The Faith Beyond Trauma Podcast

Power, Love, And A Sound Mind: Breaking Fear’s Grip With Faith

• Pastor Reggie

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We explore how fear steals power, love, and a sound mind, and how faith resets expectations from evil to good. We draw the line between present fear and future anxiety, then map a path from self‑reliance to grace‑driven courage with practical steps and prayer.

• defining fear versus anxiety and why it matters
• 2 Timothy 1:7 as a lens for power, love, and a sound mind
• walking by faith to set life’s boundaries
• honoring experience without letting it set limits
• shifting expectations from evil to good
• moving focus from self to Christ and community
• confronting triggers and taking thoughts captive
• practicing self‑discipline over feelings
• maturing in love to cast out fear
• prayer for courage, clarity, and obedience

SPEAKER_00:

Hey family, this is Pastor Reggie of Faith Beyond Trauma Ministries, where we empower you to live healed, living, and set free of the press limitation of your traumatic experiences by grace through faith. Or, as we like to say, we equip you to live the transformational life. On this episode, we'll talk about fear and how fear can hinder you from living such life. Let's jump right to it. We're continuing or following our flow of boundaries, and we have come to the fifth and final limitation of what we of our revelation. The first one is debt. We talked about identity, doubt, worry. We talked about the mental construct of this worry, stress, and finally fear. Fear and anxiety are both emotional responses, which are rooted and grounded in either the present experiences in your five, in your physical nature, or future tense. Fear is the word for fear could be phobia or agonista. And so those are two of the many words. There's a few other words in the Greek constru. And what they talk about is something present. So for some of us, that may be walking down the street. For some of us, that may be going social places. You may struggle with social things, and to where there is a present concern that you have, right? Actual tangible physical danger. Anxiety is a different emotion that differs in the sense of anxiety is based on future possibilities or what if or what could. Not necessarily founded in the present reality. If you're experiencing that, you you can probably point out, like, look, Rachel, I hear what you're saying, but this is a real thing. I agree with that. But the nuance between anxiety and fear. Fear is like if I were to walk out of this room right now, there's something waiting on me. Present, tangible, traceable. Anxiety is an emotion, also, and it's typically based on future tense or what if. Okay, what's one of the two subtle nuances we talked about anxiety a few weeks ago? Please go back and listen to that if you would like. But today, let's move on. We talk about fear. Of course, one of the first verses that come up when we consider fear is in 2 Timothy, chapter 1, verse 7. And in the inl in the NLT, it says, For God has not given us the spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. In the King King James, for God's not given us the spirit of fear, but power, love, and soundness of mind. Okay, so one of the first things that immediately jumps out by simply taking the word for what it says. Fear can rob you of your awareness of your ability to acknowledge or walk into the power that you possess. Your ability to control the situation, to impact is the one, the Greek word for power. So fear robs you of or detaches you from your power source. Love. Fear robs you or distorts your view of how loved you really are. Which is why it's interesting that love of God is called agape. And this agape love is described as Asian. Uh not signal for 13, verses 4 through 8. So fear robs you or just separates you from your power, your love, where's your love, and thus your soundness of mind or self-discipline. So, how many times have you had thoughts or even acted out of your character because you were afraid? That's a thing, which is why fear is must be confronted and must be challenged. Your fears must simply be challenged. So, how do we do this? You just tap into your power, tap into your love, tap into your silence of mind. Let's let's go there real quick. Let's go there. So, quick recap. Boundaries, second chapter 5, verse 7, for we walk by faith and not by sight. I like to say we pattern our lives because the walk can be peripate. Pattern. Peripateo, first part of it is peri, which we get our English word perimeter. We establish the boundaries or the perimeter of our lives. We could do it by faith or by sight, which fits perfectly in this conversation about fear. So we can establish or limit ourselves by faith that God is who he says he is. He will do what he says is he can do because he is, I am, I can, and I will. Or we can say we can establish a balance of our lives by what we experience our five senses or have experienced previously, which we call those the present limitations. Make sense now? So those present limitations based on what you've experienced. Now, those are real experiences. We will never take away your experiences. But when those experiences clash into what God says, we have a decision to make. Do we walk by faith that God is who he says he is, he can do what he says he can do because he is, I can, I am, and I will? Or do you want to stay limited? Other protection. Your body's meant to protect itself. So it's not a condemning thing. It's more of a how does that serve you well? How has how is that serving you as far as empowering you to move forward? Is what you're clashing with is what God is revealing to you, A through His Word, B through your visions and dreams, or C through just an awareness of His glory, those affirmations, those words He speaks over you. You hear those things and you begin to believe a little bit, dream a little bit more. But now when you begin to pursue those things, it clashes. It's like, okay, Reggie, what is going on? You're stuck between a metal battle, between who God says you can be, what God says you can be, versus your own understanding based on what you do not know, have not understood yet, or what you have seen. And this is how the world works. It's like, okay, life has taught me, or my mom, or somebody who I love and respect the most. This is what happened to them because it happened to them. What about, what about, what about, what about? So now we have a choice. Do we operate our thoughts, our words, and our actions by faith, or do we do it by sight?

SPEAKER_01:

And fear will tell you you have no power, you are not loved, and you are not in your right mind by pursuing this thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Fear lies, fear limits. Fear steals, kills, and destroy in the long run. That's what I find it so interesting that the Bible talks about fear so much. One part of fear, we know fear of God. This word is actually a different one. It's a reverential fear, all of God. It's like honor your honor, respect, reverence. Honor, respect your parents to where if they say something, you will find yourself doing it nine times out of ten. Why? Because you honor, respect, and fear your parents. Some of us fear, not in the sense of that we will we will have been abused, but more in the sense of we know that there is a positive and negative consequence for not getting aligned with their saying. God's not the same way. There is blessings and obedience, there are natural responses for disobedience. We we choose, we choose obedience and blessings, obedience, blessings, disobedience, natural consequences. But it's interesting because those because God chastised, he corrects, he disciplines those who he loved. So the consequences are honestly meant to get you back on the obedience side. It's like when your parents they came at you and said, Hey, I actually do this. You didn't do this. If they want three strikes, seven strikes, you feel the blank. There was correction. Some verbal, some a little louder than others. Some of it's physical, you know, hopefully in the strike zone. Some of it they took away things, you know, from you. Why? Because there is a correction the need to take to put you on this side of the line. God chastised, he disciplines those who he loves. So if we can almost say that lack of it is showing that we're not loved, you can say that. Or getting back more on topic, more on brand, we can pattern our lives based on fear. What we see. Some of us we watch the news, some of us we have a different conversation, some of us when you look into your bank account, some of us is like real legitimate concerns. So we can cause those to rob us of our ability to spark change. To spark change. Well, think about it. God not given us the spirit of fear, but of our ability to get results. That's one definition of power, is a minimum, the ability to call change, to impact change. You can impact change. Your words, your thoughts, even, and your actions of lying can impact change. You can do this. Yes, you can. Don't let the enemy tell you how powerless you are, or what you cannot do. Especially when the Bible says, I can do all things through feastos or Christ, which gives you strength. So God says you can do this. God says you have the ability to call change. Because now, once we step out in faith, we shift from our limitations to his divine enablement, which you call grace. He's graced you for this. And so fear, which honestly, I like one definition of fear. It's in Webster's. It says it's a painful emotional passion excited by the expectation of evil or apprehension of danger. You expect bad, you expect evil. So now it gets back to what do you expect? What are your expectations? Are your expectations based on evil or are they based on good? Simple definition different faith and fear. Fear, expectation of evil. Faith, expectation of good. For some of us, we need to start with that. We manifest, and I will go there. We manifest certain things because our expectations are so low that we almost expect things to go more wrong than they will right, because life has taught me, life has shown me that for me, I'm pretty much a jinx. Nothing good happened to me. So now I expect more evil. I may not say that out loud, but I'm thinking it. I'm waiting for the shoe to drop. Why I expect evil. I expect it to go wrong. I talked a couple weeks ago by painting with a broad brush. You had an experience, yes, it is an experience that it was bad. I agree. But as opposed to treating this experience here, what it is in context, we take this and we everything. But Reggie, you don't understand. I have complex trauma in this particular area. So it wasn't just one thing, it was whisping 100 things, but yet, and still, God does not give you the spirit of fear. So your expectations cannot be of evil. Well, some of us before you move forward, we need to really stop and pause and be honest with ourselves. Do I really expect things to change? Or am I really honest just going through the motions because I expect this thing to turn out bad? Do I really believe that he can turn things for my good? Or that it's going to stay bad? Or do I focus more on what the do I agree more with the enemy? I forgot about that. The enemy using enemy against you. Do I agree more with what the enemy wants me to think about? The enemy wants you to think about more of what you can do and what you've done on your own. If you look at the text, the biblical text, God is more concerned about what his son has done for you. What has my son done for you? What is he made available for you? What is grace made available to you? Will you focus and believe and emphasize more of what my son has done and what you can do by faith through my son, through Christos? Or will you focus more what you're doing outside of my son in your own understanding by yourself, isolation, which you never have to be ever again a day in your life? The enemy wants you to focus more on you, your mistakes, your limitations, your shortcomings. God wants you to focus more on Christ and the Holy Spirit's ability to build you up where you're weak and to divinely enable you. That's why we call this grace, divinely enable you to move forward in his things, to do what he says you can do, to have what he said you can have. But too many times we we allow the inner me, and I will say inner me, those pictures, those memories that come because it's simply how things work. It's how the brain works, it's triggered. Just because it's triggered doesn't mean you have to fall down in condemnation. It's a different condemnation and conviction. Yes, yes, you said it, yes, you did it, yes, there are consequences for that, but God is like you're forgiven. So now we have to see our past as forgiven, and honestly, see our present as God has a plan in place to help us to overcome the present limitation of those traumatic experiences. Yes, that would be yes, it happened, but it doesn't have to rob you of your future, it doesn't have to create anxiety. No, you can see your future by faith, but that takes letting go some things, some mindsets. Because if we want to get over fear, we have to first of all confront it. Take every thought capital because who sent this? Where is this coming from? Is this coming from external or a place of insecurity I need to deal with inside of myself? Now we're not gonna act like it's not there, it's there, it truly is there, but now we're retraining, reframing our mind to move by faith and not be limited by the yesterday. So we have a choice to make. Do I have power in this situation? Yes, I understand what the bank account says. Yes, I understand how things look when you look outside the wall. Yes, I understand this, but do I have power over this? The answer is yes. Because he's still sovereign, he's still in control, and so we take his words and put it in our mouth. We take his words, we guard our thoughts with it. We take his words and we move accordingly.

SPEAKER_01:

God given the spirit of fear, which rob you of your power.

SPEAKER_00:

And God gives the spirit of fear, but of love. What does love have to do with fear? Perfect love cast out all fear. So that means that if we mature, perfect in the new in the new testament means mature, perfect, perfect, mature. Perfection means mature. So perfect mature love casts out fear. So that means that if we mature or grow in our understanding of God's loves for us, then we don't have to be afraid. It's not saying feelings of thoughts of fear won't come up, but we fast it down. Why? Because we know he loves us and we have power, we have soundness of mind through this. What's important because he loves us, he is with us. A lot of times, spirit wants to isolate you. I, I, I, I can't, I don't have. Once again, the enemy wants to make it about you. I God don't make it about what his son. So, what about us? What about we? Because you're never an I in a family of faith. There is no eyes. It's we because God is always with you. Jesus, the Holy Spirit is there with you no matter what. Even if you find yourself physically for a season isolated, God is with you in that pit. He's with you in that situation. But Reggie, can't nobody get me through this thing but me. You're right in the sense of if you there's certain rules you have to follow, things you have to do on your own. Totally great on that, but you have to walk through. Psalm 23, yea, thou walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Valley of the shadow of death, you don't have to fear because God is with you. Now the question is, do you put more stock in Him being with you, or are you so prideful that you take more pride in doing things on your own? Are you so prideful that you find more joy in doing things on your own as opposed to doing things with God and with his people?

SPEAKER_01:

Love. You're not by yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

And soundness of mind. Heaven of salvation. Some of us, part of the problem is we're not sound, we don't have peace in our minds. So because of that, we we don't manifest the virtue or the fruit of self-discipline. What does that mean? That means we speak as we are led by our feelings, not by our faith. We do as we are led by our feelings, not by our faith. We expect, so self-discipline. I know how I feel right now, but I'm not gonna press that lever. I'm not gonna do that. Because there are boundaries, there are rules. How you how you go through things matter? Because there's a reward on the other side of your obedience. The question though is how big is a reward? How much reward do you get? God wants you to have all of it. But you can settle for a little nibblet versus having all that God has called you to have. No, we don't minimize the experience of fear, it's human. It's human. So we're not condemning you for experiencing fear. But what we are challenging you is to consider just because I have that fear, do not allow the fear to have me. Do not allow that fear to tell me that I am powerless against it. It's interesting because I hear so many people talk about how powerless they are against their emotions. Feeling anxious, um just feeling this to this, but God's not giving us the spirit of fear. So now we're telling us it's bigger. There may be a spiritual route to this. So now it's bigger than emotional, it's spiritual as well. So you got the emotional fear, which is human. Feeling fear as a human is human. Neither good nor bad, it just is. Because we know in the positive sense with a little fear, it's meant to prepare protect as a fight, flight, freeze, or fight. So that's kind of where that goes in. That's just the body being doing the bite of us. But now we're looking at spiritual root.

SPEAKER_01:

What's the difference? Whether it's like emotional experience or a spiritual experience.

SPEAKER_00:

That we're gonna talk about next. Father God, we love you. We just thank you for where you where we're going. Glory to holy precious night. But you're not getting us the spirit of fear, dear God. So we just thank you, dear God, that because you are, we can, we are, and we will, Father God. We thank you, dear God, that we can manifest your good pleasure. We can live, heal, living, set free of debt, dot works, stress, and fear, dear God. But it's gonna take faith. It's gonna take faith, Father God. So fill us up, build us up, dear God, with more of your word, a greater revelation, so we can see ourselves the way that you see us, dude. Not say, oh, woe is me, dear God. But we can say, Greater are you that is in us. Father God, we give you all the glory, honor, and praise. In Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen. Thank God until we meet again.