“Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!”
2 Corinthians 6:11-13 (MSG)
The day we were born again, God gave us a new life. It is BIG, filled with significance, worth and God’s blessings. In this scripture, Paul the Apostle was writing a letter to the Corinthian Church, and he was telling them to enter into this wide-open, spacious life that God has called them to live because the Corinthian church was “fenced in.”
To be “fenced in” means to be separated by a barrier. Often what separates us from living God’s new life is fear. And fear is something we choose to believe. When we choose to believe what fear is saying to us and/or showing us, we begin to live our life fenced in. We start to live our lives in a small way, just like the Corinthian church, and that is NOT God’s plan for our lives. The more we listen to what fear has to say about our lives, the more we will live a life that is fenced in.
The only way we can break fear off of our lives and enter into God’s new life (which is BIG, and spacious) is to fix our mind and set in on God’s Word. The Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. he more our faith is strengthened in God’s Word, the more it will allow us to break through any barrier of fear that separates us from living God’s new life. I believe this is our time as a church to break through the fear and enter into God’s new life that He has for us.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
What’s fencing you in from God’s life? Is it a mindset of inferiority? Is it insecurity? Is it a mindset of religion? The enemy wants to place these barriers in our lives to separate us from God’s best. Nelson Mandela said, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” Although we may feel inferior, insecure, inadequate, discouraged, what makes us fearless men and women of God is the ability to trust and rely on God’s strength to conquer. (Walter Arguelles)
TODAY’S DECLARATION
“I am breaking through every barrier of fear and stepping into the life God has called me to live!”
TODAY’S BIBLE READING
- Old Testament: Deuteronomy 32; Psalms 70
- New Testament: Matthew 28:1-10; Romans 15:14-33
