Can't Hold You Back

So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear;
what can man do to me?" Hebrews 13:6 ESV

God sure has a way of doing things. I promise you, this morning I was
trying to sleep an extra hour, but He wasn't having my laziness today
lol. He wanted to talk to me. So here's what I took from that...

I teach bible study online tonight (leave a comment for details if
you're interested) and after a few texts from friends, I remembered I
needed to prepare. So I've been doing this series called "Effectual
Prayer". Over the course of the last 2-2.5 months, we have been
exploring the various types of prayer. Long story short, the prayers
I have selected for tonight are Deliver Us, prayed by Hezekiah in 2
Kings 19, and Help Us, prayed by Asa in 2 Chronicles 14. In both of
these situations, from the outside looking in, the circumstances these
kings faced were bigger than them, and to a faithless person, bigger
than any God. But in both cases, they prevailed.

I have a tendency to ratchetness at times, haha. Several songs that I
need to take several seats for came to mind. First, Rick Ross...I
love how I can take a poem or lyric and it remind me of where I have
been and where God has brought me. Anyway, Can't Hold Me Back has
several choice words, but this part is key--enemies and 'the enemy' do
not have the power to hold you back. No one can keep you from your
God-appointed destiny but YOU. Yes weapons will form (Isaiah 54:17)
but they cannot prosper unless you allow them to defeat you. You see,
what you are fighting for is power and control over your mind, because
that's where the battles are lost. But the beauty of God is that He
can deliver us and help us in the midst of these situations,
physically, mentally, and spiritually. That's what He did for
me...fought the battle over my mind, so that I could start winning the
battles that were physically challenging me.

I love how I now 'self-police' my thoughts. The minute I allow a foul
word to exit my lips, I immediately say something to change it. Why?
Because we speak our realities into existence. Sure, a child didn't
speak abuse into existence, that's not what I'm talking about. It's
that 'woe is me', 'agony, agony' victim complex that can plague our
minds and keep us stagnant, not growing and not progressing. Back to
our references, had either Hezekiah or Asa decided in their humanness
to attempt to fight either of these armies in their own strength,
their defeats were eminent and almost certainly there would be very
few descendants to speak of it. But they chose to call on God, who in
all His splendor and greatness, was more than well-equipped to to
handle the battles. In Hezekiah's case, the angel of the Lord came
over the 400000+ army of Sennacherib and the next morning more than
185000 lay dead, scaring them so bad that they ran home. And with
Asa, the Ethiopian army that came against them were over a million men
strong. Asa, who was a man of peace, did the only thing he knew how
to do and sought God for help. Of course this ended terribly for the
Ethiopians.

As these words filled my thoughts this morning, I was reminded of my
tattoo (yes I have a tattoo). I got it after having survived what at
the time to me was the most difficult experience to remind me of
exactly this thing. Psalm 27:1 says "The LORD is my light and my
salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of
whom shall I be afraid?" It says exactly this; why fear, when you can
call on God for deliverance, like I did? Why be afraid of what men,
women, and the enemy say or try to do when God is your helper and
deliverer? They can't hold you back, they can't hold you down,
because God goes before you! Trust in that today!


"I praise God for what he has promised. I trust in God, so why should
I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me?" Psalm 56:4 NLT