Gregory Dickow - Self Mastery and Conquering Fear - Part 1
Welcome to another episode of Think Like a Champion, a podcast that's dedicated to helping you win in every way and enjoy every day. And I'm going to get right into today's topic, which is self-mastery and conquering fear. And I want to start with a verse that you guys have all heard before Most likely. For God has not given us a spirit of timidity. Now, in the translation, I want to share with you from the new American standard translation. God has not given us a spirit of timidity, which we know as also defined as a spirit of fear, but one of power, love and discipline. Another word there that I want to emphasize, because in this translation it identifies or highlights a different picture or a different perspective of self-control. It's actually the word discipline here. And so God says that he has not given us a spirit of timidity or intimidation or fear, but of power, love and discipline.
Now, when I talk about this, I want to remind you that the the focus of this community, we call this a community of champions, and we're building a community of champions. And it's Think Like a Champion, because as a man thinks so is he, right? So I really want you to understand the distinction between what I do on a typical Sunday in the Life Changers Church experience, which is to pastor and shepherd and inspire and encourage and teach the and feed really to feed the flock and to equip the flock to teach people and lead people to to help people to find their God given identity and translate that into their God given destiny. In the podcast of Think Like a Champion, which is also sponsored and supported by our great donors, friends, our church members as well. But this is focused on developing the muscles of your mind and really understanding what it takes to to have the thought life of victory so that you can live the life of victory.
To think like a champion, so that you can live like the champion God created you to live by. So I will challenge you in different ways than what you might experience as from a perspective of a pastor here I'm more a perspective of a coach, and to inspire you and to, you know, get in your face a little bit without a TicTac sometimes and get you to see some things that maybe you haven't seen about yourself that can make you the best version of yourself. So when I share this verse that God has not given us a spirit of timidity, what I'm saying to you, what I believe God's saying to us and what I want to draw from this is that intimidation is a spirit that is trying to stop you and limit you from breaking through barriers in your life. Intimidation. We get intimidated by by people. We get intimidated by social media. We get intimidated by the things that the things that we compare ourselves to. We get intimidated by the thought of being uncomfortable and pushing beyond our boundaries. We get we get intimidated and it makes us step back.
So what we're trying to identify here is the truest identity of ourself is not a person that is under the control of intimidation. You may feel timidity sometimes, you may feel intimidated, sometimes you may feel afraid sometimes. But courage isn't the absence of feelings of fear. Courage is stepping forward or stepping up in the face of fear. It's stepping up instead of stepping back. It's refusing to be intimidated by how daunting the mountain looks that you can climb, the mountain, that you can speak to, the mountain, that you can build a tunnel through the mountain you can walk around or journey around. You know, there's many ways to overcome a mountain, not just one. But we need to realize that God has not given us a spirit where we have to be intimidated by anything.
So many people are intimidated by the devil, intimidated by their past, intimidated by other people, intimidated by what they compare themselves to in social media. And the word here, God has not given us a spirit of timidity. It would do us some good to understand what this word actually is translated as. And it comes from the word "deilia", and it's a Greek word that is in the New Testament, "deilia", which speaks to a spirit of of shrinking back, a hesitancy, a reluctance to assert oneself. This this is not what God has given us. This reluctance to assert oneself. We think asserting ourselves is sometimes arrogant, but really pride is in not asserting ourselves and not taking our rightful place as sons and daughters of God. God has not given us a spirit of timidity, a spirit of "deilia". Instead, He's equipped us with the opposite of that a spirit of power.
That word power is derived from the Greek word Dunamis. It's where we obviously get the word dynamite from. This isn't just any power. This is explosive power, explosive, dynamic, transformative power of God Almighty inside of you. Power like a freight train. Power to push through anything. Power to blow up anything. It's dynamite. It's dynamo. It's a freight train. It's power that will intimidate your intimidation. Like. Like. Bless God. Sometimes you might be intimidated by something. You might be intimidated by the task at hand. You might be intimidated by the economy or the economic situation, financial situation you're facing. You might be intimidated by the spiritual darkness that is at war constantly to bring you down and pull you down. But you have a spirit that will intimidate the intimidating spirit. And you haven't been given the intimidating spirit. You've been given the spirit that intimidates the intimidating spirit. You got it. That's what you have.
You know, our problem is not what we don't have. Our problem is what we don't take inventory of that we already have. And I want you to see these three things that God has given us. He hasn't given us this spirit of intimidation, but he has given us this spirit of power, the spirit of Dunamis. Dynamite explosive power to blow up anything in the way of you being the champion that God created you to be. We're not blowing people up, okay? We're blowing things up and we're blowing barriers up and we're blowing walls open and we're blowing roofs off. You understand? We're. We're blowing up condemnation. You know, we're condemning condemnation. We're when you condemn something real estate wise, when a building is condemned, that means no one can do anything in it anymore. It's condemned. There's no activity that can take place.
You know why so many people are not doing anything with their life? They're not taking their life to the next level. They're not mastering their life the way that they are created, too, is because you feel condemned by your failures. You feel condemned. You know when you feel condemned, when a building's condemned, you can't go in it. There's no there's no permit to go into that building and do anything with it and do anything to change it. You're just stuck. It's just stuck. It's condemned. No activity. So many people are stuck because of condemnation and God hasn't. God doesn't condemn us and there's no condemnation for those that are in Christ. There's a whole lot of mistakes for those that are in Christ, but no condemnation about their mistakes, no intimidation about their mistakes.
I think, fear and timidity is rooted in guilt and condemnation and shame. We're afraid to break barriers because we really don't feel like we deserve to be at a better place in life. And that's shame telling you that. That's not God telling you that. People live in shame, thinking I deserve this bad situation. I deserve to be in this problem that I mean, I deserve to be limited in my life. But you don't deserve that. And because God created you in his image, we deserve what Jesus paid the price for us to have. But let me get back into this gift giving, generous hearted, eternal, everlasting father that has not given us the spirit of intimidation, but has given us the spirit of power. But God's generosity and His gifts don't stop at power. He also grants us the spirit of love.
Now, the word for love here in second Timothy is the word agape. It's used to describe God's love for us. Perfect, selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love. This is so important that we understand that God's love is not conditional. It isn't fleeting. It's not an emotional kind of love. There are emotions to love. There are different definitions. There are different aspects of love or different kinds of love. This is an emotional kind of love that comes and goes and fluctuates. But this is a unconditional love that refuses to change its position towards you no matter what you do. It's a love that serves, that gives without expecting anything in return. You know, when when God gave us Jesus, he didn't demand of us to give our lives back to him. He simply invited us to accept him into our life.
And when you accept him into your life, he'll lead you from there. Because his goal in your life is not to get you to to surrender everything to him. His goal in your life is to have a relationship with you. Relationship does not demand surrender. Relationship creates trust, vulnerability, and surrender. That is the reflex of perfect love. So I want you to see that the Bible says in Roman chapter five that for the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that's been given to us. We don't have just any kind of love. We have God's love. I know some people pray a lot. "God give me more power, give me more power". But you don't need to ask God for more power. You need to discover the power you already have. And I know there are other people that pray a lot and have prayed this prayer maybe thousands of times or more. "God, I need more love. I need more love. I need more love". You don't need more love. You need to have a greater revelation of how much love God has already given you. He has not given you the spirit of fear, but power, love and discipline.
Now, if you think of these three things as three legs of a stool, you now have a stool that you can put weight on. You now have a stool that you can sit on. You now have a stool, you can put equipment on. You now have a stool that you can depend upon. With one or two legs only the stool won't stand, will it? We have to understand that God didn't create us to be champions in life just through the sheer or the mere gift of power. There's power, there's love, and there's discipline. This three legged force is something you can actually stand upon and you can actually sit upon and you can actually rest upon and you can actually have confidence in. I would imagine that whatever chair you're sitting in watching this right now, if you're sitting, is a chair that you had confidence when you sat in it, you didn't lack confidence. Maybe because you sat in in a thousand times, maybe because you made it yourself, maybe because you knew the manufacturer that made it, or maybe because it just looked like it wasn't going anywhere if you sit on it.
Well, that is what this three legged force that God is giving you—power. You know, all negative emotions come from a sense of powerlessness. So if you want to master negative emotions, you have to discover how much power you have. For example. All guilt comes from this sense of powerlessness over your past. I feel guilty because I can't do anything about my past. But Jesus did something about your past. He washed it all away. But do you see how when you feel guilt about your past, it makes you powerless? You feel powerless about your past. But what about your present? Well, when we feel powerless over our present situation that leads to depression. See, depression can come from a sense of powerlessness about your current situation. And when you think of your future, we feel powerless over our future, which produces fear. But what can we do about our future?
We can plant the seeds of our future. Right now we are living in the harvest of our past, so we might as well live in the hope and in the faith and the confidence of our future harvests. We are living in the harvests from the seeds that we've already sown. Why not when we realize, Oh, I deserve that. I deserve that I deserve that. We only use that in the negative sometimes. Got to stop being so negative on ourselves and start realizing that, yes, you may be experiencing a lot of the harvest of bad seeds you've sown, so let that inspire you to do something about the seeds you are now sowing. Because if you have confidence that you deserved the harvest you got from the bad seeds you've sown, you should have confidence that you deserve the harvest from the good seeds that you'll start sowing right now.
Wow. When you get a hold of this, it frees you from this sense of powerlessness. There's just something very powerful about being given the spirit of power and love, which is unconditional, that you can always move forward and take risks and take chances. Knowing that God's going to back you up and he's not going to withdraw his love from you, withdraw his promises from you. Love means when God says, I love you... When we talk about the love of God, we're talking about three things, three promises. God's promise. God's love means His promises that He promises I will never leave you or forsake you. I will never bring up your sins and condemn you. And I will never break my promise to you. That's love. That's what love is. We don't walk in perfect love, but God walks in that towards us. All right?
And when you the more you expose yourself to the reality that that is something that you are carrying right now, the more fear leaves your life and the more intimidation gets intimidated by you rather than you by it. And then he gives us this spirit of discipline. This is a word that is a Greek word. "Sophronismos," it means self-control. We have that one translation. It means a sound mind. We have that in another translation. It comes from two root word "sos" which means safe and "phren" which means mind. Safe mind. It suggests a saved, delivered, protected mind that's disciplined and self-controlled and has the power to make decisions that lead to the kind of life that you want. You have that ability to make wise decisions. You have that ability to be disciplined, to pray every day, to be disciplined, to to exercise better, to be disciplined, to be healthier in your habits of what you put into your body, be healthier and your habits of what you tolerate in your mind.
You know, we can't control everyone that knocks on the door of our life, but we can control who we let in and the spirit of discipline is this force that actually abides in you. So many people say: I'm just not disciplined enough, I just don't have enough discipline, I just, you know, that's not it's just not one of my gifts. That's just not something- No. What it is, is it's something you haven't recognized is already in you and you haven't developed it. But you have it. Because God said He hasn't given you the spirit of timidity or intimidation or fear. But He has given you the spirit of power, love and a sound mind. Now we're talking about mastering self, because the way to life, the way to succeed, the way to happiness is taking control of the things that you have the power to control and trusting God with the things you don't have the power to control. But when you get a hold of this, that your identity, your identity is found in the love of God.
Your identity is found in being given power, given love, given a sound, disciplined mind, intimidation runs from you. Intimidation is afraid of you. See, so many people say, I, I wish I had more discipline. And that's like saying I wish I had more power. You don't need more power. You need to discover it and activate it. You don't need more love. You need to discover it. And activated discipline is the same way. You don't need more discipline. You need to discover it and activate it. It's not a trait that some are born with and others are not. It's it's a gift that God has given to each human being that accepts Him as a child of God, that accepts him as their Heavenly Father, and even to the unbelieving, even to the you know, it's funny, sometimes a person could be a quote unquote non-Christian unbeliever, but they have more they've activated more of the discipline that God has given them than Christians who are saved.
But they don't think they're disciplined. They don't think they have discipline. You have this gift to be able to discipline your mind, to discipline your body, to discipline your habits, discipline your thought life. Every one of us has the spirit of discipline. You might not have been activating it since you were in elementary school because, remember, you had to wake up every I hated waking up in the morning to go to school. Does anybody remember having to go to school? Like, I don't remember one day where I was excited. I can't wait to go to school today. I can remember most days not wanting to go, but I went because either disciplined myself or got disciplined by the principal. And back in the day we were disciplined by the principal and by our parents and by the neighbors parents and by anybody, stranger on the street where we got our butts kicked by everybody back in the day when it was okay to, you know, actually discipline kids.
Listen, the devil's a liar and you have the gift of discipline. You got to activate it. Everybody's learned it when you brush your teeth. You've learned it when you take a shower. You've learned it when it comes to making sure that every few minutes you're checking your messages and you're checking your posts and you're checking the likes. We're so disciplined. Wow. We're more disciplined than we thought every hour. If you look at your track record on your phone, if it tracks what you've been doing on your phone, I'll bet we can find some discipline there. You know why? Because you have discipline. You just choose to apply it where you want to apply it, and you choose not to apply it where you think you are lazy and you don't want to apply it. You can apply it into the lazy parts of your life too.
You know, as we get older in life, we stop tricking ourselves as much. We stop letting ourselves lie to ourselves as much. We stop excusing ourselves so much. We stop making excuses and we stop listening to the B.S. in our heads and we start talking to ourselves instead of listening to ourselves. You know, for the first 40 years of my life, I. I think I listened to myself more. But in the last few years of my life, I've been talking to myself rather than listening. You know what I mean? In other words, when I hear a thought, "You're not going to make it, you're not going to succeed, you're going to fail. This is going to happen. That's going to happen..." I used to listen to those thoughts. Now I speak to them when they come. I speak back at them. I intimidate them. I cuss them out with words of faith. I cuss them out with positivity. I cuss them out. You get it? Like you can cuss somebody out with negativity and cuss something out with positivity. I cuss out those thoughts with positive thoughts. I speak them out and they run and they will run for you as well. They will run from you as well. But you got to talk to them.
So many people talk themselves into believing they don't have discipline. But you know what? You just use discipline to convince yourself that you don't have any discipline. You just did the thing you said you didn't have, but you did have it. You just used it in the wrong way. You used it to talk yourself out of something, but you succeeded. Guess what? We succeed at everything we talk about, you can talk yourself out of something good, or you can talk yourself into something good. Either way, it worked. Now, when that hits you where the good Lord split you, you are going to rule and conquer your life and your soul and your body and your mind and your attitudes. Yeah, discipline is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.
Instead of saying, I don't have discipline, remind yourself it's a free gift that God gave me. And the great news is all I got to do is plant seeds of discipline, water them with consistency, and they'll grow anything you want to develop in. You have the discipline for it. If you truly choose to learn a new language, you will learn it. If you truly choose to become a better version of yourself, you will become a better version of yourself. You truly choose to learn how to start your own business. You will learn how to start your own business. You truly choose to get in the best shape of your life. You will get into the best shape of your life because we have the power of choice and what we have to realize is the greatest freedom that we've been given in this life is the freedom to choose everything that we live out in our lives. Every attitude we have about the things that have happened to us is a choice that we've made.
You know, we can't control everything that happens to us, but we can control what we say about it, the perspective we take about it, what we can learn from it and what we're going to do about it. Those are all choices. Some things that happened to us are by chance, but the way we respond to those things that happen are by choice. And the sooner you realize you have the power of choice, you have the power over negative emotions, you have the power of the tongue. Sometimes I think when we when we see God says he's given us power, love and discipline, we don't really realize the kind of power we have. You have the power to heal with your words. You have the power to do damage with your words, too. But you have the power.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, Proverbs says. So we can bring death or we can bring life. It's a choice. God doesn't choose that for us. We choose that He chose to give us the gift of power. We choose whether to employ it for good or for bad. But it is our choice. And the day that you realize the power of choice that you have in your life is the day that you'll truly be free, the day that you truly be happy is the day that you will move any mountain that needs to be moved. What do you do? What are some next steps?
Let's talk about that in our next time together, because next steps is what life is all about. It's about taking the next step. The next step for somebody might be come on Sunday. The next step for somebody might be plant a seed and give a gift. Next step for somebody might be to take a new class, to learn a new skill to to take inventory of the relationships in your life. Because those relationships helping you make healthy choices or make unhealthy choices, that's how you determine not whether you are related to that person, not whether that person is somebody you owe something to. It's whether that person is a fan of your choices to be the champion that God created you to be, well we're here for that. And this is our community of champions. And I'm honored to have you in this community. So thank you. And let's let's come back next time and dig deeper into this.