Hey y’all! This blog is about a real important thing Jesus has been teaching me over the last seven months, but he put it on my heart to share with other people, sermon style:
In Romans 6, Paul wrote about how we are all slaves. “Do you not know that if you present yourself to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (Romans 6:16)
I struggled with this for awhile. I don’t want to be a slave. But there’s so much truth. We are either going to live how God wants us to, or how the world wants us to. We can’t escape that, but we get the choice of what kind of life we are going to be a slave to- Life as a slave to feelings and everything temporary- both instant gratification and consequences later- or life as a slave to sacrificing comforts (emotions, desires, sometimes friends/family/where you live) with rewards of grace, peace, joy, and purpose? The first one might sound nice, but I can tell you the later is sosososo worth it AND possible!!
Something I struggled with for a long time, and didn’t even recognize, was that I was living as a slave to fear. I was completely chained and blinded by fear on a daily basis and had no idea!!
Growing up, people would tell me I was fearless and brave, because I would ski as fast as possible and travel places alone and wasn’t afraid of heights. These are things people can have a lot of fear about, and I didn’t. But fear is much more complex than big mountain top moments. Fear can be intertwined in the tiny day to day moments that seem insignificant; fear that you won’t have enough time to do everything in the day, fear that you won’t say the right thing, ect. This is how fear looked for me.
I feared what people thought about me, what people would say if I didn’t meet their expectations, and I feared offending people. Mostly, this was with adults, but it started to spread into peers in the past year.
So, I avoided blunt truth.
Then last summer, I went to training camp, and one of our leaders told me I was bound by fear. I didn’t understand how that could be true. I’d always been fearless- right? It hurt, but it hurt because she was right. At home, when people would ask me what my plans after high school were, I would change my answer depending on who was asking. Sometimes I’d say I was traveling, sometimes I’d say I was going on a service trip. I wanted to avoid saying mission trip, because then people would have questions. I was terrified about telling people I loved Jesus, even though I was going to serve him for nine months. Not many people where I live are receptive to Jesus (see my previous blog ), so I would let the fear of how people would react hold me back. I didn’t want to tell people something that would change their whole life- I was afraid that would be burdensome. So you see, a lot of fear/lies.
But, thanks God that we don’t have to live in fear at all !!!
So, how do you stop living in fear? Right now, take a moment and see if there is any fear in your own life that needs to be trampled. It might be fear of change, giving up control, or fear of what people will think- it might be one thing today and another tomorrow. But identify one thing.
Now, the first part of walking out of fear for me is perspective. It is me learning and remembering that Jesus is worth sharing, even if people don’t understand, because we were created for eternity with our Creator, and He is undeniably real and alive. So, figure out eternal perspective.
The second part is knowing that I don’t want to be a slave to fear. I want to live in the freedom that I was created to live in. This is something you’ve gotta choose too. Here’s some scripture that encouraged me: Psalm 25: 1-3, Psalm 27:1, Matthew 10:28, Proverbs 31:25, 2 Timothy 1: 7-9.
In Psalm 27:1, it says, “The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Yikes. When we know Jesus, we have nothing to be afraid of- not even death. (First, I had to believe that the Lord is the stronghold of my life.)
In Matthew 10:28 it says, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” Again, death doesn’t change the faithfulness of God, and it means eternity in His presence.
And 2 Timothy 1:8 says, “do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord”. This verse is especially encouraging for me, because God KNOWS that we will struggle with fear and struggle with sharing about Jesus. He gets it!!
There’s a song that says, “I’m no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God.”
That means it’s part of our identity to not be afraid!! I want to live in that everyday.
Starting to walk out of fear was small for me. It was me telling people that I was going on a mission trip instead of a service trip. It was inviting friends to coffee who don’t believe in Jesus and being honest about who He is to me. It was telling people that I was scared to change and didn’t trust that God spoke to me.
Then it became me saying the things that came into my head, even when I was completely riddled with doubt about whether they were from God. It became me asking God what He wanted instead of trying to get Him to confirm what I wanted. It became me smiling at strangers and asking people how they were doing to listen & hear. Then talking to strangers about their religions and then sharing my testimony as a blog.
And all this time, even as I was a slave to fear, Jesus called me bold. He said my weaknesses will be my strengths. He said I was caught and I was secured by him. He still says this truth; He says I’m bold, secured, caught, seen, and free to live on the high wire risk-taking freedom that he has for me. Ask Jesus what he says about you.
I have to choose to walk into this truth and out of fear daily. It’s not in huge monumental decisions. It’s in the little moments, where I dare to run to give my friend a hug, even when she was rude, and dare to apologize, when it hurts my pride.
There are days where this is still such a struggle, but there’s so much grace with it, and I’ve seen so much reward from it!! So, what kind of life are you a slave to?
I’d love to hear any mini victory stories / thoughts / moments where Jesus has freed you!! Also, I want to do a Q&A blog soon, so please message me or comment some good questions!!!
Love,
Cait
