Fear Cannot Rule Me!
Ξ October 4th, 2007 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Christian Living, End Times, Growing In The Lord, New Christians |
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Yesterday, the scripture I talked about had to do with stirring up or inflaming anew the gift God has put inside us. We realized that we are to do the stirring or inflaming, not God. We found out that study, reading and prayer would help do this.
God says that He did not give us a spirit of fear. This scripture came directly after the one from yesterday about stirring up the gift inside you.
(2Ti 1:6-7) Therefore I remind you to inflame anew the gift of God, which is in you by the putting on of my hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Now why would God say that right after He talked about getting us inflamed or stirred up with the gift? Why speak of that fear now, particularly? Because God is asking us to use the gift to touch others and what is the fear in doing that? Rejection!! Good old rejection from someone you want to keep as a friend or someone you do not want mad at you. We are so afraid that someone won’t like us talking about God in a society that loves to talk about sex. Does that make sense to you at all??
God tells us that He doesn’t give us the spirit of fear. Three things to note here:
1) that God gives only positive things-power, love, sound mind.
2) that fear is not part of God–ever.
3) that fear is a spirit.
Now, if God didn’t give us the spirit of fear, where did that come from? Our adversary, the dude that, under no circumstances, wants us to learn that we don’t have to accept fear as an option. That dude that wants you to embrace fear and gives it as freely as God gives the His things as gifts. See that gift thing is two sided. You can have gifts from either God or the other dude. However, because at this time, we live in a sin natured world, it is far easier to accept fear than it is to resist it.
Ah, but there is an out, another gift from God. (Don’t you just love all these gifts? It’s like Christmas every single day of your life!)
(James 4:7) Therefore submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
He tells us that if we resist the dude (like the spirit of fear, for instance), the dude has to flee. Now I call that great news. Of course, just resisting once won’t be enough. That guy is very persistent and he doesn’t play fair. He hits you when you’re down. But if you resist him, he is required to flee.
Okay, what was that about power, love and sound mind again? God grants us the privilege of receiving His power, His love and His sound mind, also gifts from Him. If we have a sound mind, we can make sound decisions based on what God tells us. If we have God’s love, we have the ability to see the positive side to any story, to touch anyone with the love of God. If we have God’s power, we can change the world.
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