What is fear? Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. God has told us 365 times in the Bible not to fear. He did not say that we would not feel fear, he said that we must not follow the feeling of fear. Instead we need to choose to be dead to fear, and follow Jesus, knowing that He is always with us.

2 Timothy 1:7 (Amplified Bible)

7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.”

Where does fear come from? It comes from the Devil or from ourselves. Fear comes from relying on our own strength to overcome instead of relying on God’s power to carry us through. Fear gets our eyes off of Jesus and says ‘but …’ and makes excuses.

This is easier said than done. We still have a flesh and we still live in a body that is screaming ‘get me out of here!’ But if we truly are controlled by the Holy Spirit, we will not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.

Fear can only be conquered with the revelation of the love of God and knowing that God is always faithful to His promises, and that He will not ask us to do something He does not give us the ability to do.

There are of course different levels of fear. This is a very personal challenge for each of us as our comfort zones differ dramatically according to our personality, our experiences and our reactions. We all have our personal comfort zones, but if we do not step out of our comfort zones when God calls us out, we will find that our world around us shrinks and our comfort zones get smaller and smaller all the time.

This is how phobias develop, and the only way out is to gradually get back through all the doors that have been shut. Of course we are not to do it in our own strength, we are to give our situation and our fears continuously to Jesus, and let Him be our strength, and let the Holy Spirit counsel us and comfort us in the middle of our trials.

The Christian life is not an easy life. God does not protect us from trials but He strengthens and counsels us in them, He is Emmanuel, God with us.

If He commands us to be dead to fear in what He wants us to do, then He has also provided us with the ability to do it.

Paul said in Gal 2:20 (NIV):

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I pray that you would find a boldness in Christ living in you rather than any of your circumstances, and that you become the overcomer Christ created you to be.

  1. Where does fear come from?
  2. What is greater/more powerful than fear?
  3. What are the dangers of following the feeling of fear?