Good day, everyone. It is day 16 in this journey of ours, and it is called Freedom from the
Fear of Man.
Restful one, I call your spirit to attention in the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
Listen to the word of God for you.
But the Lord said to him, Peace, do not be afraid, you are not going to die.
So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it, The Lord is Peace, Judges 6.23-24.
I bless you, restful one, with freedom from the fear of man and from an unhealthy fear
of God.
I bless you with being like Gideon, seeing and experiencing the presence of God in the
middle of a crisis situation.
I bless you with having current experiences of God's presence, provision, and intervention.
I bless you with not having to go back to prior generations to share glory stories of
God's intervention.
I bless you with your own stories.
I bless you with an experiential knowledge of God's presence, his provision, his answer
to your prayers, his solving your problems, his intervention in your life, so that although
the enemy may be in the land and things are not going well, there is a rock-solid knowledge
that your Father God is present, contemporary, and current in your culture, life, and circumstances.
I bless you with going to the Word of God and seeing specific promises your Father has
made to you, being able to stand on those promises and savoring the joy, the security,
and the excitement that comes when your Father answers your prayers based on his specific
promises.
Gideon saw himself as a survivor in a hostile environment, but God saw him as a mighty warrior,
one who would free the entire nation from the Midianite invasion.
When Gideon accepted that identity, he began to experience peace.
I bless you, restful one, with the profound truth of knowing who you are.
I bless you with having peace based on your identity and your Father's provision, protection,
and purposes.
I bless you with embracing your identity and realizing that when God calls you to battle,
he will be there with you and for you, and your victory will lie in his hand, not in
your expertise or resources.
I bless you with knowing who you are called to be in the eyes of God.
I bless you with experiencing beyond a shadow of a doubt God's pleasure in you and who you
are and how he sees you now and tomorrow.
I bless you with the peace that comes in knowing who you are and that you are doing what your
Father wants you to do and that he is pleased with you.
I bless you with the blessing of savoring, soaking in, and rejoicing in the protection
of doing the right thing at the right time, at the right place, in the right way, because
you know your identity in your Father's house.
I bless you, I bless your spirit, with peace, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, who designed
your identity."
Well, Lord, this is a wonderful passage, I think, for us.
Wonderful.
I think the timing is perfect.
Fear of man is such an interesting topic and one that I don't care who we are, we struggle
with to some extent.
We're not all necessarily called, as Gideon may have been, in such an extreme fashion
to save an entire nation, to be appointed a judge, you know, called from that place
to be judge over all of Israel.
However, we are all called to the same wake-up call, that in some form or fashion that we're
called to liberate a nation, even if it's just ourselves or our families, in a sense,
or even the future generations, we'll call it that, from who we, as a generational line
or maybe even as the church, have become known.
Part of Gideon's problem was his own self-image.
Part of that was his own stinking thinking, and part of it was what he inherited.
He's of the smallest tribe, of the smallest family, and he's hiding.
Well, in some respects, there are aspects of each person that is in hiding.
There's a part of our identity that is obscured.
almost intentionally from you, but there's an aspect of our identity that is being
obscured to keep us. Those passages, those teachings we hear about the
terror struck into the hearts of our enemies that, oh no, he's starting or
she's starting to come in to realize who they are and there's a terror.
It's one of the reasons I so, I mean, call me a heretic, loved the Matrix was
because Neo just so resonated with me because there's an aspect of what's
happening and they said he's starting to believe.
That the more grounded he became in what is really the real thing, the less
hold this world, that world, had on him as the Matrix and as he started to believe
and come into a piece of who he was, things started to go bonkers. That's a
very spiritual term, bonkers, in the sense that that these laws, this world,
gravity, time, things didn't have a hold on him. He didn't. It's like when that
fighting scene when he was training with Morpheus and and there were canon, he
was out of breath and he was tired and he's like, why are you breathing heavy?
You know that we're just in a simulation. This isn't real. Lord, I pray that we all
have that watershed moment today, some form, even if it's just small and that
Lord, I also, I don't know who this is for, I pray that there be a certain level of
grace extended to those of us that really struggle in this place. And the
enemy always wanted to go back to the place to say, did he really say?
Well, Gideon had a full-blown, you know, angel standing in front of him. It's been
questioned by people many times in Scripture as to whether or not this is
really real. And you had Gabriel and they say, I am Gabriel. I'll stand in
the presence of God. And even with all of that, Gideon had his fleeces. But it
didn't deter him. It didn't disqualify him for who he was called to be.
There's a man that I know that has a great teaching and it's called
Gideon's Angel. He believed that there were times and places, and I'm not
quoting that this is the truth, it just resonated with me in what we're
talking about here, that there is a place where Gideon's Angel would appear. And
that in that place, whether it was just a picture for what's the anointing in the
room, there was these aspects of, just like Gideon, there is times, anointings,
where God is wanting for heaven's identity to overwrite our current
identity and to confront, you know, the lie, the stinking thinking, our
circumstances, or whatever the case may be, that for each and every person we are
in some form or fashion a Gideon.
Well, Lord, whether it's an anointing, whether there's an actual angel like
that appeared to Gideon, right this very second, Lord, by faith I speak forth, Lord,
in alignment right now for each person under the sound, the timbre, the
vibrations of my voice, to have a confrontation, to have a place of
reckoning where heaven's identity, that they are crying, they are desperately
trying to get the attention, just like all of creation is groaning for the
manifestation of the sons of God, that Lord, that there be some aspect of that
reckoning, that settling, to take place right now. Challenging thoughts, promises,
a reframing of our history to show that the collective pointed direction, the
collective escalation and preparation toward something that is greater than we
could imagine. Lord, I say this for myself, I say this for each person here, I
say this for Ashley, that God, that you would not, not only not give up on us, but
you would not let us settle, that Lord, that not one, that there's a
passage of Samuel where it said that not one of his words fell to the ground, that
Lord that there's some aspect in the finishing of our race in our life, no
matter how many or how few there is, or how many we've lived or how few we've
lived, I know everybody on this call is very young, that there be an aspect
of
that there be nothing left on the table, that if if life were a plate of food
that we would all be a part of the Clean Your Plate Club.
Lord, I'm going to take a little bit of a step in the leading here. Lord, I call
right now upon heaven, I call upon your angels, Lord, and for everyone under the
sound of my voice that feels to give permission to you, in a sense, you don't
need our permission, but in a way of saying, Lord, I yield, I open, just like
when we were saved, to hear what the Spirit is saying for who we are, that
the same angel that came to visit Gideon, we don't need that same angel, but Lord,
that there be something right now, by faith, that we can grab, that your heart,
your desire, you brought every single person into this time, not by their just
own chance meeting, but by your direction and opportunity to hear these
things, including on this day, this reading, and that in this moment is
anointed for this to happen, and that Lord, I pray for the grace to believe
that it's true, and Lord, for myself, I yield and say, Lord, your angels, all of
the mysteries of heaven, doesn't matter how this comes to be, Lord, I want my
Gideon moment. I open up that all of heaven, that you, Lord, Father, Son, Holy
Spirit, your seven Spirits of God, all the angels, anything, Lord, that is at your
disposal, all of heaven's resources, Lord. Lord, I bind every force of the enemy,
Lord, I bind up even our own stinking thinking, our own vain imaginations, Lord,
that you would speak, and that Lord, that we believe that it's true, and that we
can rest in knowing, Lord, that you want it more than we do, and that Lord, that
there be a real, like a dying away, a falling away, a shedding of a dead skin,
some aspect, if not all of it, of the fear of man, fall away, and that Lord, for some
of us that have lived more years, or some of us that have just made more mistakes
than most, I think everybody feels that way, that Lord, we not live under that
auspice of, well, that's just the way it's gonna be, or I'm on plan C, D, Q, Z, you
know, plan 226, of you, because we've blown it, that it's not, that Lord, that
Gideon was not a child. Moses was 80 when he started.
That Lord, there's some aspect today for each person that you're trying
desperately to get attention in all of creation, to respond to the
manifestations. Lord, I pray today, Lord, that right now, in this time, that there
be place of silence, and that in so many ways today, songs, birds, animals, the
clouds, whatever, in as many ways as you can be creative, as a creator God, to get
through to us who we are, and that Lord, by the grace of God, that we shift, and the
chasm be so far and wide that we cannot go back. We bless you and we love you. In Jesus' name.