What are you afraid of? Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Job 28:28 And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. Job 3:25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. Mt 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. 1John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. Quick, what was the very first thing you thought about when you read the title to this? Some would have said heights, some would have said dogs, some would have said growing old, others might have said spiders or snakes and some would have said the dark. Some may fear getting cancer, others might fear losing their brain functions, as in Alzheimer’s. A few might have answered “nothing,” but very few, for if we are totally honest most of us would admit to being afraid of something. I use to say I was not afraid of anything, but once I sat down and really thought about it, I realized I do have a few little phobias. Drowning for instance… unlikely since I live in the desert and don’t have a swimming pool, but still the fear is there in the back of my mind. I’ve also learned to fear falling off a horse since I was bucked off a couple of years ago. I have a highly irrational phobia of needles… and a fear of heights so crippling at times that when I see a scene on a movie that has been taken from a high altitude, I break out in a cold sweat. I’m not in any danger, I’m sitting on my sofa, yet that irrational fear kicks in and my body responds to it. What about spiritually? Do you fear missing the rapture? Perhaps being left behind? Do you fear that maybe the atheists are right and there’s nothing after death? Are you afraid of taking a stand for the Bible and for Jesus? Maybe you’re afraid that when the time comes that your faith is tested - you may fail that test? So what are you afraid of? I once heard a preacher make the statement that “fear is faith that something bad will happen.” I’ve often thought about that in the past few years, even more recently as we watch prophecy unfolding all over the world. Do Christians need to fear what is coming? Let’s look at Job. In the book of Job we read about a man who was upright before God; a man who offered sacrifices daily for the sins of his children. Yet when he was tested by Satan, he confessed this thing… the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. He had GREAT faith, so much so that the Lord bragged on him to “the sons of God,” yet he confessed to his “comforters” that he harbored a great fear, and it came upon him. (Note, I’m not going into whether it was losing all he had or getting the huge sores on his body, that’s for someone else to explore.) I heard another preacher make the statement “where your greatest faith is you will find your greatest growth.” So, according to this reasoning, if you have more faith in that which you are afraid of, that is where you will have the most growth. It may sound silly, but what if you’re one of those people who are afraid of getting fat, and you discover that no matter what you do, no matter how much you diet, you keep gaining weight? What if you’re a person who is afraid of losing their mental acuity, and you discover that as you age, you can’t remember things as easily? It’s not silly then, is it? In Job and again in the Proverbs we are told that the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge. Jesus told us that we should not fear those who can hurt the body but not our souls, but we should fear Him who can destroy both the body and the soul, and contrary to what some teach, Jesus was NOT talking about the devil. He was talking about God. We ARE to fear (reverence, be in awe of) the Almighty God. So maybe a good, healthy fear of SOME things, God in particular, is a good thing. So what about the faith thing… where is your faith? Is it in something bad that may or may not ever happen? Like falling out of a tree, or getting mugged, or having a wreck, or getting cancer. Or is your faith in God? What are you afraid of? Where is your greatest faith? Are you trusting God that, no matter what happens, He’s “got this?” Or are you trusting that something bad is going to happen? Just take a few moments and think about it, then go back to 1 John 4:18 and remember that perfect love casts out all fear and, as a reminder, God is love. Notes just for the fun of it: The word "fear" appears 369 times in the King James Authorized Version of the Holy Bible. Sixty three times (63) it appears as "fear not." The word "afraid" appears 189 times. Of those, "be not afraid" appears 26 times. "Neither be afraid" appears 3 times. “Have no fear” does not appear at all according to my searchable version, at least not in the KJAV. The phrase "fear of" appears 74 times. The phrase "sore afraid" appears 14 times. "Great fear" appears 6
Posted on: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:40:19 +0000
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