Unit 7: Overcoming Fear to Enter the Promised Land

Entering God’s Promised Rest Brenda Vail

Unit 7: Overcoming Fear to Enter the Promised Land

We have been learning about the old and new covenants as God’s plan for our restoration to intimacy

with him. Relationship with God is the purpose for which we were made and the goal of every lesson in

Scripture. But there are obstacles to our restoration. We still live in a fallen world and may have

unknown strongholds that have survived for generations without our awareness. This is why we were

given the gift of the Holy Spirit, so he can reveal to us what has been hidden in secret. While it is good to

learn the basics of our faith, if we’re going to stand against that which opposes us in the spiritual realm,

we need to mature in our spiritual discernment and learn how to apply what we’ve learned. Hebrews

5:14 says, “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish

good from evil.” The enemy’s agenda is to overwhelm us with fear so that we’ll believe his lies and

submit to him. He wants our eyes fixed only on what is bad. While we need to fix our eyes on Jesus, if

the church never acknowledges the activity of the enemy, it leaves us vulnerable to huge blind spots. To

overcome our enemy, we need to be able to discern when he is working against us. Over the next

several units, we’re going to train ourselves to distinguish good from evil so we won’t be vulnerable to

deception from our enemy, but walk in the light of the true gospel of Christ.

In the next few units, I will share with you stories of secret things the Holy Spirit has revealed to me

about my life. I want to declare up front, however, that my testimony stands as a witness to the power

of the Spirit to deliver us from strongholds, not a template for your deliverance. As I share lessons I’ve

learned and tools the Holy Spirit has taught me, I do so mainly to inspire you to seek a relationship with

the Holy Spirit so you can discover his tools for you. There are some principles that are based on

precepts from Scripture that apply to all of us, so some of my tools may be effective for you, but some

instructions may be personal revelations that vary from person to person. So please accept this

disclaimer from me: I am not the Holy Spirit for you. Seek God and he will direct your path, as he has

directed mine.

God wants you and I to be overcomers. In Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus delivers promises to the churches that are specifically directed to overcomers. Jesus never said our lives would be easy, only that he wouldn’t abandon us as orphans (John 14:18). Jesus delivers us from slavery to sin, just as God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, but how we live our lives and stay in freedom depends on what we believe about God and how we respond to him in our circumstances. The story of Israel’s journey in the wilderness was recorded so that we would learn a lesson from it, and respond to God with faith instead of fear, and obedience instead of grumbling. Instead of begging God to change our situation, in this unit we’ll start asking God to change our beliefs and our ways so that we can be overcomers in every situation. In order for us to be overcomers, we need God to rewire our thinking as we engage with the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. As we examine the Scriptures, we’ll discover that the strongholds of fear and rebellion go back centuries. As wise King Solomon said, there’s nothing new under the sun. The path that God has laid out for our success is the same one he has laid out time and time again in

Scripture. According to 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for

teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be

thoroughly equipped for every good work” (NIV). God breathed his Spirit into the Scriptures so that they

would bring life to those who read them. If we want to know how to be overcomers, we need to look at

how God taught his people to be victorious in the Bible. The passages that have been collected into the

canon of Scripture are those that are inspired by God for the purpose of teaching us about himself and


training us to do what is right. If we wonder what God thinks about a particular situation, nine times out

of ten we will find a similar situation somewhere in the Bible. God inspired people to write down

particular stories from Israel’s history so that we could learn from their successes and their mistakes.

“I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All

of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on

dry ground. 2 In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. 3 All of them

ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the

spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Yet God was not pleased with most of

them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

6 “These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, 7 or

worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, ‘The people celebrated with feasting and

drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.’ 8 And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of

them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day. 9 Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of

them did and then died from snakebites. 10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were

destroyed by the angel of death. 11 These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written

down to warn us who live at the end of the age.

12 “If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. 13 The temptations in your life are no

different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more

than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure” (1

Corinthians 10:1-13).

That last verse is often quoted to encourage us that God will provide a way out of temptation. But when we read it in the context of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, we see that the way out of temptation that God has already provided is through the lessons we are supposed to learn from Israel’s past! Paul says that these things happened as examples for us, and were written down to warn us “who live at the end of the age” (v. 11). If we think we are standing strong, we need to be careful. Are we evaluating ourselves as “good Christians” based on legalistic standards, while harboring resentment and bitterness? Do we pride ourselves in our Christian works while suffering from debilitating fear and anxiety? Have we accepted lies about ourselves that have hindered us from entering God’s promised rest? The temptations and opposition we face from the enemy have been around for centuries. But some of these strongholds have remained safely hidden beneath our legalism and deceptive theologies that keep us distracted from the real issues that are wounding us and causing us to wound others. God breathes into us each day when we read our God-breathed Scriptures. He shows us how to overcome the enemy as we study the way God delivered his people from slavery and led them into battle before entering the Promised Land. God trained the people to move whenever the cloud of his presence above the Tabernacle moved (Numbers 9:15-23). When they were slaves in Egypt, they did what their taskmasters said, just as we were once slaves to our sinful nature and followed the desires of our flesh. God set his people free from bondage, but it was so they would be free to follow him to the good land he had promised their ancestor, Abraham. The same is true for those of us who have been set free from slavery to sinful desires. We are now free to follow Christ and enter his Kingdom of spiritual blessing, but we also need some retraining. The Israelites knew God is real, heard his voice, saw his mighty hand act on their behalf, and yet struggled to believe God would deliver them safely to the land he promised. Why? Because you can


deliver someone from slavery, but they have to choose to stop having a slave mindset. God can reveal his power and love to us, as he did to the Israelites, but if we don’t trust God because we cling to a cursed mindset and fear of people, we may willfully choose not to enter the good land God offers us. And God will not force us to go where we refuse to go. “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, ‘If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.’ 18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea” (Exodus 13:17-18). God knows where he’s leading us and has a good reason for it. There are battles he’ll steer us away from as a baby Christian, but then will lead us into it when we’re ready. Early in my forties, God said it was time to take on fear and learn how to overcome that stronghold. The first challenge in overcoming the stronghold of fear is to always remember that God is good and his plans are for our good. Yes, we may face some scary situations at times, like finding ourselves between Pharoah’s army and the Red Sea, but God will only lead us to the battles he knows we can overcome or that will give him an opportunity to display his might. “As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them.

They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. 11 They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no

graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of

Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, “Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been

better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”’

13 “Moses answered the people, ‘Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance

the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will

fight for you; you need only to be still.’

15 “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise

your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through

the sea on dry ground. 17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I

will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. 18 The Egyptians

will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen’” (Exodus

14:10-18).

When we are under the stronghold of fear, we react to God as though his plans are evil and we were better off serving the devil. “God, why did you tell me to take this job? I know I hated my other job and it took me away from my family, but at least I had more financial security.” When the very thing that was once an answer to prayer becomes the least bit challenging, we suddenly look back on our old, broken life and reimagine it as good because at least it was familiar. We can find security in strongholds like unforgiveness and addiction because we feel like they give us control, not realizing that they were really a form of slavery to the enemy. Deliverance from strongholds requires us to trust God and do things his way, and his ways are not our ways. Sometimes he’ll lead us away from battles, but sometimes he’ll lead us to them so we can watch God defeat our enemy. Just as Pharaoh chased after the Israelites to try to drag them back to slavery, our enemy doesn’t want to let us go. He will try to resurrect our past sins and make us believe we’re still a slave to them. He’ll remind us of every past failure, and those of our family line, in an effort to get us to believe we’ll never be free. Whether we return to a slave mindset or stay firmly planted in freedom depends on our willingness to believe in the goodness and power of God. Remember, God let the Egyptian army follow


the Israelites into the Red Sea in order to destroy them. When the enemy is on our heels, it is because God wants us close enough to see his mighty hand of deliverance! If we want to enjoy our freedom in Christ and abandon our slave mindset, we must let God renew our mind and train us to follow him. We must fix our eyes on the cloud of his presence hovering over us and learn to move wherever and whenever he moves. Sometimes God will lead us into the wilderness so we can learn to depend on him. Sometimes we will have to fight a battle to stay in our promised land because the enemy wants to hold onto any part of us that he can. But when we trust and obey God through the wilderness and learn to follow his battle plan when we encounter the enemy, our belief is activated so we can bear witness to the power of God at work in us. The Israelites faced challenges in the wilderness, like a lack of food and water. When we are faced with lack of some sort, will we grumble against God like they did and try to return to the familiarity of slavery or will we allow God to use these circumstances to activate our faith as we trust God to provide for us? Baking soda is inactive until combined with an acid, like vinegar or buttermilk. Only then will it cause dough to rise. My faith is only mental until it is confronted with emotional or physical difficulty. When my faith interacts with my challenging circumstances, a powerful testimony rises that not only bears witness to the greatness of God but to the reality of all his promises. When I began to face serious challenges – relearning how to cook using gluten free flours for my family, my husband’s unemployment, homeschooling, my mother’s dementia and death – God showed me that it wasn’t me who was being tested; God was inviting me to test his promises and find that he is faithful. The Apostle Paul understood the power of God that rises to the surface when activated by our faith in times of difficulty. “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). Sometimes, the only way to discover that God can keep us from being crushed is to be pressed on every side by troubles and rely on God’s strength. It is when we are abandoned by everyone else that we experience God’s fierce commitment to never abandon his children. Life has knocked me down time and time again, yet I have not been destroyed. Why? Because it is when I am on the ground that I am most likely to look up and call on God; only then do l I discover his power to rescue or sustain me through every battle. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28, NIV). Reread that verse carefully. Is Paul saying that everything bad that happens to us is somehow from God, just because God worked in that situation for good? No! No! No! Evil is from the devil, and in this world we will encounter brushes with evil and the devil’s works. When that happens, God has a plan for us to be overcomers so he can still display his goodness in spite of the devil’s attempts to sabotage God’s good plans. God does not inflict suffering just so we’ll grow in our faith. The devil afflicts us. God’s blessing on our lives as his children ensures that whatever the devil intended for evil can be overcome by the goodness of God. If we don’t keep the basic principle that God is good and the devil is responsible for evil straight in our head, then we may unknowingly submit to evil because we think our suffering comes from God. Discipline comes from God, so God may allow his rebellious child to be handed over to his enemy, but only for the purpose of producing repentance so the child will decide to come home and be restored. If you are not in rebellion, then it is not God’s will for you to submit to affliction by the enemy. Jesus gives permission to those under his authority to take authority over the devil and his works.


God did not intend for the Israelites to spend forty years in the wilderness. Their fear, unbelief, and refusal to go into battle is what kept them out of the Promised Land. When we harbor fear, unbelief, or rebellion, we open ourselves up to the enemy’s influence and work against the good that God is wanting to produce in our lives. Jesus promised that we would face trials in this world, but then instructed us to take heart because he has overcome the world. In this unit, we will learn from Israel’s mistakes and discover how to “take heart” so we can overcome them by the power of the Holy Spirit in us. The consequences of Israel’s fear and rebellion led to delayed fulfillment of God’s promises and eventual captivity by their enemies. But while they were in the wilderness, God fed them with manna from heaven every day, kept their shoes from wearing out, and even gave them water from a rock. God is good all the time. If we are going to overcome a stronghold of fear, we must understand this foundational truth: God is a good Father with good plans for his children; the devil wants us in slavery to strongholds. We need God to open our eyes to see that slavery is not where we want to be anymore, otherwise we’ll be like the rebellious Israelites who kept longing to return to Egypt every time they faced a challenge. Let me tell you what the stronghold of fear does:

It convinces us that anything bad that ever happened will continually repeat itself. (If I lost my job once, I’ll never be able to hold onto one.)

It paralyzes us when we should move forward. (I don’t know how everything will turn out if change happens, so I’ll just stay here, even though I’m miserable.)

It robs us of sleep and peace with an endless loop of what ifs. (What if I don’t get the promotion and can’t save money for college and my kids go into student loan debt and have to move back home to save money? Sure, my kid is only four, but what if!)

Fear turns us into manipulative, controlling people. (My kids will never change their behavior unless I point out their flaws and fix them myself. It’s up to me to make them perfect.)

Fear makes us do things we know we shouldn’t do. (I know I should let my kids experience consequences, but I’m afraid they can’t handle the consequences or will turn against me if I do.)

Fear makes us do irrational things. (Maybe if I never go to the doctor, I won’t find out I have cancer.)

Fear makes us do unloving things. (Homeless people scare me, so I will avoid them at all costs.)

Fear causes us to make bad decisions. (I know I’ll have to pay for that item with a credit card because I don’t have money, but if I don’t get it at the current price I won’t be able to afford it.)

The lie of fear is that what we fear is rational and whatever God says isn’t. Our fears are usually irrational in some way, but the enemy tempts us to believe that trusting God is irrational because God is unseen. However, if what we are seeing in the natural at any given moment is perceived through a lens of fear, negative qualities are exaggerated, transient circumstances feel permanent, and past successes seem irrelevant. Fear is not an emotion we have no choice but to feel, it’s a response that’s usually been conditioned. This is why God repeatedly says in the Bible, “Do not fear.” Babies don’t respond in fear to hot stoves, which is why we condition them to fear them. Some conditioning is good for our protection, but if we’ve been conditioned by the enemy to fear everything, we will be taken captive by fear and become a slave to it. When we fear, we are responding to our circumstances in a way that opens us to lies of the enemy. When we respond in faith, God’s truth informs our emotions instead. I might suddenly feel the emotion of fear when confronted by an animal in the wilderness because God gave me a sensation to alert my body to fight or run. However, most of us aren’t dealing with rational fears like wild animals in the


jungle, but irrational fears like being afraid of animals at the zoo. The difference between the two is that one predator is loose and able to devour us, while the other is locked up in a cage. In order to overcome the stronghold of fear we have to understand that God is the zookeeper and he’s got everything we fear in a cage! He holds the key to our peace and it’s called trust. We need to not only trust that God can keep us from predators, but that if he allows one to come close, he’s still our defender. Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (NIV). If we don’t want to return to slavery to fear, we have to learn to trust that the unseen cage bars that God puts as a boundary of protection between us and the thing we fear are more powerful than the thing we fear. That’s why we started in unit 1 with the affirmation that God has all power and authority, is good, and is working for our good. Yes, there are scary things in the world, but as we trust in God we will overflow with hope and be filled with joy and peace. The new covenant gift of God’s peace is what guards our hearts and minds, and keeps us from doing irrational things out of a spirit of fear. If we feel compelled to do irrational things against our will or endure constant mental torment from worry, we are under a stronghold of fear. The first step in overcoming it is to recognize that compulsion and mental torment are signs we’ve wandered into enemy territory. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment” (2 Timothy 1:7, CSB). God’s Spirit in us will give us power, love, and sound judgment so we don’t do regrettable things out of fear. When we are slaves to fear we get caught in a loop of worry, acting on fears, feeling regret when we do, then worrying about what we did out of worry. The only way out of the trap of mental torment is to nurture our relationship with the Spirit of Truth who will give us God’s perspective on our situation and affirm his power to keep us from stumbling. When the Holy Spirit challenges our perspective and prompts us to react in faith, we have a choice to believe God or return to slavery. Believing God over what we think we are seeing is not necessarily easy, but neither is being a slave to fear! (If you’ve already forgotten, please reread the bullet points above.) In this unit we are going to focus on fear-based strongholds because they are something all of us can get pulled into if we’re not actively holding our fears up against the knowledge of God and inviting the Holy Spirit to speak truth. The stronghold of fear reached its peak in my life when I put my homeschooled son back in public school

his freshman year in high school. He had struggled with what I perceived as learning disabilities as a

child, and I was overwhelmed by fear that he would not survive high school. As I was wrestling with fear

and fighting the urge to overwhelm my son with criticism, the Holy Spirit whispered something

completely ludicrous to me. He said, “It’s not real. The things you see and fear are not actually real.”

What? Don’t tell me they’re not real – I witnessed my son’s struggle with writing and paying attention

every day for six-and-a-half years of homeschooling! And yet, God was challenging me to believe that his

power at work in my son was greater than the temporary weaknesses I had observed. For three weeks I

wrestled through a crisis of unbelief until the day before school started. I had to acknowledge that

either I believe that God is sovereign over everything – including my children – or I don’t. Either I believe

God’s promise that he will finish the good work he started in us or I don’t. If faith is being confident of

what I don’t see, and God is asking me to trust in something that goes against what I see, then if I have

faith in God I have to be willing to believe that all things are possible.

Three years later, I bear witness to the truth that my son’s writing difficulty has not hindered him in

school or from doing what God has created him to do. In fact, even though his handwriting isn’t

beautiful, the content of what he writes is. English is one of his best subjects! All the fears that had kept


me up at night were either based on old information – things from the past that God knew wouldn’t be

an issue in the future – or my own desire for perfection that blinded me to what was good. When we

cling to our narrow definition of success, we limit our capacity to see how God is working outside of the

box we’ve made for him. God knows where he’s taking us, but fear limits our focus to the past and our

present struggles. Unbelief that God could do something new or better in the future stems from

unbelief that God is greater than our imagination. Just because we can’t imagine God fixing something

that is broken, doesn’t mean he can’t or won’t. And sometimes what we’ve labeled as broken was never

actually broken at all. In this unit, we’ll discover how our words can bring about self-fulfilling prophecies.

What we believe and speak influences not only our life, but generations to come.

Questions for Reflection:

1. Review the bullet list again. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “rarely scared” and 10 being “constant

fear and mental torment,” how would you rank yourself? Do you think there is an acceptable amount of

fear for a Christian, or does God want his children to be free from all fear? (Let me warn you that you

give the enemy permission to afflict you with fear to whatever degree you’ve accepted it as normal.)

Heavenly Father, you are so good to us. All your works are perfect. Even in our weaknesses and rebellion,

you are gracious and working to restore us. Open our eyes to see the puppet master who is pulling the

strings of our fear, trying to bend us to his will. Expose his wicked ways, and lead us from darkness to

light. You, Jesus, are light. May your Kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Deliver us from evil and lead us in safe paths to your promised land of peace, joy, and rest in your love. In

Jesus’ name I pray, amen.

Day 2 When the Israelites left Egypt, God provided his people with wealth from the Egyptians. “The LORD

caused the Egyptians to look favorably on the Israelites, and they gave the Israelites whatever they asked

for. So they stripped the Egyptians of their wealth! (Exodus 12:36). One month after being miraculously

delivered from slavery in Egypt, and loaded up with plunder, they arrived at the wilderness of Sin. At this

point, the provisions they had brought with them Egypt from had run out. So what did they do?

Complain. “’If only the LORD had killed us back in Egypt,’ they moaned. ‘There we sat around pots filled

with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve

us all to death’” (Exodus 16:3).

In the last chapter, we heard the Israelites complain that God shouldn’t have delivered them from their

slavery because they were better off serving the Egyptians. They didn’t believe that a God who rescued

them once could rescue them again. Now, after God had given them wealth from the Egyptians just one

month earlier, they’re complaining that God must have brought them into the wilderness to starve. They

have been delivered from slavery, but still have a slave mindset. They are convinced that their new

master, this unknown God, must be just as evil as their masters in Egypt. But they were at least familiar

with Egypt. It’s easy to judge the Israelites, but how many times have we done the same thing? God

provided the right job at just the right time, but then a few years down the road when something

happens that forces us to change jobs, we panic that God has abandoned us in the wilderness to die.

Fear causes us to suffer from long-term memory loss! But God is gracious to us, just as he was to the

Israelites.


“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Look, I’m going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the

people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see

whether or not they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they will gather food, and when they

prepare it, there will be twice as much as usual’” (Exodus 16:4-5).

When the people cried out with their need, even though they were in unbelief that God would help

them, he heard their cries and met their need. A good Father meets the needs of his children – even the

grumbling ones. Later, we’ll see that he disciplines them for grumbling, but he does not withhold

provision. However, he uses his provision to test them. Will they take just what they need or hoard extra

out of fear? Will they trust that the extra they gather on sixth day will last through the seventh? What

would you do?

13 “That evening vast numbers of quail flew in and covered the camp. And the next morning the area

around the camp was wet with dew. 14 When the dew evaporated, a flaky substance as fine as frost

blanketed the ground. 15 The Israelites were puzzled when they saw it. ‘What is it?’ they asked each other.

They had no idea what it was. And Moses told them, ‘It is the food the LORD has given you to eat. 16 These

are the LORD’s instructions: Each household should gather as much as it needs. Pick up two quarts for

each person in your tent.’

17 “So the people of Israel did as they were told. Some gathered a lot, some only a little. 18 But when they

measured it out, everyone had just enough. Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those

who gathered only a little had enough. Each family had just what it needed. 19 Then Moses told them, ‘Do

not keep any of it until morning.’ 20 But some of them didn’t listen and kept some of it until morning. But

by then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell. Moses was very angry with them” (Exodus 16:13-

20).

They just couldn’t help themselves, could they! Jesus warned, “No one can serve two masters. For you

will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God

and be enslaved to money” (Matthew 6:24). The Israelites had come out of slavery, but they were still

slaves to money. We tend to think of rich people as being slaves to money, but it also happens when

you’ve struggled to scrape by your whole life and were raised in an atmosphere of scarcity. This can

produce a stronghold of scarcity within us, so that even during times of abundance, we hoard. Even

when God has promised that he will meet all our needs and proves himself faithful, as long as we are

enslaved to money we devote our energies to accumulating it and won’t trust God as our master.

“‘This is what the LORD commanded: Tomorrow will be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath day set

apart for the LORD. So bake or boil as much as you want today, and set aside what is left for tomorrow.’ 24 So they put some aside until morning, just as Moses had commanded. And in the morning the leftover

food was wholesome and good, without maggots or odor. 25 Moses said, ‘Eat this food today, for today is

a Sabbath day dedicated to the LORD. There will be no food on the ground today. 26 You may gather the

food for six days, but the seventh day is the Sabbath. There will be no food on the ground that day.’ 27 Some of the people went out anyway on the seventh day, but they found no food. 28 The LORD asked

Moses, ‘How long will these people refuse to obey my commands and instructions? 29 They must realize

that the Sabbath is the LORD’s gift to you. That is why he gives you a two-day supply on the sixth day, so

there will be enough for two days. On the Sabbath day you must each stay in your place. Do not go out to

pick up food on the seventh day’” (Exodus 16:23-29).


The Stronghold of Scarcity The purpose of God’s promise of provision is so that we can rest in him and be filled with joy. But fear of

scarcity drives us to stockpile and robs us of both rest and enjoyment of God. I must confess, up until

recently, I would have been one of the ones who went back out on the seventh day and tried to collect

extra bread. The stronghold of fear is the mother stronghold that gives birth to baby strongholds, and

one of those baby strongholds is scarcity. When you are under this stronghold, you feel compelled to

gather more and more. Even now, I have two pantries and a garage freezer that is completely packed

with food.

The stronghold of scarcity often begins with some feeling of lack in childhood. I never went hungry, but I

remember that by the end of the month our cupboards were pretty much bare. There were no after

school snacks, unless I wanted saltine crackers, and we had very little variety. My parents were public

school teachers during my elementary years, and my dad was either unemployed or underemployed

during my middle school years. So money was always tight growing up.

Growing up in a family with a tight budget doesn’t automatically lead to a stronghold of scarcity. What

launched me into it was the combination of my husband losing his job during the recession and our

family being on an expensive gluten free diet. When we started the gluten free diet in 2009, it was still a

new thing. Our specialty food was expensive, hard to find, and often didn’t taste good, so trying new

products was risky. In an effort to be a good steward of our savings during the 18-month period my

husband was unemployed, I did my best to stock up on sale items. If I saw a food item on sale, I

gathered my “manna” and stored it up. The problem was that I couldn’t allow my family to eat it,

because then it would be gone. I would set out a box of gluten free crackers for my family to eat, but

then snatch it away when it was close to being gone because something told me it would be bad if the

box was empty. (Can you guess who the “something” was?) Inevitably, the last serving of every box

went bad before it could be eaten, just like the moldy manna the Israelites hoarded.

The difference between a tight budget and a stronghold of scarcity is that when you’re under a fear-

based stronghold you do irrational things. People on a tight budget shop wisely and only buy what they

need, intending to use it. People under the stronghold of scarcity feel compelled to stock up when

something’s on sale, whether they have money left in the budget or not, yet they can’t use those items

because their feeling of safety is derived in having abundance. At first, I wasn’t aware of the stronghold

because I was patting myself on the back for being such a good bargain shopper. “Look at what a great

deal I got on that shirt! It’s not the best color on me, so I probably won’t wear it much, but it was such a

good deal I couldn’t pass it up!” Often, pride gets tangled up in our strongholds, which makes us blind to

their devastating consequences.

What compelled me to buy things I didn’t even need was the fear that I would never see that price

again, so I had to buy it now. Fear is pushy, and the stronghold of scarcity causes us to feel a sense of

urgency in our purchases. The stronghold of scarcity can cause people to go into debt to buy things they

don’t need, just because they’re afraid they’ll never find it on sale again. While I didn’t go into debt, I did

come home from thrift stores and dollar stores with a lot of garbage. Fear of scarcity also prevents us

from letting go of our garbage. I couldn’t clean out my garage because what if I needed that item in the

future? Fear lies to us. It wants us to believe that we need to hold onto all those decorations from the

1990s because “you never know…” (No, Brenda, no one is going to want your ugly homemade burgundy

decorations, including you.) We’ll hold onto things that could easily be replaced, should we ever need


them, because fear tells us that what we have now is all we’ll ever have. The stronghold of scarcity

makes us to ridiculous things, like wash out and reuse baggies that cost pennies. (Those of us whose

grandparents lived through the Depression probably remember our grandmothers doing this.)

I finally began to face the reality that I had a problem when my son reached middle school. He was so

skinny that you could see every rib when his shirt was off. I realized that I was still giving him the same

portion sizes I had been giving him in early elementary school, so I tried to increase his portions. It was

like an invisible wall was preventing me from doing it. I would hand him a box of cereal to munch on,

knowing that he needed to be eating more, but then snatch it away if it looked like he was eating too

much. Another clue to my being under a stronghold was that even when our financial situation

improved, my scarcity fears remained. I was stuck in a pattern and didn’t know how to get out.

When we go through times of difficulty, we have to remember who our master is. If our desire for

security is directed to things, those things will become our master. And even though we may know all

the scriptures about God’s provision and have head knowledge that God is our provider, when money is

our master we open ourselves up to a spirit of deception. This spirit will whisper lies like, “God provides

for emotional needs, not physical needs,” and “God wants you to suffer in poverty because that brings

him glory.” You know what brings God glory, according to the Apostle Paul?

“God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left

over to share with others. 9 As the Scriptures say, ‘They share freely and give generously to the poor. Their

good deeds will be remembered forever.’ 10 For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then

bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great

harvest of generosity in you. 11 Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous.

And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God. 12 So two good things will

result from this ministry of giving—the needs of the believers in Jerusalem will be met, and they will

joyfully express their thanks to God. 13 As a result of your ministry, they will give glory to God. For your

generosity to them and to all believers will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ. 14 And

they will pray for you with deep affection because of the overflowing grace God has given to you” (2

Corinthians 9:8-14).

This is not an old covenant promise, but a forever reality of who God is and how he works. Yes, God was

pleased with the widow who gave everything she had. But he is also pleased to provide resources for us

that will enable us to be generous givers. When we give generously, others are blessed, they praise God,

and God receives glory. That’s the cycle of blessing God intended for us. What interrupts that cycle,

however, is our hoarding. Remember, But Jesus says that whatever we store up for ourselves is

vulnerable to corruption (Matthew 6:19). When we are trapped in a cycle of hoarding, we can’t be the

generous givers and grateful receivers God wants us to be because we’re abiding in fear, not love. So

what do we do?

God finally confronted my unbelief that was based on the enemy’s lies the day our garage freezer

stopped working. I had gone for five years without replacing the worn-out clothes in my closet, and

because of weight loss, they didn’t even fit me anymore. I was hoping to finally get some new clothes,

but when the freezer broke, I cried out to God, “I guess you just don’t want me to have new clothes!”

Like the Israelites, I grumbled to God and blamed him for my circumstances. I remember God said that

he would test the Israelites with his abundance, to see if they would hoard or trust him to provide.

When we are under a stronghold of scarcity, we are saying to God, “I don’t trust you to provide for me


in the future. I will only believe what I can see with my own eyes in my storehouse.” crumbling under

the weight of despair in my closet, when God gently responded, “Why would you say that?” I couldn’t

come up with an answer. I had somehow accepted that financial setbacks were from God, and that he

willed me to suffer. At that moment, God challenged me to believe that he is good and wills good things

for me, including clothes that fit and look nice. God loves me, and if I’m going to remain in his love, I

must remain in belief that God’s ways are loving.

I was shocked to realize that while I had believed God kept us from starving while my husband was

unemployed, I didn’t believe that he wanted good things for us financially. Right there in my closet, God

said to me, “Will you believe that I am good, even when you don’t see good things happening?” With

tears streaming down my face, I said, “Yes, I will.” Within a month, my husband received a $10,000

raise. Two years later, the summer my mother was on hospice and I needed my husband’s support, God

provided for him to work at home on his department’s university accreditation report, instead of

teaching summer school. He earned double his normal income over the summer, enabling us to start

paying down debt. The following winter, God challenged me to believe that if he cared about the debt of

the widow in 2 Kings 4, and miraculously paid off her debt, he could take care of our remaining debt. So I

believed him, declared to my friends that God was going to pay off our second mortgage, and within

two months we found out how he would do it. Today, we have no debt except our first mortgage and

are able to be the generous givers God intended for us to be. I asked God to pay for my husband’s

doctoral program, and it’s only costing us $50/semester.

God is gracious. He is loving. He is a good Father who provides for his children. But when we refuse to

believe him, we set ourselves up for slavery to another master. We can believe only what we see and

find our security in stockpiling, or we can believe that our Father will take care of us tomorrow, just like

he did today. If we’ve endured times of poverty and scarcity, it can be difficult to take this leap of faith.

Believe me, I understand how difficult it is to let go of all the “evidence” against God that the enemy has

been waving in front of you! But when we believe what God says about himself, and declare with our

mouth that he is good, we can say by faith, “I am confident I will see the LORD’s goodness while I am here

in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13). To overcome the stronghold of scarcity, we must believe and

declare with our mouth that God is our provider yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Our sense of fairness wants to demand that all people should see the Lord’s goodness as proof that God

is good, but the promises of the Bible are for those who believe. When we believe what we haven’t yet

seen, we are blessed, according to Jesus. And once we realize we are blessed, we begin to give to others.

In this way, God demonstrates his goodness to all poor people through us! Those who give generously,

believing that God will make it up to them, will see generosity return to them. Jesus said, “Give, and you

will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more,

running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back”

(Luke 6:38). The second step in overcoming the stronghold of scarcity is acting on belief by giving

generously. As we enjoy intimacy with God and are filled with his love, it overflows as love for our

neighbors. Instead of hoarding, we can let go because God assures us of his love. When God healed my

family of gluten sensitivity, I packed up all my gluten free food and donated it to our church’s food

pantry – six large paper grocery sacks! And you know what? We still had plenty of food left.

If you just can’t believe that giving will result in God giving to you, let me ask you this question: Which of

God’s promises is untrue? Is Jesus a liar? Either God’s a liar or we’ve been listening to a liar who doesn’t


want us to believe in God’s goodness until everything in our life is perfect according to American

standards. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, God is inviting us to trust him. Trust leads to provision.

Fear leads to slavery, hoarding, debt, stinginess toward even those we love, and waste. Fear is not worth

holding onto. It only robs us of joy and peace. Take it from someone whom God has delivered from

darkness to light, believing God is always worth it. When we draw near to God, his love casts out our

fear.

The benefit of tearing down this stronghold by the power of the Holy Spirit in us is that fear is replaced

by the fruit of the Spirit. When I shop now, I have peace that I will be able to buy in the future whatever

I need in the future, instead of feeling compelled to stockpile. God has replaced bargain hunting with

contentment. Paul says that “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). I actually have

more money now because I quit reading ads and looking for bargains. I don’t feel compelled to go

shopping during sale periods because I’ve realized that I’m content with what I have. Contentment has

saved me more money than coupons ever did! Freedom from scarcity means I can now shop at one or

two grocery stores, instead of driving all over town to get the best deal on every single item. And

whenever the Spirit prompts me to give, I am filled with joy that is greater than the satisfaction of a full

cupboard. I could not do this on my own, but the Holy Spirit reminds me of God’s promises, Jesus gives

me peace that overrides fear, and the Father lovingly meets all of my needs. We make the choice to tear

down a stronghold when we believe the truth over a lie, but God helps us every step of the way.

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for

all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His

peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).

Questions for Reflection:

1. Do you struggle to believe that God is your provider? As we work through strongholds, I’ll be sharing

steps that have helped me and may be useful to you.

Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the root of your fear. If your parents were unable to provide for

you, ask Jesus to help you release forgiveness to them or anyone else who caused you to fear.

Then ask God to forgive you for your unbelief in his promises, even if it was rooted in

experience.

Present your financial needs to the Lord, and thank him in advance for meeting them. (This is

how we pray with faith!)

If prompted by the Holy Spirit, give to someone in need and ask Jesus to bless you, according to

his promise. (Praying the Scriptures empowers our prayer and activates belief.)

Memorize or write down Jesus’ promises from Matthew 6:25-33 and carry it with you when you

shop. Likewise, before you pay bills or work on the budget, pray according to Philippians 4:6-7.

Heavenly Father, I confess that I have struggled to believe in your goodness and provision. I have taken

credit for the things I have, as if they have come to me through human effort, but everything I have

comes from you. Every good and perfect gift comes from you. The thief is the one who steals, kills, and

destroys. Forgive me for listening to him and accusing you of withholding goodness from me. Help me to

choose belief in your goodness and contentment with what I have. Open my eyes to see how you have

been watching over me my whole life. Guard my heart and mind with your peace so that I will not give in

to the temptation to fear or hoard. Give me a generous heart and the resources to give generously


because you are a generous giver, and you invite me to do what you do. As I learn to trust in you, I pray

that you would fill me with your joy and peace, and may it overflow as hope in you, not hope in stuff. In

Jesus’ name I pray, amen.

Day 3 All fear is empowered by unbelief – either unbelief in God’s love for us, his power, or his goodness.

While a passing fearful thought can be harmless if we immediately challenge it by holding it up to the

truth of God, allowing every fearful thought to make its home in us will lead to devastating

consequences. The stronghold of scarcity takes root when we harbor unbelief in God’s power to provide

for us. Unbelief in God’s love for us allows a spirit of insecurity to take root. And unbelief in God’s

goodness opens us up to the mental torment of worry that pours out of our mouths as a critical spirit,

causing us to grumble against God and curse others by passing judgment. We can believe that God is

powerful and loving without believing that he is good, in the same way that someone might say their

father loves them, while acknowledging that their father’s brokenness causes his love to be expressed in

hurtful ways, instead of through goodness. When we ascribe human flaws to God, we end up with

twisted theology, and what we believe will eventually exit our mouths.

When we are under fear-based strongholds, like the stronghold of scarcity, the emotions that fester

beneath the surface often come up through our words in the form of complaints and curses. We can

curse others and curse ourselves with self-fulfilling prophecies. (“I’ll never be able to ____.”) When Jesus

was talking to his disciples about what defiles a person – making them unable to enter the Tabernacle

where God’s presence dwelled – he revealed that it’s not our outward behavior but the condition of our

heart as expressed through our words. “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this

defiles a person” (Matthew 15:18, ESV). Whatever is in our heart will eventually come out through our

words. Because we were made in the image of God who both creates and judges with his words, what

we say has power to create and condemn, which is why Jesus said we’ll be held accountable for every

careless word we’ve spoken (Matthew 12:36-37).

Complaining is Judgment Against God

“Soon the people began to complain about their hardship, and the LORD heard everything they said. Then

the LORD’s anger blazed against them, and he sent a fire to rage among them, and he destroyed some of

the people in the outskirts of the camp” (Numbers 11:1). The Lord had been with the people in the

wilderness for a year, getting the Tabernacle set up and preparing them to enter the Promised Land.

When we grow impatient, we tend to grumble, and God takes our grumbling personally because it is a

sign of our lack of trust in him. The grumblers who were consumed were on the outskirts of the camp,

the ones farthest away from the glory cloud of God’s presence. When we continually seek intimacy with

God and stay in his Tabernacle, we will not be among the grumblers!

“Then the foreign rabble who were traveling with the Israelites began to crave the good things of Egypt.

And the people of Israel also began to complain. ‘Oh, for some meat!’ they exclaimed. 5 ‘We remember

the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic

we wanted. 6 But now our appetites are gone. All we ever see is this manna!’” (Numbers 11:4-6). Israel

had picked up some foreign hitchhikers who started grumbling about all the food they had in Egypt, and

soon their grumbling spread throughout the camp. We all know the saying, “misery loves company.” If

you hang out with grumblers, you will begin to see everything from their miserable point of view.


“Moses heard all the families standing in the doorways of their tents whining, and the LORD became

extremely angry. Moses was also very aggravated” (Numbers 11:10). A little grumbling yeast worked its

way through the whole batch of dough so that “all the families” were now whining. As a parent who has

heard my kids complain, “Turkey burgers again? I’m so tired of burgers every week!” I can relate to

God’s frustration with his ungrateful kids. But his response is surprising.

“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Gather before me seventy men who are recognized as elders and leaders

of Israel. Bring them to the Tabernacle to stand there with you. 17 I will come down and talk to you there.

I will take some of the Spirit that is upon you, and I will put the Spirit upon them also. They will bear the

burden of the people along with you, so you will not have to carry it alone.’ 25 And the LORD came down in

the cloud and spoke to Moses. Then he gave the seventy elders the same Spirit that was upon Moses.

And when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied” (Numbers 11:16-17). God’s answer to our

grumbling is to increase the presence of his Spirit! We don’t know what the elders prophesied, but we

know that all prophecy is God’s truth. In order to stop grumbling, we need to stop listening to other

grumblers and listen more to the Spirit of Truth whom God has gifted to us. He will remind us of God’s

power, love, and goodness. In order to do this, we may need to consciously move our “tent” away from

some people (or online communities where complaining is the norm) and spend more time listening to

Spirit-filled people.

The other consequence of grumbling is that God gave them exactly what they wanted – to the point of

making them sick of it. “And say to the people, ‘Purify yourselves, for tomorrow you will have meat to

eat. You were whining, and the LORD heard you when you cried, “Oh, for some meat! We were better off

in Egypt!” Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will have to eat it. 19 And it won’t be for just a day or

two, or for five or ten or even twenty. 20 You will eat it for a whole month until you gag and are sick of it.

For you have rejected the LORD, who is here among you, and you have whined to him, saying, “Why did

we ever leave Egypt?”’” If you want to parent like the Father, then the next time your kids complain

about their food, try giving them what they want – pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a month! (If

you try this, please let me know how it works.) If we insist that our happiness depends on a particular

thing we want, instead of finding our joy in God’s provision, God will allow the thing we crave to cause

misery in order to lead us to repentance for our grumbling.

Grumbling overflows from discontentment in our heart, and it defiles us by separating us from our joy in

God’s provision. Praise is the highway to God’s presence, but complaining puts us on a highway to

enemy territory. Discontentment is rooted in fear that our present unpleasant circumstance will never

change, so since we feel powerless to do anything, we try to use the power of our words to feel in

control again. Because God intended for our words to carry weight and authority, our words cause

consequences for good or evil, depending on the condition of our heart when we spoke them. If Jesus is

the Vine and we’re a branch, the careless words we speak out of the overflow of fear and fear-based

emotions can act like a chainsaw for self-amputation, cutting us off from God’s peace and power. But

when we pray like the psalmist, “Satisfy me in the morning with your unfailing love,” we connect our

branch to the Vine, Jesus, who is the source of love that casts out fear. Nothing can separate us from

God’s love, but we can cut ourselves off from bearing fruit when we speak out of fear instead of love.

This is why Jesus tells us to remain in his love, so that our words will overflow from love.


Curses are Judgments Against People

“People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, 8 but no one can tame the tongue. It is

restless and evil, full of deadly poison. 9 Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it

curses those who have been made in the image of God. 10 And so blessing and cursing come pouring out

of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!” (James 3:8-10). We know from

Deuteronomy that God gives us a choice between blessings and curses. God has the power to bless and

curse, and so do we. But Jesus tells us we are not to use our tongue to curse people. “If you are even

angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of

being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell”

(Matthew 5:22). What court are we brought before when we call someone an idiot? According to

Matthew 12:36-37, it’s the court of heaven. “I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day

for every idle word you speak. 37 The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.”

When we curse a person, which is to pronounce judgment upon someone, we are usurping God’s

authority. God has given us authority as his children, but we are to exercise it under his loving authority

and over that which we love. When we speak out of fear or hatred, we can knowingly or unknowingly

curse someone. If you call someone an idiot, and they believe you, it can change the trajectory of their

life and open them up to mental torment by the enemy who is using your words to accuse them. Even a

careless comment to a friend like, “I can’t believe you did that. You must be crazy!” can plant a seed of

self-doubt in someone. Proverbs 11:9 says, “With their words, the godless destroy their friends.” No one

sets out to destroy their friends, but out of a heart of fear, jealousy, insecurity, or resentment, we say

words that open us and others to mental torment. When we curse or pronounce judgment on someone

who is under our authority, like our children, our words have even more power to accomplish the

agenda of the enemy because they are likely to believe us. That’s why remaining in God’s love by

intentionally nurturing our relationship with Christ is so important, so that curses won’t flow from our

mouth.

I shared earlier about how my son seemed to struggle with learning issues as a child. God repeatedly

warned me not to put a label on him regarding any of those issues, because once I did I empowered

them with my words to manifest. When we speak, we often believe we’re telling it like it is. But more

often, we’re speaking something temporary into permanence by empowering it through our words. The

more we speak something, the more we’ll believe it. And the more we believe something, the more

we’ll look for evidence to support what we believe. The enemy is more than happy to supply us with all

the evidence we seek because when we curse, we’re partnering with the devil and empowering a

demonic filter to skew our vision. Jesus said, “For they look, but they don’t really see. They hear, but they

don’t really listen or understand” (Matthew 13:13).

I believed my son had Dysgraphia because I observed a struggle with writing, so I spoke a disability into

being and reinforced it with my words and actions. When the Holy Spirit began to teach me about word

curses, he instructed me to revoke that curse and ask the blood of Jesus to blot out my words from the

books in heaven. As I prayed for the effects of my words to be reversed by the power of the name of

Jesus, my son’s “disability” ceased. His handwriting is still not what I would call neat, but he has no

problem writing. Interestingly, I have also noticed that I can bring back the curse and see its effects any

time I say something about him or his writing out of fear or a critical spirit. What I speak over my

children, I see, for better or worse. I don’t know about you, but this literally scares the hell out of me, in


that it drives me to hook up my branch to the Vine because branches that are not connected to love are

cut off and tossed into the fire (John 15:6).

Generational Curses Increase Acceptance of Lies

We can curse others and invite them upon ourselves as self-fulfilling prophecies when we say things like,

“I will never figure this out. I can’t help it. I’m hopeless.” We have authority from God to judge

situations, but Jesus warns us not to judge people (unless we are appointed as a judge, in which case we

need to pray for discernment). When we speak judgment over ourselves, we’re often parroting what

we’ve heard someone else say without even thinking. The next time you start to speak a curse over

yourself, stop and ask the Holy Spirit where that belief is coming from. This may seem unnecessary, but

it’s actually the first step in recognizing curses others may have spoken over you.

We can find ourselves under a word curse if someone in authority pronounced judgment upon us. Word

curses can become the root of fear-based strongholds because we fear that what someone has said

about us is truth. The enemy uses curses to go after our identity, hoping he can get us to believe that we

are defined by our actions. If we behaved in a particular manner, and someone we admired or who was

in authority labeled us as though that behavior was a permanent reflection of our identity, we may

believe that we are now defined by that action. If I do well on a test, and a teacher says I’m smart, I may

believe that “smart” is my identity. If I do poorly on a test, and a teacher remarks that I’m just not cut

out for that subject, I will likely accept that as being truth and give up. But how many of us did poorly in

a particular subject in grade school, only to find out that we excelled in it later in life?

I believed and accepted the label, “not coordinated,” early in my life because as a child I did not do well

in sports. But then I discovered dance through cheerleading in high school, and found out that I am

coordinated in a different way. When I stopped believing the lie that I’m completely uncoordinated, I

challenged that false identity by also trying other activities and discovering I was good enough to enjoy

playing several leisure sports. If we can be deceived into believing we are weak where God made us

strong, we can live our whole life based on a lie. This is why the enemy often targets us in the areas he

recognizes as strengths.

If the devil can get us to believe a lie about ourselves, we will never enter our promised land of

fruitfulness. This is why the enemy wanted me to believe and accept the lie as a child that no one would

ever like me, because if I did, I would never write this book and expose his ugly ways. Any label or curse

that we accept and believe can undermine our identity, which is why God gives us the gift of his Spirit to

lead us into truth. The most powerful – and, honestly, fun – part of my journey with the Holy Spirit has

been discovering my true identity in Christ as curses I’ve believed about myself have been uprooted.

Some curses can run deep because they are generational curses, meaning that they’ve operated in

families for generations, which makes it hard for us to dispute the lies on which they were originally

based because they’ve become normalized. Have you ever wondered why some families all seem to

struggle with the same thing from generation to generation? Some families have a history of alcoholism,

abuse, marital unfaithfulness, or abandonment. Others experience a vicious cycle of debt or job failure

that keeps repeating itself in each generation. What makes a generational stronghold so hard to break is

that you’ve seen your parents and grandparents struggle with it, which produces two responses:

normalization and hopelessness.


When a lie or habit becomes normalized because it has been embraced by our family members for

generations, our brain tells us that this is the way it is for everyone, which keeps us from trying to

overcome it. We rationalize that this is just the way life is. Nothing will ever change. We can’t change.

We’ve accepted a slave mindset. We may try to break away from a generational stronghold through

determination, only to embrace an opposite stronghold. The child of an overly controlling parent may

intentionally become an overly permissive parent who justifies her failure to properly discipline her

children by saying, “At least I’m not like my mother.” Generational strongholds are rarely successfully

overcome through grit alone without some other trap being laid.

For years, I had no idea that the self-condemning thoughts in my head were wrong because they were

normal. They had been there for as long as I could remember because I was cursed as being ugly and

unlikable by classmates in elementary school. The younger we are when a curse is spoken over us, the

easier it is for the enemy to plant a lie in our broken heart that will grow unnoticed. We may forget how

the lie got planted, but it becomes part of our belief system. As an adult, we may have no idea why we

believe a certain thing about ourselves, but something inside us says it’s true. My mother confided to

me that she was also cursed to feel ugly and unliked when she was younger, so she did what any loving

mother would do, which is to have empathy for me and tell me she understood what I was going

through. She loved me the best way she could under a stronghold of insecurity, but couldn’t help me

overcome it. So I believed that insecurity was normal, and accepted the daily mental torment of fear

that people were judging me. For thirty years, I didn’t know it was possible to be around people without

tormenting thoughts like, “She doesn’t like you. You should just leave. No one hear wants to hear what

you have to say.” (One clue to mental torment that’s coming from the enemy who is oppressing us,

instead of our own thoughts, is “you” messages instead of “I” phrases.)

Thankfully, my husband began to refute the insecure thoughts and observations I voiced to him, which

prompted me to finally start questioning my perceptions around people. But when a person believes a

lie, and everyone around them also believes it, who will refute it? If your mom or dad felt cursed in

some way, then see you struggling in that same area, they are likely to say, “Sorry, kid, you get that from

me.” And just like that, we accept an identity that is permanent because “I’m just like Mom, so if Mom

couldn’t change, I can’t either.” Mom struggled, so I’m condemned to struggle. Dad was a slave to ____

(drinking, gambling, pornography, etc.), so I’m a slave. But God entered into a covenant relationship

with us in order to deliver us from slavery!

Jesus died to set us free from every curse that was ever spoken over us, but we have to stop believing

we are cursed. Every time we say, “I’ll never be able to change _____, it’s just the way life is for me,” we

agree with a curse over ourselves instead of agreeing with Jesus that “everything is possible for one who

believes” (Mark 9:23). When Jesus hung on the cross, he took every curse upon himself. “Christ has

rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself

the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a

tree’” (Galatians 3:13). If Christ took our curses upon himself, what curse from the mouth of a man can

have power over us? Just because your father was a slave to something like his father before him

doesn’t mean you are doomed to a life of slavery because God has set you free!

According to Genesis, all living things were created to produce offspring after their own kind. God

purposely designed us to reproduce children who are like us, in spite of the fact that not everything we

pass down is good. Have you ever wondered why? You are not cursed to be like your parents in their


weakness. You are blessed to have parents who understand the challenges you face, just as my mom

offered me empathy. As you overcome the temptations that run deep through your family line, you are

perfectly positioned to turn around and offer your struggling family a helping hand. By God’s design, you

are also perfectly positioned to help your children battle their demons, because you’ve gone before

them and learned how. I am teaching my kids how to overcome generational strongholds in the same

way God taught me, thus reversing generational curses. We are not doomed to repeat the past when we

have developed a relationship with the Holy Spirit, who helps us learn from it and overcome

generational strongholds. The only fears and curses we have to live with are the ones we accept as

normal. So when the Holy Spirit begins to hint that something you’ve believed about yourself is untrue,

rejoice and cooperate with him! Jesus is trying to set you free and bring you into the Promised Land!

Overcoming generational strongholds teaches us humility as parents, and should equip us with empathy

for our children’s struggles. When my children struggle with the same things I struggled with at their

age, it forces me to deal with issues I’ve tried to lock away in the past. As those old issues resurface in

my children, I realize that I can’t help my kids overcome them until God has shown me how to overcome

my strongholds. (It’s the airplane oxygen mask principle.) Seeing a generational stronghold emerge

shouldn’t drive us to fear, but drive us to our knees, asking God to help us take the plank out of our own

eye so we can help our children. If we don’t yield to the Holy Spirit and invite him to help us overcome

generational strongholds, we can end up speaking our fears over our children, inviting a stronghold to

continue in them. We may speak a fear/curse like, “If you don’t stop doing that, you’ll never have any

friends.” Our child then becomes overly self-conscious, launching him into a stronghold of insecurity

that prevents him from making friends. Later he says to himself, “Mom was right. I’ll never have any

friends.”

The tongue of man has power to bless and curse, which is why we need to remain in Jesus and invite his

words to remain in us. As we invite the Holy Spirit to reveal any lies we’ve believed about ourselves,

God’ truth shatters the power of curses. His blood can blot out the curses we’ve spoken, if we ask him to

apply it to our sin. And his power can overturn what the enemy intended for our destruction. Curses

cause us to live in fear, but as we draw near to God and let his love wash away our fear, curses lose their

power over us. The lies I believed about myself caused me to believe I was cursed in my relationships

with people, which led me to fear people. This was the enemy’s agenda, to hinder me from ministry out

of fear. But when I discovered how much God loves me unconditionally, and began to really love people

from the love God poured into me, I no longer feared them or needed their approval. I was finally free

to love without needing anything in return because God’s love for me was enough to satisfy my need for

acceptance. This is your and my inheritance in Christ Jesus. It’s time we start enjoying our Promised

Land and tell the enemy to get out!

Questions for Reflection: 1. Are there any curses have you accepted about yourself because someone spoke them over you as a judgment that might be keeping you from being all God created you to be? It doesn’t have to be bad, necessarily, just something that undermines your true identity. Take time to consider beliefs or curses you’ve observed in your family line, as well. (I accepted shyness as a label/curse because I was timid as a child, but my true identity is bold. There’s nothing wrong with being shy, unless you were created to be bold!) If the Holy Spirit reveals a curse that is in effect:

Ask the Counselor (Holy Spirit) to show you when the lie/curse was planted. Allow yourself to feel any emotion connected to it, and ask Jesus to heal your wounded heart.


Then ask Jesus to help you release forgiveness to the person(s) who spoke the curse. (You may need to go back several generations and forgive whoever it was who first agreed with a generational curse.) If you feel like you cursed yourself by speaking negatively about yourself, release forgiveness to yourself.

Ask Jesus to fill you with his love and peace to guard your heart and mind from this curse. Wait on the Lord until you physically feel peace. (What helps me is to take deep breaths and breathe in God’s peace, while exhaling fear.) The supernatural peace of Jesus makes knots in our stomach disappear and our body relax.

Ask the Holy Spirit to show you Scriptures that refute any lies you’ve believed about yourself. Commit these to memory or display them in prominent places while your mind is in the process of being rewired (Romans 12:2). This can take time, so if you relapse, forgive yourself and move on.

It’s important to break agreement with a curse, which means being mindful of how you speak about yourself. (If your mom said you’ll always struggle with your weight because she did, and you talk about yourself as though it’s out of your control, you’re agreeing with the curse and empowering it to stay.)

If you catch yourself agreeing with a curse, rephrase it with faith. (“I can’t do that…without God’s help. I’ll never make it…unless God intervenes. I can’t live without that…on my own strength, but with God all things are possible!”)

2. If the Holy Spirit convicts you of any curses you’ve spoken over someone else, the following steps have proved helpful for me:

Ask the Counselor to reveal the emotion that was in your heart when you said it, because we speak out of the overflow of our heart. Feel the emotion, and ask Jesus to heal any wound attached to it.

If the curse was spoken out of fear, which is belief in a lie, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the lie on which your fear was based. He often does this by revealing truth, so ask him to show you the truth from God’s Word that tears down the lie.

Ask God to forgive you for cursing, and receive his forgiveness and peace.

Renounce the curse and apply the blood of Jesus to blot out your words. Ask God to break off any effects of your curse.

If you have a relationship with the person you’ve cursed, ask them to forgive you, then speak blessing over them.

Lord Jesus, I bless your name and thank you for blessing me. Forgive me for the careless words I’ve

spoken and complaints I’ve made against you. Forgive me for cursing people you love and died for. I

confess that fear has driven me to say and do things I regret, so I need your perfect love to drive out my

fear. Set me free from bondage to lies and curses I’ve believed about myself by your Spirit of Truth. Thank

you for giving me the Counselor to lead me back to the promised land of abundant joy. In you, alone, I

find my true identity and worth. Heal the wounds of my heart on which lies were planted. Uproot the lies

with belief in your power, love, and goodness to me. If God is for me, who can be against me? If nothing

can separate me from your love, what power does a person’s opinion have over me? You, alone, are God,

so don’t let me bow down and surrender my identity to a false god or to fear. Fill me with your peace,

Jesus, as I trust in you. You are my peace. You are my joy. And I am yours. I love you.


Day 4 Imagine that you’re driving on the freeway and come across a sign advertising a haunted house

attraction. Even though you have somewhere to be, the fearful sensation you get in that setting sends a

little jolt of adrenaline that makes you feel alive, so you take the detour, promising yourself that it will

be short. The haunted house is fun for a while, but then you realize that you’ve missed the deadline to

arrive where you’re supposed to be. Oh well, you say, I can go tomorrow. However, the next day you see

two exit signs for two more haunted house attractions. Feeling bored with driving, you get off the

freeway and visit them. Each subsequent day, you get back on the freeway, intending to get to your

destination, but every time you see an exit sign you feel compelled to take it and check it out. Suddenly,

you realize that you’re not going to make it to your destination on time, so you decide to just settle in

one of the towns containing the biggest attraction. Oh well, you console yourself, where I was going was

too far away anyway. I probably would have never made it.

The stronghold of fear keeps us from entering God’s promised rest because whenever we give in to

fearful thoughts and allow them to take root, we exit the freeway of God’s peace and enter into enemy

territory. The enemy will try to use any passing thought or circumstance as a detour sign to lure you into

exiting God’s freeway. Just because we see the sign – the bee that flew in our car window, the financial

mistake we discover while balancing our checkbook, the cancer diagnosis – it doesn’t mean we have to

take a detour to fear. We don’t have to take every fearful thought in and let it take up residence in us.

Fear may make us feel alive, which is why scary movies and thrill rides can be appealing, but when we

label fear as good or let our mind wander into worry because we’re bored, we invite fear to manifest as

strongholds.

If worrying satisfies a desire to put off work by engaging our imagination through fear, we’ll find it

harder and harder to get anything done. Pretty soon, worrying becomes a way of life and we assume

there’s no other way to live than with worry as our constant companion. When we’ve decided to stay in

the town of worry, the town will eventually grow in an effort to block the onramp back to peace. Worry

over health leads to worry over finances, kids, job security, and the future. Eventually, we make our

home in a house of mirrors where all we can see is our self and our circumstances. Jesus said, “So don’t

worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ 32 These

things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs”

(Matthew 6:31-36). Unbelievers worry because they don’t know their heavenly Father, but those of us

who do know him and enjoy intimacy with him will not worry.

Fear Detours Us from the Promised Land

The Israelites should have recognized God’s ability to provide for them when he told them it was time to

enter the Promised Land, but they allowed fear to get in the way of their obedience to God. When we

do this, God still loves us and is committed to his covenant to never leave us, but there will be

consequences. When the spies Moses sent into the Promised Land returned with a report of a bountiful

country…that was currently populated by intimidating people, the prospects of a good land that their

good God said would be delivered into their hands through battle were outweighed by their fear of

people.

Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. 2 Their voices rose in a great

chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron. ‘If only we had died in Egypt, or even here in the wilderness!’

they complained. 3 ‘Why is the LORD taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and


our little ones will be carried off as plunder! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?’ 4 Then they

plotted among themselves, ‘Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt!’” (Numbers 14:1-4). Moses

interceded on behalf of the people, just as Jesus now intercedes on our behalf when we disobey out of

fear. But disobedience is still costly.

“You said your children would be carried off as plunder. Well, I will bring them safely into the land, and

they will enjoy what you have despised. 32 But as for you, you will drop dead in this wilderness. 33 And your

children will be like shepherds, wandering in the wilderness for forty years. In this way, they will pay for

your faithlessness, until the last of you lies dead in the wilderness. 34 Because your men explored the land

for forty days, you must wander in the wilderness for forty years—a year for each day, suffering the

consequences of your sins” (Numbers 14:31-34).

God would not let his children return to slavery, but their rebellion out of fear caused them to remain in

the wilderness instead of moving forward to the good land God had for them. They used fear for their

children as an excuse to disobey God, but their disobedience would also delay the goodness God had

planned for their children. Even love for our children can be corrupted by fear, causing us to do things

that ultimately harm them. I nearly missed writing this study because the enemy had convinced me that

it would harm my children if I stopped focusing all my attention on them and focused on God. I had to

fast and pray – separating myself from my family – for two days in order to break this stronghold. When

fear is attached to something or someone we love because we fear losing them, it can prevent us from

entering our promised land where we are fruitful. God loves us and will provide for our needs –

including the needs of our loved ones. We can trust him. If we don’t, we will miss out on the good he has

planned for us, and so will our kids. Fear robs us of God’s good gifts to us.

Jesus said we would only have peace if we remain in him. This implies that we can enter and exit his

peace by our own free will. Every day, we make conscious and subconscious choices to either remain on

the freeway of God’s love and peace or exit his peace through fear or pride. God doesn’t stop loving us

when we take a detour, but we are leaving the straight path that keeps us aware of his love when we

enter enemy territory. We can recognize that we’ve entered enemy territory by our emotions. When I

am feeling fearful, anxious, or insecure, that’s a clue that I’ve taken an exit from God’s peace. The good

news is that we can backtrack to where we got off and get back on! When we catch ourselves feeling

fear-based emotions that aren’t connected to an obvious event, like swerving to avoid hitting a cat, we

can trace our thoughts back to when the emotion began.

Was there a particular thought that brought on that emotion? Did thinking about taking my kid to the

dentist cause me to fear the financial impact of having a cavity filled? Did seeing a picture of my friends

having fun without me cause me to fear that they don’t like me anymore, and start over-analyzing their

reactions the last few times I was with them? When we identify the “detour sign” that led us off the

highway of peace, we can ask the Holy Spirit to speak truth to our fear and get us back on. The good

news is that God is better than any GPS at getting us back on track! He will remind us of God’s promise

to provide, so we can release our financial fears. He will assure us of his love, so we can release our need

for popularity. Negative emotions, like fear, let us know we need to pause and “recalculate” our route

with the help of Holy Spirit. As we consciously draw near to God, he invites us to enjoy intimacy with

him. In the Tabernacle of our heart, he speaks truth to lies and peace to our fears. When something gets

in the way of our intimacy with God, once we submit it to Jesus, he washes it off of us so that we can

return to the love-based emotions of God’s Spirit: love, joy, and peace.


Questions for Reflection: 1. Can you think of a recent time when you suddenly felt fear, worry, insecurity or anxiety? Ask the Holy Spirit to help you return to peace. You might consider trying the steps he’s shown me:

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you trace your thoughts back to the detour sign. (This is how we take our thoughts captive, a principle from 2 Corinthians 10:5 that we’ll develop in the next unit.)

Rebuke the thought and ask the Holy Spirit to help you speak truth to any unbelief or lies attached to that thought.

Ask God to forgive you for your unbelief, and praise him for his goodness to you.

Ask Jesus to wash off any lingering negative emotion and replace it with his peace. Father God, I praise you for your goodness and love, and I recognize that fear hinders me from walking in

your love. Increase my spiritual discernment so that I can immediately recognize when I’ve left your

peace and entered the territory of fear. Empower me by your Holy Spirit to overcome fear as I take my

thoughts captive and make them obey you, Jesus. I trust that your plans for me are good. Forgive me for

the times I’ve rebelled against you out of fear. You will never leave me nor forsake me, so in you I have

peace. Teach me how to stay in your peace and not surrender to fear. You love me so much. As I am filled

with your love, fear has to leave in the name of Jesus. Fear has lost its power over me in the name of

Jesus!

Day 5 Romans 4:17 says God “calls things that are not as though they were.” If we want to fight back against

fear and learn how to overcome it, then we need to learn to talk the way God does. Speaking in belief

and according to the promises of Scripture tears down the pillars holding up the stronghold of fear. But

what absolutely shakes the foundation of our fear-based strongholds is when we actively celebrate

God’s goodness, even in the midst of fearful situations. “Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying

and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. 26 Suddenly, there was a massive

earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open, and the

chains of every prisoner fell off!” (Acts 16:25-26). When we are bound and imprisoned by fear, the

atmosphere suddenly shifts when we start singing God’s praise. Both natural and supernatural chains

break when we cultivate a life of celebration!

Why is celebration so important? When we worship God and actively celebrate his power and goodness,

it begins to undermine the power of the strongholds in our lives, whether they’re rooted in fear or pride.

(In the next unit we’ll learn how to tear down pride-based strongholds.) Fear is based on lies and threats

of the enemy. When we celebrate God’s goodness and power, we remind ourselves that if God is for us,

who can be against us? When we worship God in Spirit and in truth, fear begins to lose its power. Pride

is my desire to be worshiped and adored by people, and belief that I am my own master. Worship and

celebration of God not only puts God in his proper place, as sovereign over all, but puts me in my proper

place, as well.

One of the commands God gave the Israelites in the wilderness was to celebrate festivals to the Lord at

set times each year (Leviticus 23). God loves a good party! Each festival commemorated some aspect of

their deliverance from Egypt, celebrated God’s present provision, and pointed to either the first or

second coming of Christ. Jesus was crucified as our Passover lamb during the Festival of Unleavened

Bread, and became the first fruits of those who will rise from the dead on the Festival of First Fruits (1

Corinthians 15:20). The Holy Spirit descended during last of the spring festivals, the Festival of Weeks


(Pentecost). We are now in the long summer season on God’s Kingdom calendar, sowing seeds and

growing the church. The fall festivals take place during harvest time, and will be fulfilled when Jesus

comes again. The Festival of Trumpets points to the trumpets of Revelation and the moment Jesus

gathers up his church “at the last trumpet” (1 Corinthians 15:52). The Festival of Tabernacles points to

when Jesus will fulfill his promise to Israel and return to reign, making his home with us (Revelation

20:4). The kind of celebration God prescribes keeps us mindful of his provision and prepares us to

receive our glorious King!

God invited me to learn firsthand the power of celebration during the six weeks my mother was on

hospice before she died. Every day God had a word of comfort for me in my grief, but he also challenged

me to celebrate him and the life he’d given me. During those weeks, I threw a party for my Sunday

School class, celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary, threw a birthday party for my daughter,

celebrated Father’s Day and the 4th of July, and went on a vacation to a family reunion. Day after day,

God called me to celebrate when everyone around me would have given me permission to curl up in a

ball and cry. It wasn’t a cruel command, but an invitation to fix my eyes on God’s goodness instead of

my pain, to see the needs of people around me and keep loving them while trusting in God’s love to

sustain me. Every day I acknowledged my pain to God, and he let me cry and experience all the

emotions of sadness and loss. Celebrating God isn’t about bucking up and denying our painful

circumstances; it’s about recognizing that God is good and is working on our behalf in the midst of our

difficulties.

Celebration requires us to not only believe that God is good, but act according to that belief. It is an

expression of our faith in God, in spite of our temporary circumstances. And it has a powerful effect in

the spiritual realm. The end result of that summer journey with God was release from bondage to fear.

The battle to celebrate in the midst of suffering was, perhaps, the hardest of my life, but it had the

greatest payoff in radically changing the trajectory of my life. That summer I faced my two biggest fears:

losing my mom and letting my son return to public school. I leaned into God like I never had before by

spending much of my day reading God’s Word, praying, declaring truth to lies I’d believed, and

celebrating through singing praise and throwing parties. What I didn’t realize at the time was that God

was making me stronger and stronger so that I would be able to finally stand up to fear instead of

cowering and begging God to deliver me from it. Too often, we believe that we are standing at the

bottom of a hill, fighting an upward battle in which our enemy has the upper hand. But when I started

fighting with the tools God gave me – belief, Scripture, worship, intimacy with God, authority in Jesus’

name – I finally realized that I had the advantage all along. Sometimes we can be so consumed with

praying in fear that we don’t hear God saying, “I already delivered your enemy into your hands the day I

died on the cross.”

The day after my mom died, I felt something shift in the spiritual realm. A month later, I spoke God’s

truth over my son as I sent him to school and started calling things that are not as though they were

(Romans 4:17). A few weeks later, both my sister and I felt led by the Holy Spirit to start releasing

forgiveness to our ancestors and breaking agreement with generational curses, which included

insecurity and fear over children. A few weeks after that, I was tested by a judgment spoken over my

son, to see if I would return to a stronghold of fear and speak curses out of fear, but God helped me to

resist the enemy and stand firm. That same month, God revealed that my food sensitivities were a

stronghold of fear, and invited me to rebuke my fear of food and celebrate God’s goodness by eating

that which I’d formally feared. My food sensitivities disappeared and the mental torment that had


plagued me my whole life was suddenly gone! No more demonic hitchhikers, constantly pulling me into

fear!

In the next unit, we will explore the principles for spiritual warfare outlined in James 4:7-8, so we can

tear down every stronghold of the enemy. I can testify that when we submit to God and resist the devil,

he will flee! His weapons are lies, but our weapon is the Sword of the Sprit, which is truth. God’s

weapons defeat the enemy’s weapons every time! When we believe the promises of our God of

unfailing love, we will celebrate who he is and all he does, no matter what circumstances we face. David

said, “You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies” (Psalm 23:5). God not only gives us the

victory, he invites us to celebrate while the enemy helplessly watches. When we learn to regularly come

to the table of the Bread of the Presence, and feast on God’s goodness in any circumstance while the

devil looks on, we learn how to fight the good fight and win! This was God’s plan for us from the very

beginning, both for the Jews and for the Church.

“And this is God’s plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches

inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the same body, and both enjoy the promise of blessings

because they belong to Christ Jesus. 9 I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God,

the Creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning. 10 God’s purpose in all this was to use the

church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly

places. 11 This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:6, 9-

11).

Paul describes God’s purpose in blessing us with an inheritance of spiritual treasure: to demonstrate

God’s wisdom to the unseen rulers and authorities. How? By bringing glory to himself as he works

through weak, human vessels to overcome the spiritual forces that rule this world. Remember, Satan’s

first accusation against God, when he tempted Eve, was that the wisdom God offered us through the

knowledge of his goodness alone was inferior to the knowledge of both good and evil. When we submit

our lives to Christ, and say no to the “wisdom” offered by the devil (which consists of lies), we prove

God’s point before every unseen ruler that his wisdom and goodness is all we need for a full and

satisfied life. Colossians 2:15 tells us that Jesus “disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed

them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.” Not only was it God’s plan for Jesus to shame the

spiritual rulers and authorities operating against us, but he wants us to bring him glory by overcoming

them, as well. We bear witness to the truth of God’s goodness every time we bow down to worship and

rise up to celebrate, which deals a blow to the enemy.

Just like warfare for the Israelites required radical obedience and complete trust in God’s ability to do

what they could not, spiritual warfare is based on God’s abilities, not ours. That’s why our strategy for

warfare must begin with worship and celebration of God and his abilities. If we master those things, we

will move from victory to victory. I can think of no more fitting way to end this unit than to celebrate

God’s goodness by declaring it back to him in worship!

“O God, we have heard it with our own ears — our ancestors have told us of all you did in their day,

in days long ago: 2 You drove out the pagan nations by your power

and gave all the land to our ancestors.

You crushed their enemies

and set our ancestors free.


3 They did not conquer the land with their swords;

it was not their own strong arm that gave them victory.

It was your right hand and strong arm

and the blinding light from your face that helped them,

for you loved them. 4 You are my King and my God.

You command victories for Israel. 5 Only by your power can we push back our enemies;

only in your name can we trample our foes. 6 I do not trust in my bow;

I do not count on my sword to save me. 7 You are the one who gives us victory over our enemies;

you disgrace those who hate us. 8 O God, we give glory to you all day long

and constantly praise your name” (Psalm 44:1-8).

Documents

Unit 7: Overcoming Fear to Enter the Promised Land