Fear Not! By
Kelly Durant 9-7-14
Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am
with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I
will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my
righteousness.
2. Can you recall a time when you have been very afraid? Everyone has
to learn to deal with fear and I think we all hate it! I find that this is an
important topic considering all that is happening in the world! Usually most
people fear death and things associated with it and this is normal! People with
no fear who drive 140 mph on the highway on a motorcycle eventually end up dead
within a short time for being so careless, crazy, and not a good steward over
their body that God sewed together with several trillions of living cells! Our
bodies were created by God, so we must treat them as rented property to be respected.
Fear and adrenalin rushes serve a good purpose, to get us to move out of the
way when in danger, or maybe to stop, and we must pray for wisdom to know when
to move and when to stop!
Sometimes
our nightmares can be what scares us the most! I recall in Chile and in
Colombia, after hearing many stories of people being tortured in my English
classes I had a few vivid nightmares in color a few times. One time I dreamed
that the guerrillas had captured me and they were going to hang me like Hitler
hung the Jews on the gallows because I was a gringo guilty of preaching the
gospel of Jesus when they were imposing atheism communism. I recall the barb wire
(barb wire?!) that was to go around my neck and I prayed inside, “Ok Lord, give
me the grace to just accept that this is the end!” I thought, Lord please let
me die fast? When you wake up sweating and shaken you must hold on to God! Have
you ever dreamed something traumatic like that, that you were dying? Or maybe
you have almost died for real in some accident!
The
recent murder events on the news and on Youtube are quite disturbing! I hope no
one is becoming too afraid or obsessive over what is happening in the Middle
East! God wants us to know about the evil in the world but not fear it! As a
young man, I read history books (look up Will & Ariel Durant sometime) and
I became aware that mutilators and sadistic murderers were common place. Some people
today are just waiting for an opportunity to be as evil as they want to be as
in recent past wars. The events of the times today are calling us to a wake up,
to get close to God, and to be ready to confront serious troubles or go to be
with God at any moment! After all, a hurricane, a tornado, a fire, another 911,
or a disaster of any kind could happen at any moment! This is why I, and all
Christians, keep repeating that all should deny their selves and start serving
God now! Let’s pause here and pray for those who are still suffering trauma
from 911…
3."Fear
not" is one of the most repeated commands in the Bible! In fact there are 366 "fear nots"
in the Bible! If you think about it that is one for every day of the year
including Leap Year! God doesn't want his
children to go a single day without hearing His word of comfort, and to "fear
not." Why? Because we are weak and fear is a real torture!
One
of my favorite verses the one of today, Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed;
for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will
uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
When
you think about it everyone has to deal with fear of some kind. What are your
fears? From Adam on down to the present all the major prophets, Moses, Isaiah,
Elijah, Jeremiah, Job, basically every person of God reached a point where they
feared that their life had come to an end! Sadly, everyone has to pass through
valleys of death! Have you ever feared and that you would be murdered by the
hands of your enemies or that you or a loved one would die from circumstances
out of your control?
4.
So what do you fear? To conquer anything you have to identify it! Most people suppress
and avoid their fears but that is not the way to overcome them. Fear is an
enemy, and God wants us to identify the enemy and conquer him! Here are a few
general observations about what fears different people may experience, and
meditating on fear instead of the strength that comes from God dries your
spirit and destroys your health!
Amongst
children the greatest fears they have are those of being beat up or bullied, of
being abandoned by their parents separating, or of being rejected without any friends.
In many cities already by age 9 or 10 they fear they will be shot in the
streets by a stray bullet! And around the world there are multimillions of
homeless street children!
Here
is a pressure that breaks the spirit of kids that I have always detested. Some
parents are impossible with their kids and these adults are such proud arrogant
perfectionists that they make their kids suffer immensely by their demands! The
fear of failure or of not being perfect drives many kids to drugs, escapism,
and even suicide! These victimized children fear they will never win their parents
approval no matter how much they accomplish in school academically, by sports,
or by their talents. On the other side of the coin, some kids fear that because
there is no parental involvement in their present lives that it means they will
have no support ever to progress. Many teens fear living meaningless lives, to
live lonely rejected by their peers lives, and grow up to be as messed up and
as bad as their irresponsible parents are!
5.
Parents or adults have their own set of fears as well. Adults often fret over financial
ruin, joblessness, homelessness, ill health, rejection, family failure and the
list goes on and on! Another fear is not being able to find or keep a spouse
and having someone to love in life!
The
thing that I have sometimes feared was what Job feared, Job 3:25 “For the thing which I greatly feared
is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.” This means we all have secret fears that no
one knows, and the worst nightmare one can have is for one of those things to
happen to you! I had a fear of our resident visa application getting rejected
in Brazil, and guess what? It got rejected! God wanted us in Bolivia I assume;
He will explain all of His reasons in heaven, I am sure.
In
other words, all of us want to live with love and have security but in life all
these things are not promised and all can be lost from just one mistake, or
from an outside attack of the enemy or some unforeseen disaster. The good thing
is that with God we at least provide consolation in our fears, we have the
promises of the Bible for comfort, and as the great men and women of God in the
Bible we will overcome! The faithless people in the world actually lose their
minds and become psychotic, irrational, and out-of-control desperate when their
fears overcome them! May we never reach a state of despair, God always works
things out!
6.
Senior adults have their fears as well! We often ask ourselves, how will the
remainder of my life be spent, with good health or poor health? Can there still
be purpose in my life? Will anyone care
or notice if I am there or not there anymore? Loneliness is a very big issue
and those who have no family should have us as their Christian brothers and
sisters as family. The elderly need lots of love and attention and they really
do have a great need to feel love.
Our
Salvation Army ministry in the rest homes, hospitals, and jails is very
important! Matthew 25:36 Naked, and ye
clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto
me. Loving those suffering is like loving Jesus Himself!
Many
people often worry, will my family love and respect me even when I may be sick
and with no finances? Will I keep my
mental sharpness or will others have to care for me? Well, most Christians that
I know stay stronger and healthier in their old age because they have lived
with the peace and strength of God for decades! Don’t worry!
7.
Now the spiritual fears: Cadets or new ministers have their own set of fears. Will
I measure up? How will I do learning the Salvation Army's administration? The
fear of failure, of being in charge one day and making the wrong decisions, is
a real torment!
Candidates
also have their fears like will I be accepted for EBC? Can God actually use me in preaching His
Word? Will I survive alright leaving behind my family and familiar surroundings? Can I make it if the enemy attacks me and everyone
abandons me? When no friends or family are near, will loneliness and rejection
cause me to become weak in the faith? All pastors endure a great deal of attacks
from dark forces that they will not share with others about as well!
A
fear of a spiritual attack by the enemy using demons torments many people as
well! People hear voices in their heads and some say horrible things! We are
God’s children and we are a target for the enemy as he is very insistent on
trying to gain our allegiance to him either by fear or by temptation and the
pleasures of sin for a season. But Satan eventually does go away after we pray
in the name of Jesus! James 4:7 Submit
yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8.
As a nation, we have many fears at the moment. The Islamists threaten us inside
our own borders now. Pray extra hard on 911! Extremists in Libya have 12 jets
in their possession. The never ending threat of a nuclear bomb remains real,
chemical weapons use is not off the table, and life-threatening communicable
diseases such as Ebola gives everyone serious reason for concern!
We
are witnessing the decimation of our value system as immorality multiplies. Our
democracy seems to be elusive as we are reminded daily that our rights are not
respected. The threat of wars, the national debt, the apathy and lack of love
from the people, all seems to contribute to an outlook of impending doom! The
fear of the future is real as well but since Jesus wins the in final battle we do
not have to worry, are on the winning side!
Many
people believe that this is the ‘beginning of sorrows’ as Jesus predicted would
come before the end of days. The fear of this being a time of ‘great tribulation’
that it probably is the ‘end of days’, is not very comforting. What is
comforting is that God’s Holy Spirit comforts us despite it all!
9.
Joanna Weaver, a best-selling author wrote:
"Fear can make us do slightly crazy, often inappropriate
things. Fear blurts out thoughtless,
sometimes hurtful words. Fear
babbles. It freaks out. It searches frantically for explanations and
solutions. Fear sews together fig leaves
to cover our inadequacies and paints bright smiles to hide our tears. It forces us to hide behind facades simply
because we don't know what else to do. . ."
When
you talk to a friend, it doesn’t take long for you to feel what fears they have.
The problem is usually you and I are just not giving it all to God and trusting
it will be alright as we know to do! We are to pray, give all our worries to
God, and let Him stay up all night, not you! Share your fears with a close
friend also so you pray for each other!
Consider
also some wise words from Mark Twain when he said, ‘I am a man of many worries and
fears, most of which never happened!’ It is true, most of what we fear and
worry about never does happen! We must conquer worries and fears with prayer, and
by quoting God’s promises!
10.
The Bible gives us beautiful comforting and encouragement verses for all of us
to claim in our time of need.
Psalm
56:3-4 "When I am afraid, I will
trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid."
Psalm
27:1 "The Lord is my light and my salvation -- whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life -- of
whom shall I be afraid?"
Matthew
10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul:
but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
No
matter your circumstance, “fear not!” it is a commandment! God is here and He
is watching over us. The worst fear would be death, right? Well, that is not so
tragic, that will be just the beginning of our new life in heaven! I have
always liked Paul’s attitude when he says Phil 1:21 21 “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”.
So
“Fear Not!” John
4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear:
because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. And as
Plato said, “We can easily forgive a child that fears the darkness, the real
tragedy of life is that men are afraid of the light.” God wants us close to Him and He takes away
our fears! All your fears are nothing compared to how God cares for you, we
must please Him or fear His judgment for the consequences of reaping what our
sinful selves deserve.
Don’t entertain
fears or let anyone else be overcome with fear! Be encouraged today, and fear
not!
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