Creflo Dollar - How to Defeat Fear - Part 2
Fear does not come from God. Not in any measure, not in any kind. Fear does not come from God. Now, I know you hear the experts and the psychologists and even some preachers say, "Well, you know, it's normal to have some fear. You know, you have some phobias". Now, I don't claim to be totally absent from fear confronting me, but I'm not gonna ever go and say, "Fear is natural and fear is normal," because fear is not natural and fear is not normal. And all of the phobia of fear, those are all of the accepted excuses to tolerate fear. Fear is not normal, fear is not natural, but it is tolerated. It's tolerated in non-offensive ways. "It's all right that you have fear because we're all humans and there is some kind of fear".
And that may be true. But with this knowledge, my objective is to receive what he said. He has not given me the spirit of fear, so I'm not gonna ever accept it as something that's natural and normal. I'm gonna always be putting up a fight against it because if I don't fight against it, then it will very comfortably find a place in my life and begin to progress and change. A little dot, but then I leave it there and say it's okay. Turns into a tumor. I'm not gonna tolerate something that God did not give. Why would I tolerate something he didn't give? Now, you could probably go on the internet and find all of everybody else is telling you that, you know, it's fine to be afraid of flying, it's okay to be afraid of heights, it's okay to be afraid of it, but I always confront those things.
I had this fear of standing next to the Grand Canyon. If you've ever been to the Grand Canyon, it's like if you flip, God told me to turn my back to the cliff. I looked up, I said, "Let's walk up two, three or four steps. I don't know him. He might get demon-possessed real quick and try to push me off the cliff. I don't know him. I just met this man". So part of the way to deal with that is hiking and walking through canyons. I'm gonna constantly be fighting against it, actively fighting against it. That's what the word "resist" means. It means to actively fight against. And so I'm not saying that one day you're gonna wake up and be completely free from fear. What I'm saying is always be actively fighting against it. Don't get comfortable and tolerate fear, because whatever fear you put up with is going to affect your faith as far as its power to impact your life. It's not natural, it's not natural.
Fear is something that comes from the outside in and not necessarily from the events and things that you deal with. It may be something that's spoken. It may be the words of the enemy that spoke something to your heart. I used to be afraid of flying, so I took flying lessons. I went to flight school. I said, "Well, I'm not gonna be all my life, if I've got to go across the world, I gotta deal with this. I gotta actively fight against this". I started off flying in a Cessna 152, then a 172, and slow single-engine airplane, training plane. Slow. That thing was so slow, when I was going to reach altitude, I was nodding, and the instructor said, "I know you're not falling asleep over there in the seat". I said, "Well, you need to make this plane, you know, faster". And part of the training was to do a stall.
That's where you go up at a certain altitude and then you pull the nose up and the engine turns off. I says, "Say what"? But you can't go on in your training unless you do that stall. So my day came when I did that stall. I'm not sure if Taffi was with me or not but I remember Taffi got on one of the flights with me. She said, "I trust you, baby. As safe as you are, driving a car, I know you real safe here. You ain't gonna do", and she was right. When I did the checks, I did it twice. If anything felt a little loose, "Ah, y'all need to check this. It's a little loose now. I don't know what it do, but it do something. It a little loose. Tighten it up". Man, I went back on that staff. The nose went up, that plane shoooh. And you had to maintain that angle of attack. Shoooh, and my heart was, like, and he said, the instructor said, "Trust the laws". "Ooh-ooh".
And the thing said, came back on and I was, like, "Ha, ha, yeah, yeah". Can we land, can we land? I ain't got no fear of flying no more. None. I had to actively fight against it. I'm not gonna just let it stay there in comfort. Don't let any fear in your life remain in comfort. Let that thing know I'm not tolerating you. I've got to deal with you because if I don't deal with you, you will become the root to something else that may be a lot worse than this right here. It may be much worse than height. I gotta deal with you. I can't let you stay there. It's kind of like, you got a foothold in my life. I gotta deal with you. Fear of being rejected. You gotta go deal with it. You're a single man, you scared of being rejected?
Just to get delivered from fear, you go up to her, "Hi, how are you doing? My name is," you know, "Ralph, and I'd like to take you for a coffee over this, you know, at Starbucks". And she look at you, "What, what, what, what you say? What your name is again"? "Ralph". "Oh, you proper. Ralph". Then she says, "Rrralph"! And Ralph like, "Oh"! And she says, "Sure, I'll go with you". And now you're actively fighting against that fear. But you're not gonna sit there and tolerate it. Say this out loud: "Fear tolerated is faith contaminated". Fear wants to disrupt and contaminate your faith. Like God has to have faith in order to bring his words to pass, Satan has to have fear in order to bring his words to pass, and Job said, be careful, "The thing I feared the most has come upon me". And you don't think it's a big deal? Especially in the time of a pandemic, you don't think that that's a big deal? You don't think Satan is having a field day with imparting fear into people?
Now you can be wise, that's one thing. But being fearful, ah, that's another thing. That's another thing. Now watch this very carefully here. The world would have you to believe it's normal and a part of life, but there's nothing natural or normal about fear. It should never be tolerated on any level. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that fear is a cancer that is affecting people from all walks of life. Fear is a spiritual force. God has not given us the spirit of fear. Fear is a spiritual force, but it has been reduced down to a psychological thing, an emotional thing. And while it does reside in your emotions, it is a spiritual thing, a spiritual force that is designed by the enemy to steal, kill, and destroy. It is a spiritual force like faith is a force.
Fear is a force. Like faith is designed to give you abundance and a good life and health and healing, fear is designed to open the door for stealing and killing and destroying. Fear is not normal, fear is not natural, fear is something that people have learned to tolerate. And the more fear you put up with, the more darkness you allow entrance into your life. By developing in the love of God, this is the only way to deal with this, and I'm sharing notes out of my book on "Overcoming Fear" that I wrote, what, 15 years ago. It's perfect timing now. Sometimes, God'll give you answers for things that hadn't come yet. Real quick, and we'll get to it in detail, so how do I defeat fear? Bible says: "Perfect love casteth out all fear".
Now if fear is something that's supposed to be natural and fear is something that's supposed to be normal, then why did he give us the antidote to casting it out? If it was okay to have it and to tolerate it, why would he even have that Scripture in 1 John where he says: "Perfect love casts out all fear". What is he talking about? Is he talking about you loving perfectly? No, 'cause you can't love perfectly. So if we don't know what perfect love is, we won't know how to cast out fear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen to me. Give me your 100% total attention. There is a battle going on for your focus. Everybody, say "focus".
Why does God want you to confess his Word? Get focused on him. Why does he want you to pray? Get focused on him. Why'd he want you to come to church to hear the Word? Get focused on him. Without focus on the things of God, there will be no transformation. But so, likewise, Satan is after your focus. What are you focused on? The problem or the answer? God or Satan? The good news of the gospel or the bad news of the media? What are you focused on? The whole thing is about focus. You think you're confessing the Word to make you a good Christian? You're making confession of the Word 'cause it brings you into focus. You meditate on the Word 'cause it brings you into focus. You pray because it brings you into focus. You sing songs that glorify God 'cause it brings you into focus.
What happens when you stop doing all that? Then you are gonna be focused on the opposition to those things. You're focused on the bad news of the day. You're focused on your problems. You're focused on what you don't have. You're focused on the fears of your life. Focus is like the adaptor that's gonna either turn on the things of God or the things of Satan, but he's after your focus. Focus will either transform you into the things of God. Focus will either transform you into light or focus will either transform you into darkness. What are you focused on? You can tell. Just go home with half of you. You are on that phone so much and your focus is everybody else's business. "But Pastor Dollar, you're old-fashioned". It ain't got nothing to do with no old-fashioned. It's got something to do with the new technology and ways of destroying your life.
I'm not saying you can't engage in technology, but you got to know how to use it. Anything can be used the wrong way. There's stuff that will hurt you the wrong way. If you plug in certain things in the wrong socket, you can hurt yourself. So I'm not talking about avoid new technology, but don't allow it to be governed by wrong focus. What's your focus? "Hey, man, you made your confessions today"? "I don't feel like doing that". God, dawg, but well, let's see what you been saying all day. I wish I could have a reel-to-reel so we can just check your day out. Look at what you have made time for. The difference between me and you, and you and somebody else, is where are you putting your focus? What are you focusing on? What was your focus this morning? What will be your focus after we dismiss today? What's gonna be your focus tomorrow?
And you will do all the things that will bring you into focus. You'll say all the things that'll bring you into focus. You will watch all the things that bring you in focus. "Well, the Bible don't say nothing about no focus". He said, "Attend to my Word". Focus. But we're attending to something else. You're giving your attention to whatever you attend to the most, that's what you're gonna see in your life. If you attend to the things of darkness, you're gonna see fear in your life, and darkness. If you attend to the things of faith and God, you're gonna see those things in your life. But darkness will tell you, "Ah, I don't believe that".
You don't believe nothing. You don't even believe in yourself. Darkness has even trained you to not even believe in yourself. And darkness says, "Don't pay no attention to the light. Don't pay no attention to Creflo and Taffi now. Don't pay no attention to them". Always Satan is a liar and king of slander, and you've got to know God for yourself. You are to know when somebody is of God and when somebody's not. And if you don't, I feel sorry for you. You're just gonna set yourself up all kinds of ways. People are gonna be able to come to you and tell you anything. "Oh, hallelujah, I'm from God. The Lord told you to write me a check for $2,000, and you'll get that house, that I followed you last Saturday and you were looking at for the last hour. You'll get it". Why is it that we fall for schemes and stupid stuff, childish things?
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I was like a child. But when I put away childish things," and some of us have been saved for 20 years and we still thinking and acting like children. Children. "I don't wanna hear this". I don't care. I love you, but I'm gonna preach it, not 'cause you wanna hear it, 'cause God told me to preach it. And I will keep preaching it until he tells me to shut up about preaching it. I'm coming for your darkness. I'm shining a light in the darkness and I'm telling you right now whenever a little light shines, it penetrates that darkness and I know I'm penetrating some darkness in your head right now. How do I overcome this fear? This is such a revelation to me. By focusing more on God's love for me, I overcome that fear that comes from the devil.
Fear, the very bottom line to fear, is Satan wants you to be afraid that what God promised you in the light won't come to pass. I'm afraid to believe what God said about my identity. I'm afraid to believe that God will preserve me, so I'm moving to self-preservation. It always goes into self when you don't believe God. And selfishness is a key characteristic of the devil. It's always, it moves away from God to self. I believe God loves me, and every time something comes up I believe God loves me. When sickness hits my body, oh, I believe God loves me. Therefore I believe the promise of healing. A need comes up. I believe God loves me. Therefore I believe he'll provide all of my needs according to his riches in glory. I believe God loves me. Therefore I believe I can overcome this temptation. I believe. It's all focusing on the love of God.
But the fear factor says: "What if what God promised won't come to pass"? I'm afraid that what I have read won't happen. I'm afraid that it's not true. Well, where did this come from? All the reports about all the cults and all the stuff that happened everywhere else, and even maybe some stuff you saw growing up or stuff like that. And it's like, "But what if this won't happen"? The greatest fear that Satan can put on us is to be afraid that what God promised won't happen. How to overcome fear? "God, I believe you love me. Therefore I believe you'll do what you said". And then that thought comes into mind: "No, God no love you after what you said". "God, I know you love me. Shut up, liar. God, I know you love me. Therefore I have what you promised me".
That's how you fight fear. And I'm not gonna look for a bunch of Scriptures to quote. I'm just gonna simply say, "I believe you love me. I know you love me. I receive your love for me. Thank you for loving me". And in the midst of a ditch and you don't know how to get out. In the midst of a ditch, there's no ladders. In the midst of the ditch, it's dark. I was in Rome and I had a chance to go by the jail that they kept the apostle Paul in, and it was literally a hole. And I asked the guy if he would close the door so I can get an idea of what it was like. And it was thick darkness that only was moved when they removed the top of it and to put his food in there.
And I can imagine in the middle of that darkness, "God, I believe you love me". How do you say that? You think you only say that when everything's going good? In the middle of the pit, in the pits of your life, you trying to be religious? And you're trying to be scripturally correct and show off? In the middle of the pits of your life, here's one thing you've got to know: God loves me. And I know it. Therefore I know God will deliver me. Therefore I know he'll set me free. How great thou art. And that's the light shining in the darkness. And that's how you actively fight against and withstand fear and darkness through this love. I believe God loves me. That's all I got, but that's all I'll ever need.