Sometime last year, I was reading the daily Andrew Wommack devotional and as I began, this is the excerpt from the very first paragraph that struck me slap dab in the face:

 “The Lord spoke to me in 2002 about how I was limiting Him through my small thinking. I changed and so has my entire ministry. It’s nothing short of miraculous…” (Andrew Wommack)

I have to say at the exact moment I read this I was thinking this very same thing-that I needed to stop limiting God by my small thinking. I have personally done this way too often and I have limited what God wants to do in my life and through my life. I don’t care how much God may have planned and stored up for us, if we are not able to visualize it and take possession of it in our own spirit…it will never come to pass. This is the absolute truth! There is very much a parallel to the story of the nation of Israel in their conquest to fulfill God’s plans for them in the Old Testament. Unfortunately they were never able to fully ‘possess’ their possession (the promised land) because of their lack of faith, their inability to see themselves in the promised land overcoming their enemies! The Bible says they saw themselves as ‘grasshoppers’ amidst giants when it came to overcoming the residents in the promised land of Canaan. Not only did they see themselves as grasshoppers, it says they thought their enemy saw them as grasshoppers as well! How many of us have felt like mere ‘grasshoppers’ amidst the giants in our lives? Giants of our career, our marriage, our health, our finances, our relationships, our kids? This is one of the biggest lies of Satan in our lives-wanting to convince us that we are weak, small and unable to find victory to where God has called us.

We need learn to ‘possess our possession’! To take hold of that which God has for us! To put down this world’s way of thinking and this world’s system (which is really the devil’s system since he runs this place) and take up our faith to begin operating God’s way according to His kingdom. Just as the nation of Israel was a foreigner in the land of Canaan and surrounded on all sides by their enemies; just as the prostitute Rahab was alone in the enemy’s camp in the city of Jericho while she waited for the Israelites to free her; we as believers are also living a midst the enemy’s camp, living for another king (Jesus) in the territory of our adversary (the devil) and we must NOT bow down to the false idols, lusts and patterns of this world! Instead rather, we need to fix our eyes on Jesus and His purposes for our lives!

The apostle Peter calls us ‘aliens & strangers’ in this world. The writer of Hebrews also states we are ‘aliens & strangers’ on this Earth ‘looking for a ‘country of our own’. The apostle Paul again states in 2 Corinthians 10 that ‘although we live in this world we do not wage war as the world does’. We are not to be OF this world but rather we are to be ambassadors IN this World, proclaiming God’s truth for the lost and living out the full purpose of our lives which God has prepared for us even before the beginning of the foundations of the Earth!

As I was encouraged today, I encourage you-to quit the stinkin’-thinkin’ and start seeing yourself as God sees you. Although we are in this world, we are not of it! Realize God has an awesome plan for your life and you are the only ‘you’ who can carry it out! Don’t be afraid! Don’t fear! You are everything God has called you to be! You are more than a conqueror! You are an overcomer and are fully victorious in Christ!