life is really recognizing your triggers and create a plan for breakthrough so what
do I mean by that I think it's important for you to understand what is your trigger and
so there are times in my life where I might be battling fear or worry or anxiety in the
area of my life and scrolling through social media is triggering me that means disconnect
get off social media or maybe there's a relationship in your life where they say things that trigger
you and I'm not saying cut them out but you might want to just exclude that topic of conversation
from that relationship in order to guard your peace and so it's recognizing people or situations
or platforms that might trigger those those fears those anxieties in your life and really
being intentional about not engaging with those things that can trigger you and your
plan for breakthrough what's a plan get practical and talk about even make a plan of what if
this happens if this is something that is freaking you out and it's a real possibility
it's not a hypothetical you actually face the fears head on rather than the fears controlling
you and daunting do you actually create a plan for breakthrough so you dismantle obstacles
and fears that feel so big and you make them practical and you give pathways to overcome
the things that feel so big so know that there is always a plan for breakthrough and there's
always victory so when you actually get practical and you eliminate the bigness of the fear
it helps you keep things in perspective because God is going to give you away even when there
seems no way because the truth is God is bigger than even the fears and anxiety that we might
be battling with right now I want to thank you guys so much for tuning in I want you
to make sure that you subscribe so you can be alerted as soon as new episodes drop as
they are dropping every Tuesday please rate review and refer this podcast to others many
of you have done that and we read every single review and also you can check us out at seanandchristasmith.com
on our website you can find us on Facebook at Sean and Christa Smith
Ministries we'd love to hear from you guys so make sure you fill that out and talk to
us because we remember we're doing this for you hey next week you are not going to want
to miss because I tell you what we were having one of my favorite people and there was a great
conversation about Kingdom Justice with Jen Toledo so tune in next Tuesday and as always
remember relief can change your circumstance but a revelation can change you.