Where did fear come from?
There are two main kinds of fear found in the bible;
1] The right kind of fear-which is the fear of the Lord.
We are made to fear God but nothing else. Fear God but nought else! God wants to have first place in every part of our lives, but our wrong fear can occupy a place that needs emptied before God can fill it. Perfect love casts out all fear.
Amen
What is the fear of the Lord? This expression occurs many times in the Hebrew scriptures and once in the New Testament. There are various pictures we can give from scripture. The expression ‘Fear of the Lord’ appears 15 times in the book of Proverbs, whose main theme as you know is wisdom. So, there is a link between the fear of the Lord and wisdom. Here are some examples,
Proverbs 1:7 the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 8:13 the fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogance, and the evil way, and the forward (perverse) mouth, do I hate.
Proverbs 22:4 By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honour, and life.
There seems to be three components to the fear of the Lord
a) awe and reverence
b) hatred of evil
c) obedience to God’s word.
Let us cultivate them daily!
2] The wrong kind of fear All of us experience the wrong kind of fear at some time in our lives.
N.B. Fear should be a dissimilar experience for believers and unbelievers.
The wrong fear is debilitating and even paralysing and is opposite to faith. What effects of fear have you noticed in your own or in your loved ones?
Did you know that faith and fear are mutually exclusive? Choose where you are going to live today, in the house of faith or in the house of fear?
It is important to realise that our fear of the Lord can be the antidote/answer to the wrong type of fear. The right fear overcomes the bad fear.
Again, we get to choose which type of fear is going to be active in our lives.
Choose well, choose life, choose the fear of the Lord!
If we live by our feelings, they can drag us down into the pit of fear. But we need to see our situations in life through the lens of faith and through the lens of the bible not through the lens of doubt and fear.
Could it be that because modern society is so steeped in fear it has collectively lost the fear of a holy God? Yet many people fear death, sickness, poverty, helplessness, loneliness, future, commitment, failure, etc. So, what is the answer?
Before we look at ow to deal with the wrong fear in our lives let us remind ourselves where and when fear first attacked humankind.
The first mention of fear in the bible is when Adam told God that he was afraid.
Genesis 3:10 KJV "And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I [was] naked; and I hid myself."
Fear entered Adam and Eve for the first time at the fall.
Fear was first manifested when the Lord had been disobeyed by the couple.
However if the fall brought fear into humankind, then surely the new creation through Jesus Christ must be able to remove it and bring us into God’s peace.
Two things to remember about fear:
1. God himself has never been afraid and never will be for his plans always succeed.
2. Man made in image of God was not designed/meant to cope with fear, worry, or anxiety.
Powerful antidote to fear in a believer's life
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things have become new.
We need to enforce the new life in Christ and make sure things like fear are supressed as part of your old life. The revelation of this scripture helps many believers to overcome fear in their lives.
Amen
Prayer
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