This Means War

FIGHT WITH FAITH

Pastor Hope Flask

October 19, 2025

Main Scriptures: Romans 8:31-39

Additional Scriptures: Romans 12:2, Hebrews 6:19, Psalm 42:5, Hebrews 11:1, 1 Timothy 6:12, 1 John 4:18, Galatians 6:2

POINTS:

• If you were the devil, how would you keep people from God? ChatGPT’s answers:

1. Keep you comfortable - not evil 2. Make you doubt God’s character 3. Use your past against you 4. Feed your ego or your insecurity 5. Blur the line between good and evil 6. Convince you there’s always time

• Fear comes dressed as doubt, stress, control, lack, negativity, guilt, shame, and even depression. Hope in Christ is an anchor.

• The prefrontal cortex helps us evaluate the situation detected by the amygdala.

• If there has not been a secure attachment while you were young (if you were left or abandoned) or if there was early trauma or toxic stress experiences, then this can affect the growth of the pathway link between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex.

• When something triggers a traumatic memory, we “flip our lid,” and the downstairs brain takes over.

• To set down the anchor of hope, we must practice remembering before we are triggered.

• Fear IS A LIAR.

• Fret = gnawed by worry. Fretting practices remembering lies instead of the truth.

• Faith is an active attachment to a hope-filled life. It requires faith to be vulnerable and ask for help.

• Codependence is characterized by excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner.

• “We can only attach to God by attaching to the people of God.” -Curt Thompson

• The cross creates a bridge to attach humankind to God.

• Faith fights for attachment to God and attachment to others.

• We need to fight the good fight of faith together!