The Fear Factor
It is said that courage is the resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not the absence of fear. Fear is one of the most powerful weapons that the enemy has in his spiritual arsenal. With it he can paralyze the strongest of men, he can drain enthusiasm and life from the most charismatic of individuals and castrate the most fruitful and productive among us. Fear is a spirit. It must be confronted, not ignored. It must be expelled, not tolerated.
Fear attacks the soul of man in various ways, but is always related to the future, never the present. It is different from being startled by a loud noise or the experience of pain. Rather, it is a perceived threat of danger. It is an expectation of evil, such as fear of being rejected, or fear of dying, or fear of failure. The list of fears is endless as it relates to every aspect of human emotion, yet can be summed up to do with the possibility of losing something you hold dear. Because it has to do with the future, it is in the unknown.
365 times, in the Bible, we encounter the expression: “Fear not!” one for every day of the year. Fear is the opposite of faith. We are to live by faith, not by fear. Faith has to do with trusting God now. It is present, not future. To defeat fear, you must bring what you fear into the present. If you are afraid of dying, then confront death now. Paul said, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain,” (Phil 1:21). He had no fear of dying, because he saw himself as crucified with Christ. To die is to be with Jesus. It is being in heaven eternally with the Father. Not bad at all. If you are afraid of being rejected, then by bringing it into the present you experience that the Lord will never leave you or forsake you. His love never fails. God’s Love casts out all fear, (I John 4:18). If you have struggled with the fear of failure, remember that all things work together for your good. You can’t lose with God.
When you put eternal value on the things of this earth, including your physical life and health, then fear has power over you. Love God with all your heart and you will not fear. There is no fear in love. Some think that worry is an expression of love, but not so. Worry is fear. It is not trusting God with the people you love or the things you have. It is attempting to control and manipulate through the negative emotion of fear. Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but gets you nowhere. Circumstances are never changed through worry, so why give so much time to it. Fear will take away your joy and peace, so resist it and “FEAR NOT!”
When I was young, I feared giving myself completely to the Lord. I wanted to control my life and decide for myself my future. I knew God loved me, but I thought what He wanted for me was something I would not like. So I held back. I tried to do the religious stuff, but I was frustrated and hypocritical. One day I received a vision of myself before a deep abyss. God was saying to me, “Jump.” I knew He wanted me to trust Him completely. That day I took the leap of faith. All fear left me and His Love and Joy returned.
Scriptures to meditate on:
II Tim. 1:7; I John 4:18; I Peter 5:7; Is. 41:10; Mat. 10:28