Rabbi Schneider - Transformed From Hunted to Hunter
Wow, a scripture that many of us have heard, Joshua 1:9. "Have I not commanded you"? sayeth the Lord, the Lord was speaking to Joshua, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go". "Have I not commanded you"? sayeth the Lord, "Be strong and very courageous". It's a command. It's a command. How many of us need an attitude adjustment? The Bible says that the Lord has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of love and power and of a sound mind. We need to get on the same page with God. We need to stop taking sympathy with natural dispositions that we may have, which are not in alignment with who God's called us to be.
"Have I not commanded you?" sayeth the Lord, "Be strong and courageous". You may have been born a naturally timid person. But it's not an excuse to identify with your timidity. You can't just say, "Oh, I'm timid," and leave it at that. You may be timid in the natural, but the Lord says, "I have commanded you: be strong and courageous". We need to come out of our natural disposition. We need to fight the fight of faith, break the power of fear, and by faith in the Word of God, step in to a posture of being strong and courageous. We can't give the devil any place. We can't make excuses for what God hates.
The Bible says, beloved ones... and I'm not telling you that I never struggle with fear. We all do. But I want you to know the Bible says in the book of Revelation that hell is for the fearful and unbelieving. Isn't it interesting that fearing is connected to unbelieving? Again, Revelation says that hell is for the fearful and unbelieving. So I want to encourage you today. God does not condemn you for being afraid. But He is calling you to fight against it, to crush it under your feet and be transformed into a person that is bold, confident, courageous, and has faith. It's not going to happen all at once. It's a process. We have to fight for it. We progressively move from glory to glory.
But Beloved, don't give a place to the enemy, and certainly don't sympathize with his lies. There's a banner of victory over your life. Let's step in, beloved to warfaring into a mindset of being strong and courageous, fighting against the enemy every day. So it's no longer us running from him, but God has shifted us into a mindset that now we see that he is running from us. God wants to transform you from being the hunted to being the hunter.