Overcome the Spirit of Fear | Transformed from Lamb to Lion

How do you overcome the spirit of fear? The key to claiming your victory is allowing the Holy Spirit to wash over your mind, will, and emotions. Give way for Him to take you from a fixed mindset to a faith mindset—to transform you from a lamb to a lion. 

The Spirit of Fear Is…

Fear is a spiritual influence that aims to shut down your heart through deception. It causes you to shrink back from your calling, unable to trust God’s promises. Fear opposes faith and robs you of joy and peace. It enslaves you with tormenting thoughts about…

• What-ifs
• Worst-case scenarios
• Anxieties
• Doubts
• Unbelief

Fear comes from past experiences and false messages. The enemy uses your past and the past of those in your family line to deceive you, hoping you will come into agreement with the lies so that he can place fear upon you. 

The Spirit of Fear Works in a Fixed Mindset

As a Believer, the Spirit of God is always at work within you, restoring and renewing you–His Holy Temple. He is Perfect Love and 1 John 4:18 tells us “perfect love casts out fear.” As you are filled with the fullness of God, He leaves no room for fear. His love seals you and changes you. 

“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

—1 Corinthians 6:19-20

If you are operating in a spirit of fear, you have a fixed mindset that resists restoration and renewing. A fixed mindset pushes back on Spirit-led instruction and transformation. These mindsets enable the spirit of fear by blocking you from receiving the fullness of God’s love. Through bitterness, unbelief, hopelessness, apathy, etc., a fixed mindset aims to shut down your heart to God, robbing you of His healing power.  To overcome the spirit of fear, you have to identify the mindset that is blocking your freedom. 

Operating out of the spirit of fear is a symptom of a hardened heart…

“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:

‘Today, if you will hear His voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
in the day of trial in the wilderness,

where your fathers tested Me, tried Me,
and saw My works forty years.

Therefore I was angry with that generation,
and said, “They always go astray in their heart,
and they have not known My ways.”

So I swore in My wrath,
“They shall not enter My rest.”’

“Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”

—Hebrews 3:7-13

But there is good news! You have authority in Jesus to overcome the spirit of fear!

Fear is based on a false belief. Therefore, to overcome the spirit of fear, you cut to the heart of the false belief using the Word of God as your sword.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

—2 Timothy 1:7

“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

—Hebrews 4:12

How to Overcome the Spirit of Fear

1. Recognize a fixed mindset. 

As mentioned above, a fixed mindset comes from a hardened heart. Are there emotions of bitterness, resentment, and anger roaming around in your thought life? These are signs of a hard heart. Fixed mindsets tend to avoid challenges, quit when the going gets tough, have no hope, and are insecure and full of doubt. 

We have all been there. There is no condemnation in Christ. Remember that He instructs those He loves and disciplines those He calls His own.  He wants you to recognize the fixed mindset and come out of agreement with it, returning to Him so He can send His fire to restore your passion and align your mind.  

2. Adopt a faith mindset.

A faith mindset believes that Yeshua’s work on the cross satisfied the Just Judge’s requirements. You no longer live in fear of punishment. John tells us: 

• “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.” –1 John 4:17-19 (emphasis added)

A faith mindset opens your heart to receive the fullness of God’s love. John tells us “the one who fears has not been made perfect in love.” God is in the process of making you perfect in His love. A faith mindset embraces this truth and declares: “I am being made perfect in God’s love. God’s love within me casts out fear. God has not given me a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.” 

3. Understand that challenges will come.

As we make strides toward freedom, challenges will come. Our freedom is greatly opposed as we are in the midst of a spiritual war. But God is sovereign over every challenge– He often works through them to bring you to “defining moments”. Moments that purify and refine you to answer your call. 

In Psalm 16:8 David says, “I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” God does not want you tossed to and fro by life’s challenges. He wants you anchored in Him, trusting His Father-heart to lead you through challenges towards grace and growth. Ask God what He wants to reveal to you through the challenges you face. 

4. Embrace defining moments. 

When you come to defining moments, they often come as second chances. These are the events and circumstances where transformation takes place—transforming you from a lamb to a lion. 

When you embrace the defining moments, you come to understand your authority.  You know that there are warring angels sent out to protect and harken unto the Word of God. You declare that the spirit of fear has no fellowship with the Spirit of God who lives within you. You embrace your identity as a child of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

A Prophetic Word from Rabbi Curt Landry

Years ago, Rabbi Curt Landry released a prophetic word about how to overcome fear and be transformed from a lamb to a lion.

“God says, ‘I’ve given you the constitution. And now I’m going to take My constitution and My Word and bring them together as I did in the beginning. I’m going to send fire. I’m going to send My prophets and teachers out with the true Gospel of Jesus Christ to roar like lions from Mount Sinai to all ends of the earth, that My house will be filled. 

“My children are going to fall in love with My instruction. I say, ‘Behold, I send Elijah the prophet on fire, like the lion of the tribe of Judah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he—that lion and that spirit—will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with the curse.’

“It is not time for the curse. It is time for the blessing. Judgment is a friend to those who desire right standing with God. And the Lord says, ‘You couldn’t do it, and the government couldn’t do it, the Church couldn’t do it. I will do it for My namesake. For those who trust in Me shall not be put to shame. These lions will grow fat like stall-fed calves, and you shall trample the wicked, and they shall be as ashes under the souls of your feet. On that day, I will do this.’

“Why? Because the lions remembered the law of Moses. The lions remembered when they came out of their sheepskin and crossed the Red Sea. They didn’t run and wander for 40 years. They ran straight to the instruction. They ran straight to the bush that burned. They didn’t hesitate. They went, and they consumed the fire, and the fire consumed them. They consumed the instruction, ‘which I had commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel’ [Malachi 4:4]. And they brought with them the statutes and judgments. And they brought forth the fatherly instruction that brought the multiplication for the preparation of the largest harvest of souls.”

Are You Ready to Be Transformed into a Lion?

Are you one of these lions? Are you ready to overcome the spirit of fear? 

Rise and shine, lion of Judah. Even though the enemy sets up his idols, the Lord is telling you to rest in His authority. He says, “Man may set up a statue, but I am activating My statutes—I am activating My laws, My principles, and My ways.”

Don’t be held back by fear any longer. Overcome the spirit of fear by the power of the Holy Spirit. Defining moments are waiting, and you will move forward with fire.