This was the case for a certain man from Gadarenes on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. His problem couldn’t be seen or touched. It was in his mind and it was out of control.
He was held in bondage by demons and declared incurable. Uncontrollable. The Bible repeated the words “no one”. No one could bind him. No one could subdue him. The demons ravaged his life as days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months and eventually to years.
He remained in torment until the day a man named Jesus set foot on the shore.
When those spirits saw Jesus, they knew their time was up. They knew He was about to do what no one had been able to do. He was their eviction notice – they had to leave.
The demons ran up to Jesus and willingly submitted themselves, begging Him not to torment them. How is it that the same demons who tortured one man, were begging this other Man not to torture them?
Dr Luke, in the 11th chapter and the 21st verse tells us “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up his plunder.”
Jesus was now that Stronger Man who had come in and subdued them. There was no contest. He was Lord and they were in thrall to Him.
So Jesus commands the evil spirits to take leave of the man’s body and sends them into herd of pigs and for the first time in a long time, the man tastes freedom. His mind is restored. He sits beside Jesus and has a peaceful interaction.
My question is, do you need peace?
Is there something going on that has defied all logic and solution? If there is, it does not deter Jesus. It is no match for him. Whether it’s a sickness or an addiction or a behaviour or a negative experience, it ends when Jesus sets foot on the shores of your heart.
He is that Spirit that supersedes all other spirits. The Wind that commands other winds to be still.
Jesus came so that you and I may be free. He went to the cross thousands of years ago so that His name may be glorified. When we mention that name, every lingering problem takes its leave.
The villagers couldn’t help the demoniac. The Bible tells us people actually tried but did not succeed. But Jesus is that rock that no problem can escape. Anything the Rock opposes will be completely pulverized.
It may seem strong but Jesus is infinitely stronger. Take the problem to Jesus. Where others fail, He succeeds.
When you imagine signs of fear in a person, you may picture someone cowering, shrieking or crying out for help. On the inside, fear presents itself as increased blood pressure, heightened heart rate, and blood flow changes.
Here’s something else to consider: fear shows up in our behaviours too.
-Fear of losing control or influence, so you scheme and manipulate.
-Fear of feeling anxious, so you have fits of rage and angry outbursts.
-Fear of consequence, so you lie.
-Fear of rejection and loneliness, so you posture and people please.
-You fear being outsmarted so you also outsmart and cheat.
-Fear of embarrassment, so you over-compensate.
-Fear of failure, so you self sabotage and give up.
I could go on and on.
You would be be surprised at how many dysfunctional behaviours and habits are actually rooted in crippling, paralyzing, diarrhoea-inducing fear. The dread and terror that come with fear are enough to alter personalities and trigger the most outrageous responses. The things we do are not nearly as intruguing as the reasons why we do them.
Whether the fear is reasonable or not, is another discussion entirely. The response doesn’t invalidate the fact that it is there, and like a wrecking ball, it is wreaks havoc, leaving a trail of bad experiences behind it.
No wonder The Bible lays so much emphasis on dispelling fear. It’s not just about the feeling, it’s about what it makes you do, and who it makes you become.
The old testament is riddled with verses telling us not to be afraid and giving us reasons. The Book of Isaiah alone has so many verses addressing fear. It usually starts off with a command, and a reason. For example:
“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” – Isaiah 41:10
“For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you”. – Isaiah 41: 13
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” – Psalm 23:4
God isn’t just shoving us out into the world to face the things that terrify us alone. He is telling us not to fear because He is bigger than fear. Because He is WITH us, and because He is IN us. The courage to face fear is not external, it is already in you. When you surrendered to Christ, He gave you a spirit without fear, but with love, power and an excellent mind. The Bible says if God is with you, who (what) can be against you? Jesus said the world will give you reasons to fear, but don’t fall for it- I have stripped it of its ability to hurt you and my victory is final (John 16.33) .
So what do you do to fear when you learn that you have the backing of The One who rendered it empty and powerless?
You face it.
You do not overcome fear by running from it, you face it and tell it what God said.
– Dont fear consequence, all things are working together for your good. Own up to mistakes don’t lie
– Do not fear losing God control. God is the master of your destiny, His plans for you are excellent. Be straightforward and have good intentions, don’t manipulate.
– Do not fear loneliness or rejection. You are precious, valued, loved dearly and tenderly by God. Be confident and content. Don’t posture, or people please.
– Do not fear being outsmarted. You have an excellent mind and you discern matters correctly. Your God is exceedingly rich enough to meet all your needs. Don’t cheat or swindle.
For every negative behaviour that seeks expression, there is a positive alternative that is both befitting and liberating.These are the actions and motives that heaven recognises and celebrates.
While on the surface, it may appear that you are losing or missing out, you are actually building character, strengthening your walk with Christ and demolishing fear and its stronghold over your life.
I began feeling it long before I knew what it was.
It was prize giving day in high school, and I’d made it to top 3 in my class. We had Math prodigees on the stag who had won inter-school and state championships. I’d never done anything like that, and in my silently growing panic, I wondered if they’d miscalculated my scores.
It was the feeling of not being sure I belonged. More specifically, the feeling of wondering if I was awarded by mistake.
Over the years, I’ve found this feeling to be quite common with a lot of people. I mean people worry that their school admitted them by mistake, or they won a scholarship by some stroke of luck or their boss overestimated their abilities, or their church thinks they’re a better Christian than they actually are, and sooner or later someone is going to figure it out. In a lot of cases, this feeling moves from worry to fear and then anxiety, timidity, self-sabotage, and outright quitting.
Other times, it creates a deep uncertainty about being loved or accepted by our friends, family, or even God. It births a need to do more, to be more, constantly measuring ourselves against standards that exist only in our heads.
“It was the feeling of not being sure I belonged. More specifically, the feeling of wondering if I was awarded by mistake.”
As you may be able to tell, impostor syndrome is quite powerful. It’s the reason a lot of people self- sabotage, or quit even before they begin. Sometimes, it looks like our insecurities or our limitations. Shaming us with lies of not being good enough and fear that everything could crumble if anyone were to probe deeply.
For believers, it’s one reason many of us don’t step into our calling because we feel like a fraud. An extra layer for the believer is the weight of guilt from sin, mistakes, and choices from our pasts. Some of us have chapters in our life stories that stand in stark contrast to where we now are and what God is calling us to do. Impostor syndrome plays on these experiences and slowly and silently kills the believer’s call.
“An extra layer for the believer is the weight of guilt from sin, mistakes, and choices from our pasts. Some of us have chapters in our life stories that stand in stark contrast to where we now are and what God is calling us to do”.
If this is you, I’d like to let you know that impostor syndrome is built on lies. That’s the key reason we have to resist it. Its aim is to paint a picture of unworthiness and make us believe that we do not deserve what we have because of something we have or don’t have or who we are or are not. The truth is that Jesus has made us joint heirs with Him, entitled to every good and perfect gift. It was never about us – He did it long before we ever came to know Him and become saved. He loved us in advance and with plenty more to spare!
The idea that “I’ve got to prove myself in order to get myself loved” is in total variance with the gospel of redemption. By grace alone, through faith alone, on the basis of the work of Christ alone, we stand on the glorious rock of the forgiveness of our sins, our acceptance with God, the removal of our guilt, the canceling of our debts — all of it rooted in the love of God, who chose us for himself before the foundation of the world.
“The truth is that Jesus has made us joint heirs with Him, entitled to every good and perfect gift. It was never about us – He did it long before we ever came to know Him and become saved”.
In Luke 5, Jesus reveals himself to a fisherman called Peter who had toiled all night but caught nothing. Suddenly, this man makes an appearance, and his nets are overflowing with fish. Peter, realising who Jesus was and what He’d just done for him gave the a classic impostor Syndrome response – ‘Please leave me, I’m a lowly sinner, not worthy to be in your presence’. Peter felt unworthy and inadequate. He wanted to hide.
Jesus’ response is significant. He does not coddle Peter or skirt around his fears, He shifts Peter’s focus to a higher calling – ‘Don’t be afraid, from now on you’ll be fishing for people’.
Jesus ripped at the self-depriciating nature of Peter’s response. He knew that apart from feeling bad about himself, his feelings would distract him from what God had called him to do.
Impostor syndorme disables you through fear and feelings of inadequacy. It’s like having weights shackled to your ankles, keeping you from running full speed. The devil knows that as long as he can do this – keep your eyes on your inability instead of God’s ability. You’ll live a life of fearful restraint and miniscule goals.
But know that you have been engraced for every call of God over your life. Know that when God called you, He qualified you irrespective of your age, gender, experiences, background, mistakes, and any other variable.
As believers, there’s another layer of guilt and shame that comes from sin, but know that there is no pit so deep that His love is not deeper still. He loves you so much that he makes provisions for your shortcomings. Circling back to Peter who Jesus tells ‘I know you are going to deny me, but I have put something in place to help you out of that. And when you are helped, dont forget your call – help others too!
So what do we do when impostor syndrome begins to rear its ugly head? We do what 2 Corinthians 10:5 says.
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
We declare that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, and we are entitled to every good and perfect gift. Guilt and shame have no power over us.
And for the times when it wears the deceptive cloak of ‘luck’, remind yourself that there is no such thing as luck — period. There is no such thing as luck. What the world calls luck is God’s providence. So, what you’re dealing with is not several thousand professional instances of luck, in which you lucked out and proved competent and responsible and helpful by accident. That’s not what’s happening; there’s no such thing as an accident or luck. God, not luck, brought about those thousands of moments of competency and responsibility and helpfulness. This is a pattern of divine sustaining, divine support, divine help, divine guidance, which bears all the marks of a calling, a vocation from God.
“And for the times when it wears the deceptive cloak of ‘luck’, remind yourself that there is no such thing as luck — period. There is no such thing as luck. What the world calls luck is God’s providence. “
Therefore, when you wake up in the morning and you feel anxiety that your luck might run out today, one of the answers is to preach to yourself, “There’s no such thing as luck. Stop thinking that way. It doesn’t exist. God has sustained me in all these thousands of moments of competency that I’ve been calling ‘luck.’ God has sustained me even if I am truly incompetent.”
When impostor syndrome takes hold of you, you take hold of it. Speak God’s word and refuse its lies and deception.
You were made worthy when Christ died and shed His blood for you. You DO belong in that church, that job, that programme, and anywhere else on this planet God has called you. So don’t look at the people around you. Don’t look at your limitations. Don’t even look at yourself. Just look at Jesus and move.
Mary is wide awake. The pain has been eclipsed by wonder. She looks into the face of the baby. Her son. Her Lord. His Majesty. At this point in history, the human being who best understands who God is and what he is doing is a teenage girl in a smelly stable. She can’t take her eyes off of him. Somehow Mary knows she is holding God. She remembers the words of the angel. “His kingdom will never end” (Luke 1:33).
He looks like anything but a king. His face is prunish and red. His cry, though strong and healthy, is still the helpless and piercing cry of a baby. He is absolutely dependent upon Mary for his well-being. Majesty in the midst of the mundane. Holiness in the filth of sheep manure and sweat. Divinity entering the world on the floor of a stable, through the womb of a teenager, and in the presence of a carpenter.
You’ve become acquainted with the bitter taste of mistakes …
Not thinking things through, acting out of character misjudging, acting hastily, and then bearing the consequences that follow. There is a truth you should know. In the midst of your mistakes, no matter how grave, God still loves you. His mercy is available for you. What you need to do is totally submit to, and completely depend on Him.
His mercy eclipses mistakes and turns bad situations into testimonies. It is in His nature to give double for shame.He will weave your experiences into a beautiful story that will bless you, and glorify Him.
This is not an endorsement of unrepentant poor decision-making or a bad character. “For, are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? Of course not!”. New wine does not go into old skin. But a broken and contrite heart is irresistible to the Holy Spirit. He will teach you a better way to live. You will notice strength replacing weakness, wisdom replacing errors in judgement, and self control replacing impulse.
At the start of the year, the Holy Spirit told me “Walk with me, don’t run. The race is not to the swift; walk with me”. There is strength in pain that can’t be gained in any other way. None of your experiences is a waste. God brings forth miracles from mistakes; that’s the kind of God we serve.
Your errors may cause you some hurt because actions have consequences. God is committed to our character not our comfort. But when His mercy enters the equation, the pain becomes purposeful.
So, whether you’re a ‘Peter’ who is quick to promise and quicker to betray, or a ‘Paul’ who cuts down with tongue and sword, God’s mercy and grace abound.
more pity parties, no more self-sabotage, no more no more endless worry and anxiety. Surely, there is an end, and the earnest longing of your heart will be fulfilled.
When Peter and a few other disciples found themselves in the middle of the Sea of Galilee one stormy night, they knew they were in trouble. “But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary” (Matthew 14:24). The disciples fought the storm for nine cold, skin-drenching hours, and about 4:00 a.m. they spotted someone coming on the water.
They didn’t expect Jesus to come to them this way. Neither do we. We expect him to come in the form of peaceful hymns or Easter Sundays or quiet retreats. We never expect to see him in an economic decline, sack letter, or periods of unrest. We never expect to see him in a storm. But it is in storms that he does his finest work, for it is in storms that he has our keenest attention.
They’re for looking into our future too. I don’t mean a future coloured by present circumstances.
I mean a future where your life is a reflection of God’s glory
Don’t worry about what it looks like right now- the Word of God superimposes upon the natural
Your current state is temporal, fleeting, passing. Those Egyptians you see today will soon be a thing of the past, but you must see well.
See through the eyes of scripture. What does the Bible say about your life? How does God see you?
Call yourself blessed even when you don’t feel blessed, call yourself highly favoured in the face of fierce opposition. Speak peace and safety into your atmosphere.
All things are working together for your good. All things. Including the bad experiences.
Your reality is a self-written script. Your destiny is at the mercy of your eyes.
𝑆𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑎𝑛, 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢?
And the word of the LORD came to me, asking, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” “I see a branch of an almond tree,” I replied. “You have observed correctly,” said the LORD, “for I am watching over My word to accomplish it. – Jeremiah 1:11
God’s grace is greater than that sin. You thought the problem was your calendar, your marriage, your job. In reality, it’s this unresolved guilt. Don’t indulge it. Don’t drown in the bilge of your own condemnation. What you did was not good. But your God is good, and he will forgive you. He is ready to write a new chapter in your life. Say with Paul, “Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us” (Philippians 3:13-14 TLB).
Your salvation has nothing to do with your work and everything to do with the finished work of Christ on the cross. Rejoice in the Lord’s mercy.
If anyone had a reason to be anxious it was the apostle Paul. Envision an old man as he gazes out the window of a Roman prison. Half-blind, squinting just to read. Awaiting trial before the Roman emperor. His future is as gloomy as his jail cell.
Yet to read his words, you’d think he’d just arrived at a Jamaican beach hotel. His letter to the Philippians bears not a word of fear or complaint. Not one! Instead, he lifts his thanks to God and calls on his readers to do the same. “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4)
Paul’s challenge is a decision deeply rooted in the confidence that God exists, that he is in control, and that he is good. Rejoice in the Lord—always! You can’t run the world, but you can entrust it to God.
Graceuntold 