Fight Your Fear

Fear is one of the biggest obstacles that hinders believers from running the race God has set before us. Fear can keep us curled up on the ground when we should be running free. It can chain our thoughts to the negative circumstances we’ve encountered in the past, preventing us from relying on and reveling in our hope for the future.

With their greatest hopes and dreams laid out before them like beautifully wrapped presents beneath a Christmas tree, the Israelites should have surged forward with joy. They should have claimed all the abundance and fulfillment God wanted them to have. Yet, having come so far, having made it through the wilderness with its dusty despair, hunger, and thirst—they couldn’t cross the finish line. They had prevailed over Pharaoh’s army, over the high tide of the Red Sea, over the challenge of the journey, but they couldn’t take a stand against this final obstacle: fear.

You may stand at the threshold of God’s greatest promise for you, but you’ll never claim His blessings if you let fear dominate your life. He wants so much richness for you in His perfect plan; only your shortsighted fear can withhold it from you. Listen carefully to the words of Paul on this subject: “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). Power doesn’t shrink back in uncertainty; love isn’t conquered; a sound mind doesn’t deal in irrational speculation. God has a rich territory, a promised land with your name on it, and He wants you to charge toward it with a cry of victory, not a wail of fear.

You can confront your fears by drawing near to God. What better way to keep the faith than to connect with Him who is altogether faithful?

Your fear level is ultimately a referendum on the closeness of your friendship with God. It’s a spiritual yardstick. After you spend time with your Creator, you’re simply incapable of shrinking in fear at the appearance of every human anxiety. You’ve seen His power. You’ve seen His love and faithfulness. You’ve seen that His purposes are the best for us.

Our Father wants us to leap into His arms whenever we’re afraid. He wants us to realize who He really is and that we need never fear. And the key to that assurance is love, the opposite of fear. To fully experience God's love is to feel the deepest security in heart, soul, mind, and strength. It is to understand, down to the depth of our being, that God loves us so much He will always fold us in His arms; He’ll always be near, even when it’s dark; He is our Daddy and that we need not be afraid. We realize all this as His incomprehensible love washes through us and cleanses us from fear, anger, and selfishness. Then and only then do we find ourselves capable of returning love—for remember, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

And that’s when it happens: love begins to dispel fear.

Respond

• Describe a time when you felt overcome with fear.
• Did you take your fear to the Lord? What was the outcome?

Prayer

Father, thank You that I can come to you and Your love will cast out my fear.