Fear

“Overcoming Fear” – R. Nelson

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“For I, the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.” Isaiah 41:13

ENCOURAGING WORD:

As far back as I can remember, my life seemed to be consumed by fear until the day that I gave my life to Jesus Christ. It seemed that there was always something to fear, even when there really was not. Back in the neighborhood where I grew up, there was always the constant threat of being bullied, either verbally or in many cases, physically. I was mostly a victim of verbal bullying. The smaller you were, the more susceptible you were to be bullied. My worst years were when I was in Junior High and Senior High School until my junior year. Between the ages of thirteen and seventeen were bad years for me because those were the years were everybody started sprouting in size, except me, which left me vulnerable to emotional abuse. I was at a point where I was afraid to go out at night, especially alone. We had gangs that would actually drive around at night just looking for an innocent bystander to beat up, so every time I saw a vehicle coming my way, I would hide in a bush. This went on for quite a while.

Then by the time I reached my Senior year I finally caught up in size to many of my classmates. That was when I came into my own and I was able to handle myself against any kind of physical abuse. But then as I grew up and entered my young adult years, I found something else to worry about. I was worried about a job, where I would live when I moved out of my parents’ home, and how I would ever survive on my own in this complicated world. I’m not going to bore you with my life’s journey, but know this, I can speak on this topic firsthand because it consumed most of my life until I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. That started right about the time when I was in my early forty’s.

All this to say, fear does not have to rule your life. I will share some Bible verses of God’s Word to hopefully bring about an understanding of how we can overcome fear. We read in 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.” These are not just some words that were spoken by some man hundreds of years ago, these are Words that were spiritually inspired by none other than our Lord. Obviously, this is easier said than done, but when you truly receive Jesus Christ into your life, you will eventually come to terms with fear and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit you will overcome it. Another verse that we find is in 2 Timothy 1:7; “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” Fear is not a God given emotion; fear is developed over time when we try to live our own lives outside the boundaries of God. It is Satan’s role to inflict as much fear into man as He can and without the protection of the Holy Spirit, you are extremely vulnerable to his attacks. Keep in mind, once again, living a life for Christ does not exclude you from trials and tribulation. But we read once again this verse that everybody should store in their memory bank, Romans 8:28; “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Once you give your life over to Jesus Christ and receive the Holy Spirit into your heart, you can rest on the promise above. Sometimes you will go through something and you will say, God, “I cannot see how this is working out for good,” but then you remind God of the verse above and say, “But you said that all things are working out for good, so I trust you.” If you can say that and mean it, and now put it in God’s hands, you will find immediate comfort.

I’ve heard a great Bible teacher put it this way, “Now isn’t it possible to have something happen in our lives (or not happen that we expected) that we would regard as “bad” but God would regard as “good”? Absolutely, The thing that causes one to have the fear of God and trust in the Lord is that everything, no matter whether it is my perspective of how bad or good it is, everything God does, will work out for the good or is already good. Do you believe it was good for you to lose that job? Do you believe it was good for you to face that trial, that circumstance, and that pain, sorrow, and fear? You know, sometimes God is gracious, and, in our lives, He gives us understanding of those things. But I am to trust Him to the point that even though the understanding never comes, I will still put my confidence in the Lord that everything He has done is good.” Perfectly said! Once again read Romans 8:28.

Proverbs 9:10; tells us the following, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” This may sound like a contradiction of what I am saying, but understand, the fear that God is speaking of is the fear of living without Him and the consequences of His absence in your life. If you haven’t received Jesus Christ as of yet, you have every right to fear the consequences of eternity. Once you fear the Lord in the context in which it is speaking, and you give your life over to Him, you will start to gain wisdom, knowledge and understanding like you could never have imagined. It will all come together like a thousand-piece puzzle. Everything will fit right into place. Another comforting verse is found in Psalm 56.4; “In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.” It is hard, but we need to understand that the world we live in is referred to as a vapor in the Bible, and we are only here for a very short time. James 4:14 tells us this, “Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. So, when the Bible tells us not to fear the flesh, it is saying that man can only hurt the flesh, but only God controls your Spirit. Hebrews 13:6; “So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” The flesh will one day decay, but your Spirit lives on forever in one of two places and that depends on your relationship with Jesus Christ.

ACTION POINT:

My friends, we can go through life fearing everything that comes our way, or we can give our life to Jesus Christ and allow the one who created us in the first place to fulfill His will for us. This is a topic that is dear to my heart because of all I went through in my life. I am a firsthand witness of the power of God in my life and how He turned my life around to where it was supposed to be. Sure, I still have days where all of a sudden fear hits, but then I turn to the Lord and say, “thank you Lord”, I know you are in control and all things are working out for the good.” It is not unusual to feel fear, but when it hits, know this, there is a remedy, and He is called Jesus Christ. When you truly believe in Him and receive Him into your heart, you will soon know and trust that He is in total control and nothing can harm you unless it is filtered through Him. What a blessing that is. Make that choice today and put your life in His hands, how can you go wrong? You can’t! I’ll close with this, here are a couple of lyrics of a beautiful song that we’ve all heard; “Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water, Put your hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea Take a look at yourself, and you can look at others differently, Put your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee.” Amen!

A Commentary from our Chaplin – R. Fritz

Overcoming Fear

Fear comes in many forms: unease, worry, anxiety, nervousness, tension, dread, phobia and so on. You are more concerned about something that might happen than what is happening now. You are in the here and now, while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap. You don’t have any problem coping with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection. You cannot cope with the future. We are thinking about something that probably isn’t even going to happen. We worry about our loved ones.

Fear is real to many people. I know because for about 50 years of my life “Fear” had control in my life. I was afraid of people, height, and many more fears in my life. You might not understand how that can be. Fear is a spirit that is constantly around all of us. It wants to control our every thought and manipulate our life. The problem is we don’t know it or see it because we think our thoughts are really from our mind. Fear is talked about over 500 times in the Bible. Fear is real to millions of people. People struggle all their lives with fear and cannot overcome it. I did eventually overcome all my fears, but that doesn’t mean they do not show up now and then, I just recognize it and deal with it.

I could not overcome fear until I finally found Jesus Christ. We all believe in something, but what I found was this, I could believe in Jesus Christ. The way I dealt with fear was I faced it head on! There was no other way. “Fear” is the opposite of “Faith.” When I say I took fear “head on”, I would go whitewater kayaking in the Colorado River for a couple of years and I would struggle getting out of the kayak when it tipped upside down because I knew that I would have to pull a strap under the water and then push off. I could not find the strap to pull on to get out of the kayak because of the darkness. I eventually took my knee to push on the kayak skirt. The next year I struggled again the first time with getting the skirt off, but the second time as I was struggling all of a sudden it was like somebody turned the light switch on. I could see everything going by including 4 ft. boulders. I also saw the strap and pulled that, but I was in no rush to get out of the kayak and as a result, I was never afraid again under the water. Another trip I took was when I climbed Grays Peak in Colorado at 14278 ft. high. When I got to about 13000 ft, I heard the devil say to me; “you are not going up or down,” I said, “shut up Satan I’m going to the top.” This was about a 7-hour trip. On my way down, I fell backwards, and it was like somebody caught me. There were rocks on the trail, but I never touched any of the rocks. I went To Park City, Utah another year to go to Winter Olympics Park. I rode the Olympics Bobsled with wheels in the summer and our sled had the fastest time of the day 1:00:00 minute and we reached a speed of 70 mph. I also stood at the edge of Olympic ski jump and it was very windy, and I had to take a step back. I could go on and on about the number of times God saw that I was struggling with fear and He gave me what I needed to overcome it. I tell you this because when I was on vacation and did things that I really wanted to do, fear would try to stop me but God would always give me what I needed to overcome the fear of whatever it was that I wanted to do. If you do not give up, I can assure you that everything with God is possible!

How I overcome fear was reading different bible verses given to me by the Holy Spirit. 1 John 4:18; says “There is no fear in love; but perfect love castes out fear: because fear has torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”  Perfect love is “Jesus Christ.” Fearhasanuneasyfeelingabout it, butoncethe Holy Spirit revealed that feeling to me, I knew when fear was present. The second verse was 2 Timothy 1:7; and it says, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” I knew I needed to remember this verse and speak it when “Fear” was present. I remembered the order of the verse by Power, Love, and sound Mind. That still would not completely stop the fear that I was feeling. I asked God for another tool to overcome it. He gave me 2nd Corinthians 10: 4-5; and it says, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds); Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” This was the game changer for me. What this did for me, was this, I could now stop “fear” immediately. Before that, the thoughts that came from fear, I could not always catch and put into captivity. Gods word’s “and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” has given us the ability now to stop “Fear” immediately by trusting God’s Words. This is what I’m trying to tell people. God’s Word comes alive and can stop evil spirits in their tracks. Going through fear for many years and overcoming it through my relationship with Jesus Christ has made me an expert with fear and anxiety. Anxiety is serious worry, or in other words, it is fear coming out as a spiritual illness. It is a bad feeling and the bible says fear has torment. This is what I talked about when I knew fear was around. We need to change our thought process and when we start thinking about bad things that could be coming tomorrow or next week or worry about somebody in our life, we should now be able to see that fear is present. If you know Jesus Christ, you have all you need to win this spiritual battle. What took me years to overcome, you can now do in a short period of time. You should pray to our Lord and Savior to help you overcome like I did. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior and my Physician who got me through this battle to share with everybody that reads this message. It is your choice now, use God’s plan that I just gave you or you can go to your physician and take the pills given to you for anxiety. You now have choices. This is what I talk about when I talk about “winning,” beating the devil and having a great life free of spiritual illness with no side effects.

In Conclusion – R. Nelson  

Without a doubt, we all face certain fears in our lives at one time or another. If you are going through something that just will not let you rest, first of all, do not feel like you are alone. You are in the majority these days of those that are living in some kind of fear. As you can see by our testimonies above, Rick and I both faced times in our lives when fear had control of everything we did. As you read our experiences, you will also notice that we both have a common denominator as to how we overcame fear. We both gave our lives to Jesus Christ and trusted in Him for comfort and understanding. This doesn’t mean that we never have any fear in our lives, we are still human, it just means that we know who to turn to. You guessed it, Jesus Christ! When you give your life to Jesus Christ and start to trust in him, any fear in your life will start to slowly fade. You will eventually get to the point in your walk with Jesus where He will give you a level of comfort that will pass all human understanding. You may not understand it, but you sure will feel good. We read this in Philippians 4:7; “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”  This message is available to all who will put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, our only Lord and Savior! Call out to Jesus today and let Him bring you the level of comfort that has been given to so many who made the commitment to give their lives to Christ! “Written To the glory of God, Inspired by the Holy Spirit.” Amen!