The world gives a lot of reasons to justify living in tormenting fear. The unknown ahead of us, and the uncertainty of the future, can be very intimidating. The recent international pandemic has caused anxiety and fear to run rampant across the world, affecting everyone, the likes of which I have never seen in my lifetime.
The Bible tells us, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (1 John 4:18).
Mind over Matter
The Bible promises that God will “keep” you “in perfect peace” when you keep your mind on Him and “Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock” (Isa 26:3-4 ESV).
The mind affects the body, but the body also affects the mind. When a person reacts in fear, anxiety, worry, or stress, the body secretes chemicals that shut down the part of the brain that finds solutions to problems, as well as preparing the body to die rather than helping it to live. Whether a person feels joy or sorrow, every cell in their body responds to those emotions. Information about what is going on around a person enters the body through the senses.
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is — his good, pleasing, and perfect will.” (Rom 12:2 NIV)
When the storms of life come, or when one is chronically stressed, worried, anxious, or depressed – the ultimate root of it all is FEAR! It is one of the greatest tools that the enemy uses to destroy both the unbeliever and the Believer. It has been said that faith is the currency of Heaven, and fear is the currency of Hell. Jesus asked the question, "Why are ye fearful?" (Matt 8:26)
- Fear is first, and foremost, a God-given emotion that prepares the body and mind to deal with the challenges of life. Fear is controlled through the amygdala, which activates the fear response by bypassing the conscious mind.
- Fear is a feeling of anxiety and agitation caused by the presence of real or imagined danger, evil, or pain from memories of traumatic experiences.
- Fear is not a disease - it is a process of thinking. While the chemistry of the body is set up to react to potential danger, unfounded or irrational fears are something a person allows to have happened. The average person thinks 60,000 thoughts a day, and over 95% of those are the same ones they had yesterday! Thoughts are entirely made up in the mind. Yet, while the experience feels real, it is a false perception.
- Fear can be an intimidator. It causes a person to worry, fret, and to be anxious. It can rob one of confidence and faith. Jesus said that men’s hearts would fail them because of fear (See Luke 21:26).
- Fear can consume a person’s thoughts and keep them from getting anything done. It brings confusion and can lead them into sin. It can cause them to hide, keeping them from interacting and loving others. It can also keep them away from having intimacy with God and serving Him. It can open a door for the enemy to take a stronghold that can cause many physical, emotional, and spiritual problems.
- Fear can paralyze a person and make them incapable of doing things that they should do just as the Israelites who were terrified to leave Egypt (See Ex 13 & 14).
- Fear can cause guilt that is both real and imagined. When a person has done something immoral, unethical, or illegal, they are supposed to feel guilty just as Adam did in the garden after eating the forbidden fruit.
Someone once said that FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real. Many are held as prisoners because of fear! Job cried out, "The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me" (Job 3:25). As a result, they try to take precautions to protect themselves. People buy insurance policies to cover those things they consider valuable. They put bars on their windows and doors. They buy alarm systems to protect their automobiles. They buy deadly weapons for security.
The Scriptures tell us that because of humanity’s stubborn and unrepentant heart; they are “storing up wrath against” themselves “when his righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom 2:5 NIV).
It is the unrepentant and guilty sinner who should be afraid of standing before a holy and righteous God. The consequence of rejecting Jesus, as supreme Lord and Savior, is absolutely terrifying!
The Born-Again Christian is commanded to:
“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.” (Col 3:5-6 NIV)
As I mentioned previously, there is a positive side to the emotion of fear; it can be protective and warn of real danger to keep a person alive by causing them to take appropriate and necessary caution. It helps them to avoid dangerous situations, such as driving too fast, jaywalking in heavy traffic, respecting electricity, turning the gas off when they smell a leak, and so on.
Fearing the Lord
When a person becomes a Born-Again Christian, even though God sees everything they do, hears every thought, and knows everything about them, He still loves them anyway! Because they are now His child, God did not select them to “suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess 5:9 NIV).
When a person trusts God’s discipline, they can be confident that He will protect them.
"In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge" (Prov 14:26).
The fear of the Lord is primarily not to be afraid of Him but rather to “hate evil” because the Lord hates; "pride, and arrogance, evil behavior, and perverse speech" (Prov 8:13 NIV).
“Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him. He will spend his days in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land. The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. My eyes are ever on the LORD, for only he will release my feet from the snare." (Psalm 25:12-15 NIV)
Breaking the Stronghold
The stronghold of fear that reveals itself through worry, anxiety, stress, and depression, can be broken. One of the necessary steps is simply to eat a diet high in essential nutrients for optimum nutrition and maintaining healthy hygiene habits like washing your hands and coughing into your elbow.
Overcoming fear requires that you face it head-on instead of emotionally running away from it because you think will be called a "faithless" Christian or that somehow God will not be pleased with you so you avoid self-examination because you feel that could make it worse. When you acknowledge and accept the fear, anxiety, worry, stress, etc., take it to God and cast all your cares at His feet, rather than fighting against it, accepting what you are feeling. He will begin the healing process, which can take time to work through the layers of life that have built up around its roots over the years.
Learning how to Trust
Fear is the opposite of trust! By learning to trust God, the spirit, mind, and body can be healed. This is why the Bible says:
“humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:6-7 NKJV)
Jesus commanded Christians to stop worrying “about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matt 6:34 NIV). If a person is concerned, worried, or stressed out about anything, it can cause dramatic detrimental effects on their health. Stopping the worry about tomorrow, or the feelings of regret over yesterday is the only choice a person can make. They can either let go, repent of their behavior, bad habits, and negative thought processes, forgive those who have hurt them, and give their lives entirely to God, or they can hold on to it and, like Lot’s wife, suffer the spiritual, emotional and physical consequences (See Gen 19:6).
The True Source of Nourishment and Health
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.” (Prov 3:5-8 NIV)
Trusting-Faith is the source of nourishment for living in health. It requires that a person “lean not on [their] own understanding.” The word "lean" comes from a Hebrew word that is defined as: "to support oneself, as though they were leaning on something for assistance." This is the same word that is used where Samson leaned on the huge pillars supporting the Philistine temple. It is the idea of putting one’s weight on a crutch (See Judges 16:29).
God wants Christians leaning upon Him, not upon themselves. They can’t do it unless they are right next to Him. Leaning is a progressive state of mind. A person has to recommit their ways to Him continually. It must become the pattern of their life.
The word "understanding" refers to human understanding, intellect, knowledge, talents, logic, experience, reasoning, or perspective. Christians are commanded to STOP leaning “on your own understanding," for this is the opposite of trust. They can’t "trust in the Lord" if they are leaning on their “own understanding." It is impossible!
The way to grow in trusting-faith is to: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart.” The root idea behind the Hebrew word for "trust" is to "take refuge" or "have confidence." This word carries the idea of throwing one’s self down, and lying on the ground before another, casting all hopes for the present and the future to someone else, and finding shelter and security.
Christians must learn to lie down at the feet of Jesus and cast “all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you" (1 Pet. 5:7 NIV). They must give Him all the concerns and cares of their heart (the inner self - the emotions and intellect) that frustrate them. This isn’t just saying they "trust in the Lord," or acting as though they do; instead, they are to be genuine in that "trust." They must do it with “ALL” their heart.
When a person trusts the Lord with all their heart, they relinquish ownership of those problems. They must still deal with the consequences of them, but they won’t be worried, or stressed, or anxious over them, because they now belong to Jesus. They must give them to Him because they are His problems!
Christians must “not be wise” in their “own eyes.” Moving in Trusting-Faith means that they must stop trusting in their own reasoning, intellect, education, abilities, talents, experience, etc., and “acknowledge him” in everything they do. The word “acknowledge” is the Hebrew word “Yada,” which means to know very intimately, just as “Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived” (Gen 4:1 NIV).
The only viable choice a person has to make to live and prosper in health is to turn away from self and turn to Jesus, remembering that He is ever-present, continually loving, caring, and providing for them. When they fully rely on the Lord to handle any situation, He will make their crooked “paths" straight, and remove any obstacles, as they journey through life. He doesn’t promise that life will be easy and without problems. When a person learns to trust Him completely, “This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.” (Prov 3:8 NIV)
The Faith Factor
Through faith, God is pleased. It is by the faith of Jesus a person is saved. And it is by faith they learn to trust the Father with every situation. Throughout all of eternity, He has proven Himself trustworthy over and over again.
A person’s faith - their trust in God - comes and then grows "from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ" (Rom 10:17 NIV). Faith "is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Heb 11:1 NIV).
It is God who gives faith to trust Him. Christians must learn to put on the faith He has given them just as they put on their clothes each day.
"But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.” (1 Thess 5:8 NIV)
Christians must learn to "pursue faith" just as much as they are to pursue "love and peace" (2 Tim 2:22). And when their faith is tested, they will be able to “Consider it pure joy. . . [because] the testing of your faith develops perseverance" (James 1:2-3 NIV).
If a Christian is sick, the Bible says they:
“should call for the elders of the church to pray over [you] and anoint [you] with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make [you] well; the Lord will raise [them] up. If [they have] sinned, [they] will be forgiven." (James 5:14-15 NIV)
Faithful or Fearful
Almost every book in the Bible has a "fear not" in it. The enemy uses fear, but God would have His children to have faith (trust) in Him. Although Job was a righteous man and would not speak evil, he opened the door through thoughts of fear for the enemy to work in his life.
"For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came." (Job 3:25-26 NIV)
In other words, he said, "I did what was right, but I was afraid that God would not take care of me." In contrast, Jesus challenges EVERY Believer to trust Him;
"I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." (Matt 21:21-22 NIV)
The Bible also says that;
“God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life-not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.” (2 Tim 1:7-9 NIV)
God provides tools that the Born-Again Christian can use to combat fear. God's provision can empower them to defeat the influence and power of the enemy in their life. Through the power, love, and sound mind that God offers, they can find freedom from fear and help others find comfort, encouragement, and help them to grow in their trust of God.
Conquering fear is not a matter of self-determination; it is a matter of dependence on what Jesus has done and belief in His words, His promises, and His gifts. It is also a matter of recognizing the enemy’s attempts at immobilizing a person with fear, and understanding and trusting in God’s glorious grace to give power, love, and a sound mind.
”So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isa 41:10 NIV)
Remember, the average person thinks 60,000 thoughts a day, so that gives you 60,000 opportunities to learn to trust Him more! God will keep you “in perfect peace” when you keep your mind focused on Him” (Isa 26:3 ESV). The proof of God’s presence is peace permeating all problems. Don’t let worry and fear be your taskmasters. It is God’s love that energizes the entire immune system and drives out fear.
“Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:16-18 NIV)
