Latest / One Voice Many Conversations / Crushing Strongholds # 8 - The Fear of the LORD!

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Crushing Strongholds # 8 - The Fear of the LORD! · One Voice Many Conversations

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: So excited to be here.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is Crushing Strongholds, a podcast where we turn pain into power, trauma into triumph, and just a place to become a better version of ourselves.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Mickey.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a Christian life coach and I'm thrilled to be here today.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited about this episode.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: So this is episode number eight, and it is called Fear of the Lord.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: But before I jump into that, I just want to recap last week's episode because this is a four-part series, and I kind of just want to connect the dots as we go along so we can just keep everything flowing.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: So bear with me.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So let's recap um episode seven, which we started talking about fear.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um fear is a spiritual and a psychological stronghold.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: It can trap us into being stuck or just frozen in time.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be paralyzing.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: But on the flip side of that, it can also be reactive.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that means it can cause us to act irrational, it can cause us to have outbursts, it can cause us to have tantrums, it can cause us to just not react the way that we should react.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we got to be really careful when we're handling fear and what we're doing with it and how we're letting it work and be effective in our lives.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So this stronghold um seriously can change a person so gravely if it's not understood.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: For a long time, I didn't realize the power of fear.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even for myself.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a lot of fear, a lot of fear.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I lived in terror for a long, long time in my lifetime.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is a stronghold in my life that I needed to crush because fear needs to be crushed.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: It really, really does.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: But with this episode, with episode number eight, out of all the types of fear, which I talked about in episode seven, the different types of fear, um, I want to focus in on one type of fear, and that is the fear of the Lord.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what is true fear of the Lord?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: If we think about that, what does that mean to truly fear the Lord?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: It means that it's a God-centered focus, being mindful of God and his presence.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be very mindful of his presence, okay?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And also that we would be attentive to his word, to his word, his holy word, the Bible, and his promises, which are also in the word.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this means always keeping God first in all aspects of your life, above anything, anything.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we think, but we're here on earth and we're living life with our family and our loved ones and our jobs and our whatever it is that we're doing in our life.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and sometimes we don't put God first because all of these other things are right in front of us, and it can be a struggle for some people.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was a struggle for me for a long time, so I can relate with not always having God first, but now that I have God first in my life, my life has changed dramatically.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: It really has.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's changed for the better.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's helped me to overcome obstacles that I really needed to conquer in my life and just get through.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in today.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about this.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, in the book of Proverbs, um, which is in the um Old Testament, it's after the book of Psalms and it's before Ecclesiastes, okay?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the book of Proverbs really connects fear of the Lord with wisdom and understanding, and it highlights the importance of living a righteous life.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: There is a lot of food that you could eat out of the book of Proverbs and get completely fed God's word.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you could just dive in and just get so filled with the word of God in this in just this book.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I know the whole Bible is full of God's wisdom and knowledge, but this is a book specifically um centering in on wisdom and knowledge and centers in on fear of the Lord.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really important that we do fear the Lord, okay?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So in the book of Proverbs, the word fear is mentioned 20 times.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I counted them myself, and I'm hoping that I didn't miss any out of all 31 chapters.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I went through every single one and I literally um took notes on all 20 um scriptures that talk about fear, okay?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're gonna go over some of them.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna go over all of them because that's a little bit too much to uh try to put into one podcast.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, let's get our Bibles out because I want to talk, I want to talk, but I want to share the word too, so I'm excited.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So while you're getting your Bible out, I just want to tell you that the book of Proverbs is a compilation of Israelite wisdom literature, okay, um, with King Solomon as the central um figure being King Solomon was known for his wisdom um and reign over Israel.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so he basically most of Proverbs um comes from King Solomon, okay?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not all of it, but most of it.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're kind of wondering, you know, who we're talking about here, we're talking about King Solomon.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go into chapter one.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna start right at the very beginning of the book.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's so important.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: So chapter one, and we're gonna go right to verse seven, and it says, I hope you're all there, by the way, it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I've been very foolish in my lifetime.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Very foolish.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have the fear of the Lord.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, I had fear of every single thing else out there in the world.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Everything, everything but God.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't fear God.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um, even when I got saved, because when when you when you accept Jesus as your salvation, it's such a joyous um time that you don't think about needing to fear God, okay, and and and what that really looks like and what it means.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's look at um let's uh look at nine Proverbs nine and verse 10.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and these two scriptures you know they're very similar, so I wanted to read them together, okay?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So Proverbs chapter nine, verse 10, okay.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: It says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy one is understanding.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So when we recognize his holiness and w what he um wants us to learn and know, it starts with us fearing the Lord.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that may sound a little like, oh, I don't, I don't really get what that means.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I gotta be afraid of God.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I should I be terrified of God?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: For me, um, I wasn't.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't I didn't have a sense of terror, but I had a sense of respect and obedience.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he he's an authority in our life, okay?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's definitely an authority.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So let's look at one more scripture before we dive in a little further, okay?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go to Proverbs 1427.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I found it.
• 8:13
  unknown: Okay.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 14, 27.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it says the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to turn one away from the snares of death.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: So when we fear God, he gives us life and not just not just plain old life, he gives us a fountain of life.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when I think of a fountain, I think of um something that's beautifully overflowing, like just over um over immensely flowing out, okay, of just uh great amounts of life.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we want to turn away from the snares of death.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want death, we want life.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: God God came to give us life, God created us and gave us life, okay?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So um, He wants us to fear Him so that He can give us a whole fountain of life.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to be in obedience to this word.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: This word is so super, super important that we stay in obedience to it.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to look at one more scripture real quick.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let's turn the pages again, okay?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go to um Proverbs chapter 3 and 3 seven.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: 7.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: 3-7.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I found it.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you all found it too.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all with me?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying not to go too fast, but I kind of want to touch base on some of these scriptures, and like I said, there's 20 of them, and I promise I'm not gonna download all 20 today, but um, definitely want to talk about these few.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's look at Proverbs 3:7.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: We are not to dabble in anything that's evil, we're not to dabble in things of the darkness.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: God made us the salt and the light for a reason, and it's so that we could conquer, so we could conquer the darkness, okay?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we can conquer evil.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: See, God does not want us to live in the realm of acting or being evil, he wants us to be fulfilled and flow like the fountain, the fountain of life that he wants us to have.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to be overflowing.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when we have life like that, we do, we pour out onto others, and God wants us to do that as well.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: But it says, do not be wise in your own eyes.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I think that we get to thinking and we get to thinking and we get to thinking, and we think we're kind of all of all that.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like I always tell my kids, what do you think?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're all that in a bag of chips.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I like to joke with them like that because sometimes I think I'm all that in a bag of chips.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: So um, they can relate with me when we talk about that, you know, in a joking and fun way.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: But it's the truth.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can get ahead of ourselves and we just think that we know it all, that we have it all.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: We we we've we've figured it out all on our own.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't need any help, we didn't need any guidance, okay?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't need any wisdom.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: But God says we are to fear the Lord, to fear the Lord, and to depart from evil, okay, and not to take it upon ourselves that that we are gonna do it all, that we know it all.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Our knowledge, our knowledge comes from God, all of it, every bit of it.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: This book right here is an instruction manual for our life, and God wants us to take it, and he wants us to devour it, he wants us to indulge in it, and he wants us to be fulfilled, and he also wants to give us all of his promises that are in here and his blessings, he wants to pour his blessings on us, but he's not gonna do that if he's constantly in a mode of correction, okay?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we got to think about that.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when I first learned about the fear of the Lord, I thought about God's wrath.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Did anybody else out there?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can anybody else relate to that?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because I literally thought about God's wrath and hell and a lake of fire.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but that terrified me.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like to be burnt, even I don't even like a one grease drop burn on me.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like to be burnt at all.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like it at all.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's painful.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't imagine going to hell or a lake of fire where it's constant burning, or having to stand before God and endure his wrath for all of my my behavior, for my mistakes, all of all of the stuff that I've done.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it's not that he's not forgiving.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: God is very forgiving and he loves us and he will forgive us, but when he's correcting us, we need to be corrected.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: We need to change our habits, we need to stop doing the things that we're not supposed to be doing.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And this Bible tells us what we should and should not be doing.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty basic, it's pretty simple, and it's cut and dry.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um, God is not a God of a gray area, He He is literally very, very specific.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay Um so when I when I realized that I actually deserved hell, that's when the fear of the Lord really changed in my life and in my heart because I realized that even though Jesus came and saved me, I deserve to go to hell.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: I deserve it.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and even though I've done some good things in my life, I've also done some horrible bad things in my life.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not proud of any of the things I've done as far as you know um, you know, causing grief and and sadness or hurting someone's feelings or um being disobedient.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: When we when we don't obey God, it breaks his heart.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just like your parents, okay?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of times I think that we only rely on God or call on God in a crunch, in a crunch situation, like um, like like driving down the road and your tire blows and you start to swerve all over, you start calling out to God, okay?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh God, save me, oh God, help me, oh God, help me, help me, help me.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, sometimes we only call on God um in specific circumstances, but we are supposed to be calling on God daily.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: We are supposed to be in fellowship and in relationship with God.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: So think about it like this.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want to share um kind of a story before I wrap this all up and talking about the fear of the Lord.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Think about your children.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you have children, okay?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: I have children, so um I'm gonna use them as an example.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: When you're raising your children and they're growing up, and you're teaching them to do right and wrong.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: The difference between right and wrong, you don't usually teach them to do wrong.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um I said that incorrectly.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we want them to learn.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: So as they're learning how to put their clothes on.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: If they put their shirt on inside out, we correct them and say, hey, your shirt's on inside out, you got to turn it around.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they're like, No, I don't want to do that.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want to wear my shirt right, you know, the wrong way.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we want them to wear it the right way.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to correct them, okay?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm using this, this is a really, really vague and light um example, but it's really this simple.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: I really want everyone to understand the simplicity of how it is to be obedient to Christ.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's really simple, actually.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when we tell our kids to behave, we want them to behave, or there are consequences.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, something that my mom used to tell me when I was younger, and it used to scare the tar right out of me.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I really thought it was truthful and I thought it was legal.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: So my mom used to tell me, I brought you in this world and I can take you out.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and that used to scare me a little bit.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I used to think she was serious, and I used to think, man, how is she gonna do that?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how is she gonna take me back out of this world?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you see, um, it put fear in me over my mom.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it gave me respect for her.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to disappoint her, I didn't want to be disobedient with her.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted her to be proud of me and accept me and love me.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't want to mess up, I didn't want to do those things that would cause her to want to take me right on out of this world and put me in my place, basically.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and my mom had to a time or two in my life, or 10 maybe.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: So she's had to, you know, get a hold of me and put me in my place because I wasn't behaving as a kid.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So God does the same thing with us.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: He we have consequences when it comes to being disobedience to God.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: But God loves us and he doesn't want us to have the fear um over him in a way of terror, he wants us to have fear over him so that we gain his knowledge and his wisdom and that we accept his instruction.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: So when my mom would tell me to do something, because I feared her, because I respected her, she was an authority over me.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: If she gave me instruction to go do something, I got up and went and did it.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't sass back, I didn't mouth off, I didn't stomp my feet, I did, I just got up and did it because I knew if I did any of those things, there were going to be consequences.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what God is saying.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of fear he wants us to have.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's where he wants us to learn the wisdom and the knowledge behind the fear of the Lord, not just be in terror and think about the wrath, think about hell, or just think about the lake of fire.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's way more than that.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's super important that we put our fear into the Lord and not in anything else out there.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to fear anything else out there.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: We want to keep our focus on God always.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do that, I promise you, I promise you, if you keep your focus on God, He's gonna see you through.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: He will always see you through, okay?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what struggle you're going through, what your circumstance is.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of times that a circumstance will arise in my life, and I instantly want to become terrified of it.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want to have that fear, and I'm gonna talk about that next week and the week after, um, when I talk about the fear of man and the spirit of fear and the fear of death and the fear of the unknown, even the fear of nature, okay, I'm gonna talk about those fears, but this is the most important one that we need to recognize because this is where our fear needs to be.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: We need to fear the Lord, okay?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, in closing today, I just wanted to tell you that um if you are um struggling with any strongholds, anything at all, and and you need um counseling or coaching or um just even I I have a I have a power hour.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you just need to get a reboot or or get um just a little gumption underneath you, or you need a little spark in your life, just DM me, message me, and let's talk about it so we can we can get you through this journey, we can get you to the next chapter, we can get you um stepping out of strongholds and start pulling them down and start crushing them one by one, and just take off so that you can soar, so that you can be the best version of who God wants you to be.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: We have a God-given purpose on our life, and I honestly feel like so many people, so many people out there are just missing it.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're missing the boat completely, and they're just out there treading water because they don't know what to do.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if that's you today, please feel free to reach out to me, contact me.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to talk with you.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: I design every one of my coaching programs around everyone individually because everyone's strongholds are a little bit different.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a cookie cutter method.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I like to talk with you and find out what you're struggling with.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's fear, now is a great time, great time to get get on that call and call me and let's let's get you going because we can knock that out while we're doing these episodes as well.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so reach out to me.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you need prayer for anything, just know that I am here day or night.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you need prayer, just put it in the message and I'll be really happy to pray for you.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm super, super, super, super excited for the next couple of episodes that are coming, as well as we have interviews coming.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I am really, really excited about that.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: That um I'm gonna be launching my first interview here in um a week or so, and I'm super stoked.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now that I'm back on track, got my technical difficulties um taken care of, and we are ready to rock and roll, and just we are ready to fear the Lord.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but let's fear the Lord today.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's step into his obedience, let's step into his love, let's let's lean into the Father and just trust him and put a little bit of our faith in him, okay?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: All right, the faith of a mustard seed is all that it takes.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope you all have a great and fantastic day.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is another episode of Crushing Strongholds, and I'm just so thankful that you were here with me today.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that you learned something.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope you come back next week and see me again.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to see you.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.