Fear. It permeates human life. Our fears may not constantly hinder us in our daily life but you can be assured that it only takes a split second for fear to raise itself into our consciousness. Given the right catalyst, our fear will jump upon us like an armed bandit, stealing our courage as well as our peace of mind. Fear is a powerful enemy of confidence. It rips away our joy and comfort. It eats our contentment like a ravenous wolf. And fear is a symptom of our sinful hearts. “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.” - Hebrews 3:12.
Most of the things which drive fear into our hearts are actually nothing to fear. With the right frame of mind and heart, we need never fear rejection by others, our families, inadequacies, the street judgment of our peers, gossip, back-biting, nor our own shortcomings. Issues such as these may require our attention in a season but to live in constant fear of them distorts both our vision of the world and of ourselves. It certainly doesn’t take an oracle to discern that worrying also restricts our view of God and diminishes our opportunities to focus on all the good He has planned for us. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” - Jeremiah 29:11.
Fear is certainly driven by uncertainty and that lack of confidence opens up the anxious fields of conjecture, indecision, and suspicion. These are all satanic conditions of the heart and mind. The devil has always known how, when, and where to sow the seeds of doubt. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” - Genesis 3:1.
The simple fact is that we begin to fear when we begin to question God, not in seeking His divine guidance in a prayerful manner, but when we question Him about His faithfulness and promises. The sin is obvious: we see the carnal world, its terrors and tribulations yet we, in all our worldly experience, decide for ourselves that it is not the world we must doubt but God! After Jesus Christ condescended to die upon a cold, hard wooden cross to save us - we still choose to doubt Him. And believe me; when we come to the place where we doubt Jesus Christ, that is the essence of fear. We all either worship Christ or we worship Satan. Those who claim atheism as a hedge have simply been manipulated by the devil to believe we have a third option; we do not!
When Jesus was speaking to His disciples, He said to ‘fear Him’ who has the authority to cast them into hell. He spoke of the Triune God, not of the world or the enemy. Yet we still seem to fear everyone and anyone but God. The devil has no power to cast us into hell. The devil has no power over us but that which we grant him when we doubt God. Humanity has it all backward. We should be doubting Satan and fearing God rather than the other way around. Satan has never provided us with a single good thing; remember that! It has always been and always will be God who brings the sunshine and the rain. It is God who brings life and the providence needed to sustain it. It is God who blesses us with each and every day of our lives. Yet it is God that we choose to doubt. Take this into your hearts; it is Christ who said - “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” - John 14:27.
The adage is true: “No Jesus, no peace. Know Jesus, know peace.”
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