Priscilla Shirer: Walking Boldly with Courage | TBN

Priscilla Shirer joins Gabe Lyons on TBN to discuss wearing the Armor of God. Listen as they discuss how to walk boldly with courage, even in times of trouble and adversity.

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but i have not allowed myself to

question the character of god

once i find myself stepping into that

category

of questioning whether or not god is

good or whether or not he loves me or

whether or not he’s sovereign and

overseeing all of this

that’s when i stop myself and go uh

that’s not what we do

we know who god is in my life and my

family’s life

and we’re gonna stand firm in that

because that’s the hope of our salvation

you’ve talked a lot about the armor of

god and i think that’d be really

pertinent right now

to understand how does the armor of god

actually help us

have a perspective where we can walk

into this thing boldly with courage

you know what you said a key phrase that

i was going to use that was rolling

around in my mind and that is

opportunity we could see this pandemic

or any personal

dilemmas that we face in our lives or in

our ministries or our churches or what

have you

we could see any of them as something

that is a hiccup in our plan

or we can see everything even the

difficult things

as an opportunity an opportunity for

what an opportunity for god to be

glorified in a unique way

that through our life he might not

otherwise have the opportunity to be

glorified

an opportunity for us to be strengthened

our character built

our spiritual backbone fortified in a

way it would not otherwise have the

opportunity to

a way for our perspective to be shifted

so that now i have the lens of

compassion and empathy towards others

that i wouldn’t otherwise have because i

didn’t know that pain i didn’t know what

that isolation maybe

felt like but now i can relate to my

congregants differently if you’re a

pastor

or the people that i serve in ministry

differently

and it’s an opportunity for us to do

what’s up

what ephesians chapter 6 sentence stand

firm against the schemes of the enemy

how will we know

what it is to feel like a victor

unless we’ve had these circumstances in

our life where there was

clear obvious demonic opposition

and we saw righteousness become a

breastplate for us

we saw that integrity of character form

of breastplate that

staved off the most serious advances of

the enemy

we saw our salvation which is our

identity

being not just a ticket to eternity but

now it became a helmet over our minds

and it

sort of flipped off all the fiery darts

of the enemy trying to convince us that

fear and anxiety is our birthright

how will we ever know what it’s like for

the word of god to become

the dagger of the spirit so that the

enemy doesn’t stand a chance

when he’s trying to come against us and

our families how will we know the power

of prayer oh my gosh i think about this

all the time

um as a mom of these teenage boys how

will i ever know the power of prayer

unless

in my struggle sometimes with my anxiety

i worry because i watch my voice

struggle with

issues of morality or thought processes

or attitude issues and i go oh man

um i don’t want the enemy to take

advantage of their weaknesses or their

frailties

well this is the time that i get to show

up in prayer and stand in the gateway of

my

home and say not today satan not on my

watch not while i’m here

i’m going to be someone who’s positioned

in prayer because

now i’ll get to see what it is to stand

firm against the schemes of the devil in

prayer

for my family what a testimony we have

when we we literally physically

practically

put on the armor of god by being

righteous believers

who gird our minds in the word of god

who are found on our knees in prayer who

are

in the scriptures so that it becomes a

dagger against the schemes of the enemy

when we do that this is going to be our

testimony

this is going to be a decade from now

what the folks coming up after us gave

this is going to be what we tell them

we’re going to tell them practically

what we did

to stave off the schemes of the enemy

and they’ll be able to

emulate our lives not because they heard

about it but because we told them

straight from our mouths that we’ve seen

it work in our own experiences

so it’s so encouraging and i i think i

think as we’re all listening we’re

hearing this theme develop of how much

we just have to take advantage of this

moment of what god’s trying to do

um i also think we will look back

and take account for how we spend this

time and so it’s an

important word you’ve gone through a lot

of loss on a very personal level lately

a lot of grief

lost your mother lost an aunt lost one

of your best friends

this has not been a season for you i

know that’s been without

pain a lot of people are walking through

that now maybe this was children or

parents and the grief of loss

i’m just wondering from what you’ve

walked through and lost how would you

encourage people today that might be

walking through that right now

sure um yeah you’re you are right gabe

there’s been a lot of loss

seven people in our family have passed

away in the past 18 months or so

seven people and um and then on the

heels of my mother

passing away this past december the last

day of december or december 30th rather

a couple weeks later i had to have a

surgery to remove the upper lobe of my

left lung

because of something they found there so

it was this huge

um sort of a hurricane

of events so there’s emotional recovery

happening right now for us slowly but

surely

and physical recovery in in my case and

what i’ve really felt has been a bedrock

for our family and by the way we’re

stumbling through this

like anybody would in this situation so

i’m certainly no expert on this

but i felt such a freedom to ask

god my questions without questioning god

does that make sense like to go ahead

and be

job and be like habakkuk and say i kind

of don’t get it

i kind of don’t get lord how in the

world not healing my mother is going to

bring you more glory

than what we were praying which was that

you would heal her

on this side of heaven i kind of don’t

get why my best friend and cousin

winter you would allow her you know one

day we’re playing at the movie we’re

going to go to the theater to see that

was our

thing that’s what we did go eat hot

buttery popcorn and have a nice

coca-cola and see a chick flick

why we could be planning that one day

and then her heart stopped beating the

next day i don’t get how that’s going to

bring you more glory

than if you would have responded to us

the way we prefer

so i can ask those questions the freedom

in being able to voice my disappointment

to cry the tears

to just straight up grieve i think

ministers need to be told and leaders

need to be told like

it’s okay you know see the therapist

have the conversations cry the tears

stay in bed for a while take the

sabbatical

do what you have to do let your mind low

just stop being so productive it’s okay

the world

can go on without us ministry continues

without us

we can ask our questions and bring to

him our frailty and humanity

and we can do all that without

questioning the character of god

and that’s what’s carried me i still

believe god is good

i still believe he has a plan and a

purpose for my life and for my family

everything i believed before we lost

these seven loved ones

about god is the same thing i know to be

true about him now he hasn’t changed

just because i’m in the valley

in fact i get to experience all of those

characteristics

more now than i ever have before

and i’m extremely grateful for that so

has it been difficult yes

am i asking questions of god yep because

i don’t get it probably won’t

but i have not allowed myself to

question the character of god

once i find myself stepping into that

category

of questioning whether or not god is

good or whether or not he loves me or

whether or not he’s sovereign and

overseeing all of this

that’s when i stop myself and go uh

that’s not what we do

we know who god is in my life and my

family’s life

and we’re gonna stand firm in that

because that’s the hope of our salvation

that’s so good so helpful i think for

all of us to hear because we all

have those moments where we’re

questioning we’re not quite sure

what god’s doing and we want to know we

seek those answers but we don’t always

know it’s not always clear

thank you for being so personal even

walking through that journey you’ve

walked through with us

and just what that’s been like for those

who might be walking through the same

thing

one of the subjects you’ve talked a lot

about you wrote a movie about this

is the subject of overcoming and i know

in my reading of revelation so much this

is what god wants he says

i want to reward you as overcomers

that’s a big idea

and a big principle what does it mean

for us as christians to be overcomers i

think the world looks on and

maybe they don’t know what it means for

christians to try to overcome how how

can we do that

how can we be overcomers how can we

learn from that idea

that’s right um there is a friend of

mine named catherine

catherine wolf you may actually know jay

and catherine wolfe

that katherine suffered a stroke when

she’s 26 years old and she’s it’s a

decade later now

but the message of hope that this girl

brings i have

not heard anything like it it’s

unparalleled in my experience because

she discusses this idea of overcoming

but she discusses it through the lens of

suffering because she’s now living with

all the effects of having had this

massive stroke that

really didn’t wipe out a lot of her

ability to function normally and she

says that it’s interesting how

western christianity in particular

whenever we meet up with suffering we’re

immediately praying that god will

resolve the suffering

that he will take that issue out of our

life that is causing us to basically

have to overcome

so we pray it away as opposed to first

frame

lord find me faithful while i suffer

that is the definition of overcoming the

definition is

that i am in the midst of the struggle

i’m in the midst of the pain

the tears are falling from my eyes but

because i know who i belong to

and because i know that this is not the

end of the story and because i know that

this is not my home

but this isn’t a period for me on the

end of the sentence of my life

that there is an eternal destiny waiting

for me that i can still

live with my chin held high with a peace

that passes all understanding

i know death is real but death has lost

its sting

it doesn’t control me it doesn’t make me

anxious it doesn’t make me fearful

that i trust god with my life and that i

know my life and the life of my loved

ones

is in the palm of his hand so it doesn’t

mean i don’t suffer

it just means that while i’m going

through the suffering i’m praying lord

find me faithful help me to overcome

lord because i know

what you’ve put in me and the strength

that you’ve given me access to by your

spirit