October 7, 2019
Fear.
What is fear?
Often we say fear is an emotion. Something that happens to us as humans. Sometimes we say fear a reaction to outside stimuli. Fear is described as something people can walk in. In general we describe it as a “thing”.
But scripture paints a slightly different picture. 2 Timothy 1:7 says, “For God has not gives us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline” (NLT). Fear is called a spirit. And from my knowledge of spirits in the Bible, they have a will and purpose. So when the Bible says that God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, that means it was sent by someone else.
That someone else is satan. Satan sends his spirits of fear, but we decide whether or not to give them a foothold.
So fear is a spirit that is not from God, and in the Bible when Jesus encounterEd spirits that weren’t from the Father he cast them out. Because of Jesus finished work on the cross, and the Holy Spirit in us, we also have authority to cast out spirits in Jesus name. So we can cast out the spirit of fear from our lives, our homes, our families, our communities, our cities, our states, our nations, and everywhere else.
Now this doesn’t mean we ignore danger or risk. I’m gonna quote Will Smith in his role from the movie “After Earth”, “Danger is real. But fear, fear is a choice”. Danger and risk are facts, they are things that happen to us and provide opportunity for us to accept the spirit of fear. But you don’t have to be afraid of something to decide the risk is too high.
Here’s an example. When I was younger you could often find me climbing as high as I could in any tree I could get myself into (actually I still do this sometimes). But there was always a point I wouldn’t go past. This point is where the branches began to bend under my weight. Not I wasn’t afraid to go higher, but I knew that the chances of the branches breaking exponentially increased past that point. The risk was too high, the danger too great, for me to go higher. So despite my dream of recreating the movie scene where the character pops up and is standing with half their body above the top of the tree, I would just enjoy the view from where I was.
One of my most recent encounters with the spirit of fear actually came out of a conversation with a family member about my World Race Gap Year. I was on the phone with them asking if they would help support my trip and immediately they began telling me that the trip was extremely expensive, and that they didn’t think it was safe because the countries I’m going to are dangerous. Now the fact that the countries can be dangerous is true and something I was aware of. I love this relative with my whole heart, and I know that they had my best interest at heart when they said those things, but I had to in that moment rebuke the spirit (not the intention) behind their words.
This revelation about the spirit of fear is nothing new. In fact the song “Fear Is A Liar” by Zach Williams does a great job of describing the tactics and nature of the spirit of fear, and how we can deal with it. But it is also so easy to say, “Oh this is just a fear I have and always have had”, and give the spirit of fear habitation in our lives. So it is important that when we think or say things like that we realize that that is what we’re doing. It is also important to remember “Danger is real. But fear, fear is is a choice”, we can acknowledge danger without accepting fear. When we come up against fear we need to remember the authority we have over it and send that spirit back where it came from.
