Get a Grip

There are moments when God whispers an invitation, and there are moments when He sounds an alarm. “Get a grip” is a call to the Body of Christ to awaken from complacency, draw closer to God, and become firmly established in Him.

We are living in significant times, and this is not the season for a casual or comfortable relationship with God. The Lord is calling His people deeper—to know His voice, remain anchored in His truth, strengthen our spiritual foundations, and stand firm regardless of what may be happening around us.

Galatians 5:1 tells us, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then…” There is an urgency in those words. Freedom has been given to us, but we must choose where we will stand.

Throughout Scripture, God warned and prepared His people before significant moments. Noah continued building when others did not understand. Jonah carried a warning to Nineveh. The prophets repeatedly called God's people back to Him. God's warnings were not given to produce fear—they were expressions of His mercy, calling people to prepare, return, and respond.

Get a Grip is that kind of message. It is a challenge to examine where we have become spiritually comfortable, distracted, or complacent and to intentionally strengthen our relationship with the Lord.

This is the time to stand firm, draw near, and go deeper.

God is calling His people to become rooted, grounded, discerning, and prepared—not afraid of what lies ahead, but confident in the One in whom we stand.

A New Level Awaits You!

For books, teachings, upcoming events, and additional resources, visit loisflewelling.com.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

What if God were trying to get the attention of his people? Not to frighten us, but to prepare us? What if the shaking we see around us is a call to become more firmly established in him? And what if the word we need right now is not complicated at all, but simply this get a grip. Well, welcome to A New Level Awaits You. I'm Lois Fuelling, and today's message is different from many of the messages I normally share. This is not simply a teaching or something I have been studying. It comes from something I believe the Lord has been impressing deeply upon my heart, a warning to his people. The words I heard were direct, get a grip. As I continued to seek the Lord about what he meant, I sensed a call for his people to step away from complacency, deepen their relationship with him, and become firmly established in Christ because significant things are happening and will continue to happen in our nation and throughout the world. This is not a message of fear. It is a call to readiness. It is a call to become spiritually awake, anchored in truth, intimate with God, and unwavering in our faith. Galatians 5 1 tells us, stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. There is something about those words, stand fast, that captures the heart of this message. Know where you stand, know whom you belong to, know what you believe, and become so firmly rooted in Christ that when circumstances around you begin to shake, you are not easily moved. Throughout Scripture, God warned and prepared his people before significant moments. Noah belt before the rain came. Jonah carried a warning to Nineveh. The prophets repeatedly called God's people back to him. The warning itself was not an expression of God's mercy because he was giving people an opportunity to respond. And I believe that is the heart behind get a grip. This is not about predicting what will happen next. It is about asking whether we are spiritually prepared for whatever comes. Have we become comfortable where God is calling us deeper? Have we allowed complacency to replace hunger? Are we depending upon yesterday's relationship with God to sustain us in tomorrow's challenges? I want to challenge you as you listen today. Don't immediately think about who else needs to hear this message. Let the Holy Spirit search your heart. Ask him, Lord, where have I become complacent? Where do I need to become stronger? Where are you calling me deeper? What does it mean for me to get a grip and stand firm in you? Because this warning is also an invitation. God is calling his people closer. He's preparing us, strengthening us, and reminding us that our security has never been found in the stability of the world around us. Our security is found in him. So today I want to share with you what I believe the Lord has placed upon my heart. Get a grip, stand firm, draw near, and be ready. There are times when God speaks to comfort us. There are times when he speaks to direct us, encourage us, or reveal something we have not seen. But there are also moments when God speaks because he is warning us. A warning from God is not intended to produce fear, panic, or speculation. It is an expression of his mercy. He warns because he loves. He warns because he sees what we cannot see. He warns because he warns his people prepared before the moment arrives. Recently, I've carried something very strongly in my spirit. I believe God is warning his people that this is not a time for complacency. This is not a time for casual Christianity or for assuming that the spiritual strength we had yesterday will automatically carry us through what we may face tomorrow. The words I heard were simple but strong. Get a grip. And when I heard those words, I knew the Lord was not telling us to get a grip on circumstances or somehow control what is happening around us. He was saying, take hold again, strengthen what has become loose, become firmly established in me. Stop living spiritually distracted. Stop assuming everything will simply continue as it always has. Along with those words came a strong sense that we need to stand firm in the Lord because big things will be happening in our nation and in our world. I want to be careful with that statement because I'm not giving dates, predicting a particular event, or telling anyone to live afraid of tomorrow. I don't believe fear is the response God desires. Well God warns his people, his purpose is not panic, his purpose is preparation. The warning itself reveals his mercy because he is asking us and giving us an opportunity to strengthen ourselves in him before we need that strength. Throughout Scripture, God warned people before significant moments. Jonah was sent to Nineveh with a warning, but the purpose was repentance. Ezekiel was appointed as a watchman and given the responsibility of sounding the warning when God spoke. Through Elisha, God warned the king of Israel about the movements of the enemy so that he could respond wisely. Agabas warned the early church of a coming famine, and the believers didn't simply talk about the prophetic word, they prepared and responded to it. Again and again we seem the same pattern. God reveals because he loves. God warns because he wants his people positioned. Noah had another powerful example. God warned Noah about something that had never happened before and told him to prepare for it. Noah built an ark while the world around him continued with life as usual. People did not understand what he was doing, and Noah's obedience would have appeared foolish to those who could not see what God had revealed to him. Jesus later described the days of Noah by saying people were eating, drinking, marrying, and carrying on with ordinary life right up until the flood came. They were not living with an awareness that anything was about to change. Noah, however, took God's warning seriously. He prepared before there was visible evidence that preparation was necessary. That challenges me because sometimes obedience to a warning from God will not make sense to people who have not heard what you have heard. The question is not whether everyone understands, the question is whether we will take God seriously enough to respond. I believe one of the warnings to the church right now is very simple. Come deeper. We have become accustomed to a Christianity that can fit comfortably around everything else in our lives. We pray, but sometimes only when we need something. We read scripture, but sometimes without allowing it to confront or transform us. We worship while our minds remain occupied with everything else. We can attend church, listen to messages, serve, minister, and remain spiritually comfortable. Yet God is calling us beyond comfortable Christianity into a relationship with Him that is deep, rooted, surrendered, and strong. Complacency rarely announces itself. Most people don't wake up one morning and decide they are going to become spiritually complacent. It happens gradually. Hunger disminishes, prayer becomes occasional, conviction becomes easier to dismiss, obedience becomes negotiable. Things that once troubled our spirit no longer trouble us. We become accustomed to spiritual distance. We can still love God and become complacent. We can still attend church and become complacent. We can know scripture and become complacent. We can even be involved in ministry and become complacent. This is what makes complacency so dangerous. It can hide underneath spiritual activity. I believe God is shaking his people awake, not because he's angry or looking for an opportunity to punish us, but because he loves us too much to allow us to sleep through a season in which we need to be spiritually awake. These are moments when love whispers, but there are also moments when love raises its voices because the danger of remaining where we are has become too great. Galatians 5 1 says, Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. Those words have captured my attention. Stand fast. Paul doesn't merely say Christ has made you free. He tells them what to do with that freedom. Stand in it. Remain there. Don't allow yourself to be moved away from what Christ has accomplished in you. You don't tell someone to stand firm when nothing is pushing against them. You tell them to stand when pressure is coming. You tell them to stand when there will be resistance. You tell them to stand when remaining where they are will require strength. Perhaps that is part of what the Lord means when he says, get a grip. Get a grip on what Christ has already done in you. Get a grip on the truth you already know. Get a grip on the freedom he has purchased. Get a grip on your identity in Christ. Get a grip on the word of God. Get a grip on the presence of God. Don't allow circumstances, fear, deception, offense, confusion, or pressure to loosen the hold on what God has established in your life. We have lived through enough under certainty to understand how quickly circumstances can change. But I believe the question God is asking his people is deeper than whether we can survive difficult circumstances. The question is: what happens to your faith when the things around you become unstable? What happens when you have depended upon is no longer dependable? What happens when voices become louder, confusion increases, opinions multiply, and you have to know what you believe rather than simply repeating what someone else has told you? What happens when obedience to God becomes inconvenient? What happens when standing for truth costs something? What happens when you can no longer live on yesterday's encounter with God? That is where depth matters. Roots don't seem terribly important during calm weather. Their importance becomes evidence when the wind begins to blow. Jesus described two people who build houses. Both heard his words, both built something, both eventually encountered a storm. From the outside, perhaps the houses looked equally secure, but there was a difference underneath the surface. One had a foundation on rock and the other did not. The storm didn't create the foundation problem, the storm revealed it. Perhaps some of what God is saying to his church right now is strengthen your foundation before the storm reveals where you are weak. This is not a call to become obsessed with world events. It is a call to become consumed with knowing Christ. There is a tremendous difference. If our response to a warning is to spend all of our time consuming news, following predictions, listening to every prophetic voice, and trying to decipher everything happening in the world, we may actually become more anxious and less spiritually prepared. Preparation is not knowing everything that is coming. Preparation is knowing the one who will be with you when it comes. That is why I believe the deepest part of this warning is relational. Come closer. There are things God develops in intimacy that cannot suddenly be manufactured in crisis. You learn his voice by walking with him. You develop trust through your history with him. You learn obedience by responding to his prompting in ordinary moments. You learn peace by practicing his presence. You develop spiritual strength by choosing him repeatedly when nothing dramatic is happening. Relationship with God is not something you store away for emergencies. It becomes the foundation upon which we live. Sometimes we imagine that if a difficult moment comes, we will suddenly become spiritually strong. But pressure does not necessarily manufacture maturity. Often pressure exposes what has already been developed. David didn't learn to trust God when Goliath stepped onto the battlefield. Before there was Goliath, there had been a lion and a bear. Before the public victory, there had been hidden victories. And before thousands heard David declare his confidence in God, David had developed a history with God where nobody was watching. Goliath revealed publicly what had already been developed privately. I believe God is calling his people back into that secret place, not so that we can hide from the world, but because what happens privately with God determines how we will stand publicly before people. There must be something beneath our Christianity that is deeper than church attendance, deeper than emotions, deeper than a good message, and deeper than what someone else believes. We must know Him for ourselves. There's another aspect of Galatians 5 1 that we cannot overlook. Paul tells believers to stand fast in their freedom and then immediately warns them not to be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. They were free, yet they could become entangled again. That means yesterday's freedom does not eliminate today's responsibility. Freedom must be guarded. There are things continually trying to entangle believers, fear, offense, compromise, distraction, bitterness, deception, weariness, division, and the pressure to conform our thinking to the culture around us. Sometimes bondage doesn't return looking like bondage. Sometimes it looks reasonable. Sometimes it looks comfortable. Sometimes it simply looks easier than obedience. Sometimes it looks like being so busy that we no longer notice how far we have drifted from the presence of God. That is why we must get a grip. Some of us need to get a grip again on our prayer lives. Some need to get a grip on the word. Some need to take a hold of something God has told us years ago that we have allowed discouragement to bury. Some need to get a grip on freedom because old patterns have quietly become returning. Some need to get a grip on truth because the voices around us have become louder than the voice of God within us. And some simply need to wake up spiritually. There is a difference between being afraid and being alert. Scripture never calls us to panic, but it repeatedly calls us to watch, to be sober, to be vigilant, to stand, and to remain awake. There is a spiritual posture that recognizes this moment matters. How I am living matters. My relationship with God matters. What I am allowing into my life matters. And what I am tolerating matters. What I am building matters. I don't want to be spiritually asleep when God is saying wake up. I don't want to be distracted when God is saying pay attention. I don't want to remain comfortable when God is saying come deeper. I don't want to discover in the middle of a difficult season that I've been trying to live on yesterday's oil. So I want to challenge you, not to frighten you, but challenge you. How deep are your roots? Not how long have you been a Christian? Not how many sermons have you heard? Not what church you attend, not what position you hold, not how much scripture you can quote, how deep are your roots in Him? If everything familiar around you changed, would Christ be still enough? If public opinion turned against what you believe, will you stand firm? If God asked something costly of you, would your answer still be yes? If circumstances contradicted what God had promised, could you continue trusting him? If fear entered the room, would peace still govern your heart? If deception became increasingly convincing, would you know truth well enough to recognize the counterfeit? Those are uncomfortable questions, but perhaps we need uncomfortable questions. Complacency grows where we stop allowing God to challenge us. There's something else I sense strongly about this call to get a grip. I don't believe God is merely preparing his people to endure what may be ahead. I believe he's preparing us to carry something in the midst of it. The church was never called simply to survive difficult times. We carry hope when people are hopeless. We carry peace when people are afraid. We carry truth when people are confused. We carry freedom when people are bound, and we carry the presence of God into environments where people desperately need to encounter him. What if the shaking around us creates an opportunity for the church to become more spiritually visible? Not politically louder, not argumentative, not fearful, not constantly announcing disaster, but spiritually visible. What if people begin looking for believers who aren't panicking? People who know how to pray, people who carry wisdom, people who recognize the voice of God, people who cannot easily be deceived, people whose peace cannot be explained by their circumstances, people who know who they are and whose they are. That kind of church doesn't emerge accidentally. Those people are developed before they are needed. Perhaps that is part of why God is speaking now. Get a grip, get rooted, get free, get close, get serious about your relationship with God. Get your eyes back on Jesus. Deal with the compromise you've been excusing. Forgive the person you've refused to forgive. Put down the distraction that has been stealing your hunger. Return to the word, return to prayer, return to worship that isn't merely music but surrender. Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart. And when he puts a finger on something, respond. Perhaps the greatest danger is not what may be happening in our nation or our world. Perhaps the greatest danger is entering an important spiritual season unprepared. God has always prepared his people. Absence. Warning is evidence of his mercy. He speaks because he wants us ready. If you're listening today and something inside you is stirring, don't brush it aside. Maybe you've known for a long time that God has been calling you deeper. Maybe the Holy Spirit is but putting his finger on areas you have avoided. Maybe your spiritual life has become comfortable. Maybe you've been living distracted. Maybe you still love God deeply, but somewhere along the way your hunger has dismissed. Then hear this warning as an invitation. Come back. Come closer. Come deeper. Strengthen what has become weak. Rebuild what has become neglected. Take hold again of what Christ has given you. Galatians 5 1 says, stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free. Stand, not in your own strength, not because you understand everything happening around you, and not because you know what tomorrow holds. Stand in the Lord. I believe we are living in a moment when God is calling his people deeper. And so I leave you with the words he has placed so strongly upon my heart. Get a grip, take hold of Christ again, take hold of truth, take hold of freedom, and take hold of the word. Take hold of your assignment and stand firm. Whatever happens in our nation, whatever happens in our world, and whatever shaking may come, we do not have to live afraid. We can be prepared, we can be awake, we can be discerning, we can be strong. And more than simply surviving what comes, we can become the people God can use in the middle of it. The warning is not simply that big things are coming. The warning is that this is not the hour for complacency. The invitation is to come deeper, and the command is stand firm. And maybe you've been listening today, you have felt that stirring in your own heart. You know there's more, you know God has been drawing you closer, asking for a deeper surrender, calling you beyond where you've been. Don't ignore that stirring, respond to it. There are moments when God gives us an opportunity to step away from the distractions of everyday life, get into his presence, and simply say, Lord, I want to be fully yours. Whatever you want to do in me, I am available. That is really the heart behind our upcoming Free to Be His conference held on September 18th and 19th at Empowering Life Center. I don't believe we could have chosen a more timely theme. In fact, I know God chose this theme for us. And if God is calling his people out of complacency and into a deeper relationship with him, then what better response could we have than to say, Lord, I want to be free. Completely yours, Lord. On Friday night, Matt and Amy Carpenter will be ministering. And on Saturday, Denise Satrape and I will be sharing. Then on Sunday morning, we will continue at the gathering where Denise and I will be ministering. Rebecca Hansen will be leading us in worship throughout the conference, creating space for us not simply to hear another message, but to encounter God and to respond to what he is saying. So if something in this podcast has been challenging you, if you recognize that God has been calling you deeper, if you're hungry for more of his presence, or if you simply know that you don't want to remain where you've been, I want to personally invite you to join us. Come expecting God to meet you. Come ready to surrender. Come ready to hear his voice and come ready to leap behind whatever has been holding you back and step more fully into what he has for you. You can find all the information and be able to register at loisfelling.com. And until next time, don't allow the voice around you to determine the condition within you. Stay close to Jesus, stay rooted in his word, guard the freedom he has given you. Listen when he speaks, respond when he calls, and refuse to settle into complacency. Get a grip, come deeper, and stand firm in the Lord.