SYNOPSIS: Your biggest threat today, tomorrow and any day thereafter, will not be people, circumstances or the random forces of the universe. No, the biggest threat to you is you. More accurately, your biggest threat is fear. Fear, not problems, will paralyze your experience of the life God has in mind for you. That’s why God calls you to “fear not!”, his number one command in the Bible.
The Journey// Focus: Deuteronomy 20:1
When you go out to fight your enemies and you face horses and chariots and an army greater than your own, do not be afraid. The Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, is with you!
Your biggest threat today, tomorrow or any day thereafter, will not be people, circumstances or the random forces of the universe. No, the biggest threat to you is you. More accurately, your biggest threat is fear. Fear, not problems, will paralyze your experience of the life God has in mind for you.
Don’t be afraid! That is the number one command that God gives his people in scripture. Someone has said there are 365 “fear not’s” strategically placed from the beginning to the end of the Bible—one for every day of the year. Why? Because God knew that every day this year when you get up and head off, the enemy waiting outside your door will be the fear inside your mind. But God says, “do not be afraid!”
Easier said than done, right! I am sure that was even more so for the Israelites here in Deuteronomy 20. They were heading out the door to face literal enemies bigger, meaner, more battle-hardened and better equipped than they. Yet God’s first command to them as they prepared to possess their Promised Land was “fear not, for I brought you this far, and I wont leave you now.” Furthermore, not only was he with them, he assured them that he was out ahead of them:
For the Lord your God is going with you! He will fight for you against your enemies, and he will give you victory! (Deut. 20:4)
That is true for you, too. That is a promise that you can and should claim today: God is with you, he is ahead of you, he is fighting for you and he has already secured your victory! So listen to what God is saying to you. Proverbs 1:33 says, “Whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.”
So in reality, as the children of God, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Those famous words were spoken at a time when a lot of people were living in fear. The world was uncertain, World War II was about to engulf Europe, and America was in the middle of its deepest economic depression ever—before or since. And the newly elected president, Franklin Roosevelt, uttered those immortal words during his first inaugural address in 1933. He was quoting God: fear not!
There are several kinds of fear that fight for control of our lives—three in particular that are quite common and especially debilitating:
The first kind of fear is based in an irrational worry of “what if,” and it debilitates a lot of people. Someone has described this fear with a clever acronym as “False Enemies Appearing Real.”
A second kind of debilitating fear—and it’s definitely a real one—is the fear that comes from foolish living. Foolish living (“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God,’” Psalm 14:1, 53:1) by its Biblical definition is to live as if God and his laws do not exist—to live as a practical atheist. Those who live in disregard to the Almighty and his ways cannot help but have an underlying and chronic dread of looming trouble.
The third kind of fear is that which comes when we are facing very real threats to the will of God in our lives. They are not false enemies, they are real—big, hairy, audacious threats. But just remember, they are not as big as God.
So we must learn to surrender to a fourth kind of fear: fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is to be in awe of his person, to respect his commands, and to live in ruthless trust in his good character and unfailing promises.
Today, reject those first three debilitating fears and embrace the fourth life-giving fear by exerting trust in the God who is with you and who goes before you. If you will step out in faith to follow his leading, you will have nothing to fear.
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.