General • Series: Disarming Dream Stealers •
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.” — Isaiah 55:8–9 (NLT)
General • Series: Disarming Dream Stealers •
“Through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.” — Colossians 1:16 (NLT) General • Series: Disarming Dream Stealers •
“You are still controlled by your sinful nature… You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world?” — 1 Corinthians 3:3 (NLT) General • Series: Disarming Dream Stealers •
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.” — Isaiah 55:8–9 (NLT)
Knowing God and knowing your thoughts about God are often two different things; because the moment you accept that God is always bigger than your current understanding of Him, something opens up.
The certainty that kept Him small loosens. The box you built for Him could have too many walls. Isaiah says His ways are higher than the heavens are above the earth. That is not a metaphor designed to make you feel small. It is a declaration designed to make God large.
Pastor Léon has been processing this since 2003. The picture he kept seeing in the church and in himself was a God roughly the size of a superhero, powerful enough to defeat the villain, but only just.
The Carmen song, the Frank Peretti novels, and the Marvel template all point to the same misreading: an equal contest between a hero and a villain where the hero barely wins. But that is not the God of Scripture
The universe displays Him. Nature reveals Him. Jesus manifests Him. The empty tomb confirms Him. He has no rival. Everything that exists, was made through Him and for Him.
You cannot contain God in a picture that keeps Him manageable. Knowing the size of your God is the foundation everything else rests on.
What picture of God are you most comfortable with that might be too small?
Where has making God too small caused you to make your problems too large?
Lord, I only know my thoughts about You, and You are always bigger. I’m sorry for building boxes and calling them theology. Today, I lay down the version of You I’ve constructed and simply stand in awe of the great I am. Expand my picture. Amen.
General • Series: Disarming Dream Stealers •
“Through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.” — Colossians 1:16 (NLT)
There’s a problem with the superhero picture of Jesus that goes deeper than theology. When you make Jesus a superhero, He becomes a problem-solver. And if He doesn’t solve the problem (if the prayer doesn’t get answered the way you expected, if the healing doesn’t come, or if the situation doesn’t turn around) then He’s failed at His job. He’s a superhero who didn’t show up. A faith built on that picture quietly collapses.
Jesus was never a superhero. He is the Creator of the universe. He is the one who holds creation in His hand. He doesn’t fix your problems from outside, He works in all things. The gospel is bigger than Jesus being your cosmic first responder. It is the story of the Lord of Lords entering what He created, defeating what had claimed it, and remaining present in every part of it, including the parts that don’t get fixed the way you wanted.
When Pastor Léon asked God about this, the answer was simple: “Leon, I’m not a fantasy and I’m not a fairy tale. I am God. Don’t diminish me to a fairy-tale type of believing.”
Jesus doesn’t need the signal to go up. He was already there before you called. He is the great I AM, not the great “I will show up if you need me enough.”
Where has your faith been structured around Jesus fixing specific problems, and what happened when He didn’t fix them the way you expected?
Jesus, I’ve made You too small and the enemy too big. I’ve needed You to fix things on my timeline, and when You didn’t, I quietly doubted. Forgive me for diminishing You to a fairy tale. You are God the creator, the sustainer, and the one who holds it all. I don’t always understand Your ways, but I trust You. Amen.
General • Series: Disarming Dream Stealers •
“You are still controlled by your sinful nature… You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world?” — 1 Corinthians 3:3 (NLT)
The church in Corinth was the most spiritually gifted church Paul wrote to. They continued in prophecy, tongues, and miracles, yet Paul looked at all of it and said: I can’t call you spiritual people. Because they were jealous of each other and quarrelling.
They were gifted and immature at the same time. Paul’s verdict was clear: true spirituality is not measured by the gifts operating in your spirit. It is measured by Christ-likeness operating in your whole life, in your spirit, soul, and body.
This matters enormously for how we understand the battle we face. If spirituality is only about the unseen world, then the visible stuff doesn’t count. The way you treat people, the jealousy you carry, the patterns you return to, the ownership you avoid taking — none of that would be the real battlefield. But Paul says it is. Being spiritual means being like Jesus in every dimension of who you are. In what you feel, how you think, and what you do with your body.
Sometimes the natural is more supernatural than we think. Sometimes what looks supernatural is more natural than we think. The armor of God that Paul describes in Ephesians 6 is not mystic equipment for a spiritual warrior. It is a description of what it looks like to carry who Christ is around you in your whole person.
Where have you been defining spirituality narrowly (only as the things happening in your spirit) while ignoring what’s happening in your soul or body?
Is there an area of your natural, everyday life (relationship, attitude, or habit) that God is actually addressing as your real spiritual battleground?
What would genuine Christ-likeness look like in the most ordinary, unglamorous part of your week right now?
Lord, I’ve been calling things spiritual that weren’t, and missing the spiritual in the ordinary. True spirituality is being like You in my spirit, soul, and body. Show me where the real battle is being fought in my life right now. Amen.
General • Series: Disarming Dream Stealers •
“For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world.” — Ephesians 6:12 (NLT)
Love is a power. Politics is a power. Hate is a power. Fear is a power. And none of these require a demonic being with a name to be genuinely powerful in your life and in a community. Paul’s word for “powers” in Romans 8 is dunamis, meaning “dynamics”. Impersonal forces with interpersonal impact. They operate through systems, through cultures, through habits of thought, through the dynamics between people in rooms. They are real without being a Frank Peretti novel.
This matters because of what Pastor Léon calls dualistic thinking, the belief that all struggles come from the enemy and all blessings come from God. That framework removes you from the equation. My car broke down on the way to church means the enemy doesn’t want me there. Maybe. Or maybe the engine light was on for months and you didn’t pay attention to it. Both the spiritual and the natural are in play. Both deserve honest assessment.
James 1:13 says when you’re being tempted, don’t say God is tempting you. The same logic applies to the other direction. Not every obstacle is the enemy. Some of it is a broken world. Some of it is us. Maturity is knowing the difference, not acting as if there’s no spiritual world, but also not using the spiritual world as a scapegoat for the things that require us to take ownership. The battle is real and you are part of it. You’re not just a spectator in your life.
Where have you used “spiritual warfare” as a way to avoid taking ownership of something in your own life?
What “powers” (love, fear, politics, pride, comparison, etc.) are most active in your world right now? How are they shaping what you do and how you relate to people?
What is one area where God may be asking you to take mature, honest ownership rather than looking for something else to blame?
Lord, the battle is real. Help me not avoid my own responsibility. Today I take honest ownership of what is mine to own and I trust You with what isn’t. Help me know the difference with wisdom, not naivety. I am part of this equation and You are with me in it. Amen.
General • Series: Disarming Dream Stealers •
“If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” — Romans 8:31 (NLT)
Ten spies came back from the promised land and said: there are giants, and we are grasshoppers. Joshua and Caleb came back and said: there are giants, but our God is greater. The difference between the two reports was not courage. It was perspective. And forty years turned on that difference.
During a prayer retreat in 2003, Pastor Léon had a picture: he was praying against something that looked enormous. Then in the picture, it suddenly became a grasshopper. The smallest thing. He sensed God saying: your perspective is wrong. You’re so zoomed into the thing that you see it as big. Zoom out, and it’s just a grasshopper. The ten spies were so zoomed into the giants that they lost sight of who was standing beside them.
The enemy is less than a super villain. That is not a minimization of the battle you’re facing. Your mountains are real, your pain is real, and your challenges are real, but the one standing with you is the Creator of the universe, the Lord of Lords, the great I AM who holds creation in His hand.
When you zoom out to see the actual size of God, everything else adjusts. What looked like a giant looks different when you’re standing next to someone immeasurably larger. Your perspective on the problem is shaped entirely by your perspective on your God.
What situation in your life have you been so zoomed into that it has started to look as large as God?
How would your mindset and actions change if you genuinely believed that God is for you and bigger than your current challenge?
Lord, I’ve been zoomed in. The problem has grown so large in my vision that I’ve been comparing it to myself instead of to You. Zoom me out today. Let me see the grasshopper for what it is and let me see You for who You actually are. You are bigger than my biggest fear. Amen.
General • Series: Disarming Dream Stealers •
“I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow — not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.” — Romans 8:38 (NLT)
Notice what Romans 8:38 does not say. It does not say nothing can ever stop your plans. Nothing can delay your breakthrough. Nothing can close the door you were hoping to walk through. It says nothing can separate you from the love of God. Those are not the same promise, and confusing them is part of what makes faith fragile.
No season that felt like God was absent changes what is most true about you: you are loved by the Creator of the universe with a love that nothing in creation can sever.
The promised land didn’t come through for an entire generation and still God’s love did not leave them.
The cross looked like the worst thing imaginable and God’s love was still there, working through it.
The grave held Jesus for three days and His love was still at work, His resurrection in motion.
You are not alone in what you’re facing. God is always present with you even when you feel like He’s not fixing, speaking, or giving you what you want. He is present, always working something that your current view cannot see. The goodness of God is always chasing after you.
Have you been confusing “God is with me” with “God will give me what I want”? What’s the difference and where has it mattered?
What closed door, missed opportunity, or painful season have you been allowing to speak louder than the promise that nothing separates you from God’s love?
Lord, nothing can separate me from Your love. Not the closed door, the unanswered prayer, or the season that felt like You were gone. You are with me in all of it. Help me stand on that truth. Amen.
General • Series: Disarming Dream Stealers •
“And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” — Matthew 28:20 (NLT)
Pastor Léon closed the message with one word: convinced. I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Say it out loud if you need to, and say it again, because conviction is not the same as agreement. You can agree with something from a safe, uncommitted distance. Conviction is what happens when a truth moves from your head to the place where you make your decisions.
The spies who didn’t enter the promised land weren’t uninformed. They had seen what Joshua and Caleb had seen. They knew the facts but weren’t convinced that their God was bigger than the giants. Forty years turned on that difference. Real conviction changes how you walk through your circumstances.
My God is more than a superhero. My God has no rival. The universe displays Him. Nature reveals Him. Jesus manifests Him. The empty tomb confirms Him. Every throne, every ruler, every authority in the unseen world was made through Him and for Him. He is always with us. Always loving. Always bigger. Always for us.
What is the difference between agreeing that God is with you and being genuinely convinced of it? Where are you on that spectrum today?
I am convinced that nothing can separate me from Your love. Not what I’m facing this week. Not what I’ve already been through. Not the giants. Not the closed doors. Not the unanswered questions. You are the great I AM, bigger than I can think and closer than I can feel. Amen.
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