by Dr. Johnnie Blount
Be Careful What You Hear
I have been in church all of my life. You would think I was taught about God. However, I knew more about the enemy than I did the Word. I learned what I knew about the enemy through the people sharing their testimonies in church. When the Word says be careful what you hear, that is a powerful statement. I was already a fearful child, especially afraid of things I could not see.
I remember my mother used to tell me that the boogie bear would get me if I got out of bed. She said he was hiding underneath it. I was so afraid I refused to move. I listened, I heard, and I believed it.
What the Dark Room Taught Me
I remember lying in bed one night, wanting to get up, and looking across the dark room. I could see something sitting in the chair in the corner. Because I believed someone was there, I began to hear things that were not even in that room. As I lay there watching and waiting, the sun began to rise. Light crept into the room, and I could finally see what had terrified me all night. It was my daddy’s cap sitting on top of the chair. I lost hours of sleep being afraid of a cap when no one was ever there. That is what truth does. It brings revelation.
The Altars We Build In Our Minds
When I was in church, I heard the saints’ testimonies and believed every word they said about the enemy. I built an altar in my mind, a thought pattern that the enemy was more powerful than the Lord Himself. When a storm came, we had to close the curtains, and sometimes put blankets over the mirror because we were afraid of the lightning. Many times we got under the bed. I could feel my mother trembling as the storm raged on. I would not have been afraid of the weather had I never heard my mother and family speak about it the way they did. They told us that the Lord was doing His work when storms were tearing up homes and the city.
The Word tells us that the Lord has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7). That fear my mother instilled in us is still working in the family today. I can see it and hear it whenever I am with them. At the end of their conversations, it always comes back to fear.
Peace Be Still- The Revelation That Changed Everything
When I was about twenty years old, I had a revelation of Jesus speaking to the storm and saying, “Peace, be still.” All of those years, I had believed storms were the power of God at work. But when I thought about Jesus rebuking the storm, I stopped and thought — the storm cannot be of God if Jesus is rebuking it. Then I remembered John 10:10: the enemy came to steal, kill, and destroy. And Jesus came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. I began to take a closer look at Hosea 4:6, which says that God’s people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge and because they reject knowledge.
My family and friends told me I had been brainwashed when I began to tell them that storms are not the work of the Lord. They said that only God can bring on storms. So by going to church and hearing negative testimonies, fear was instilled in me. It took years to overcome those fears.
What Are You Believing That Isn’t True?
I want to ask you a question today. What is in your mind? What the are thoughts, ideas, and assumptions that you believe to be the Gospel or the truth, when they are not? These beliefs are controlling your life and you live by them every single day. This is how we are often controlled: through false belief. We believe in something that is working against us, not for us. We believe in many things we have never tested for truth. For example, trusting that food at a restaurant will not harm us, or that we will be safe on a plane or in a car. We accept those things without a second thought. Yet, when it comes to the promises of God, we hesitate.
Job said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” But Job also said, “The things I feared have come upon me.” Saints, fear is a seed. And whatever seed you water, grows. If you believe in fear and meditate on it, it works against you. And it is not of God.
The Light Is Rising – Let Truth Have The Final Word
Here is what I want you to walk away knowing: you were not created to be a prisoner of what you heard. You were created to be transformed by what is true. Romans 12:2 tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. That means the wrong thinking can be replaced. Fear that was planted in you by voices from your past does not have to be your permanent address. It was never your inheritance.
God’s Word is the light that walks into the dark room and shows you the cap in the chair. It exposes the lie for what it is — nothing but a shadow pretending to have power. When truth comes in, fear has to leave. Stop giving your sleep, your peace, and your faith to things that have no real authority over you. Open the Word, let the light rise, and see clearly what has always been sitting in that corner.
It was never what you thought it was.
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