2 TIMOTHY 1:7 – “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

THEME OF THE DAY: WE DON’T HAVE TO BE AFRAID.  No one is immune. From a little child through adulthood, we experience the paralyzing emotion of being afraid. “Monsters” are not just under the beds or in the closets of children.  We never outgrow being afraid.

It was not like that in the beginning.  Imagine being Adam and Eve never experiencing the emotion of being afraid.  But then they did.  Disobedience toward God brought about this powerful emotion that plagues all human beings through life.  Here is the first time the word afraid appears in our Bibles, and it is Adam being afraid of God – how sad, how horrible –  “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”  And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself”” (Genesis 3:6-10).

But God intervened.  The Lord Jesus came.  The powerful gospel was revealed providing the power to defeat unhealthy fear.  And today’s scripture gives every believer hope in this battle against being afraid if we apply it in those tempting times. Let’s make the application.

First, believe God not only wants us to live above unhealthy fear, but provides the way to overcome unhealthy fear.  Sounds simple but it is not.  We have an aggressive enemy wanting us to doubt God’s provision and willingness to help us. We know well the intense battle between faith and feelings, and the initial step to squash unhealthy fear by faith is to resolve to believe what God has said.  We don’t need to ask Him for power to overcome being afraid.  We need, by faith, to praise Him for giving us such power.  Go over today’s scripture slowly.  It does not read, “God will give us the spirit of power, love, and sound mind.”  It reads that He already has.  Start thanking Him for this power instead of asking for what He has already given us. That is faith living over feelings.

The second application is simple. Not easy, but simple.  Confront the cause of being afraid.  Believe God has given us what we need to overcome it, then confront it.  For instance, we might be in a tense relationship that we know needs to be reconciled. God demands and commands unity, and sometimes, it is scary to take the first step to make this happen, and especially if we are not the root cause of the tension.  Being afraid, we try to avoid the process. We may even avoid the person or situation. Fleeing out of fear does not honor the Lord. Don’t. Step out in faith and watch how God empowers us with what He has already given us – the spirit of power, love, and a sound mind – but He does so as we obey, not before.

We don’t have to be afraid.  God gives us all we need not to be afraid.  Learn to appropriate what He has given us and consistently defeat the temptation to yield to unhealthy fear.

PRAYER: Father, I praise You forgiving me Your Spirit so that I may walk with You in this dangerous world.

REFLECTION: God has not left us to fight fear alone.  His Spirit is the Spirit of overcoming in the believer.