FEAR 1 JUL 2013

It’s common sense that our minds & bodies are altered by what we feed them. What happens when we feed our minds all kinds of fears, live in fear, & make decisions based on fear? When do we cross the boundary between sensible natural fear & damaging negative fear? When I’ve studied Christ’s life & have been around some exceptionally Christlike men, I’ve noticed they exhibit an almost total absence of fear and lots of faith. So I know firsthand that we need very little fear to be successful godly people. As the Word says, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; Give thanks in all circumstances.” 1 THES 5:18 We can take our fears to our heavenly Father YHWH.
Fear is a God-given emotion; a person is a veggie without it. Does a specific fear we entertain play God’s assigned purpose for fear, or does it play another role in our life? Even rational fear in large doses can be destructive, for instance, living w/ long term fear during war has often caused mental breakdowns called “shell shock”. We are advised not to have a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power. (2 TIM 1:7) And hundreds of times, the Word says “fear not”. In spite of this, Christians today fear the future, fear financial problems, fear terrorists & crime in general. They are afraid of weakness, & afraid of power. They are afraid of death & afraid of life. It reminds me that a coward dies a 1,000 deaths, a brave man dies once. And the instruments that should liberate us, God’s Word & the truth, are misused by some to propagate fear.
I observe that some lock themselves away in self-created prisons of fear. I see people immobilized by fear. Fear acts as an invisible wall between people & their Creator, while faith & hope create open communication with our Creator. I see people living in fear to the point they become a landlord to demons. I repeatedly see the enemies of God take advantage of our fears…to the point I can say…our fears draw what we fear to us! They often create self-fulfilling prophecy. Fear operates with 2 other negative emotions, anger & depression, which can accompany it. A sudden magnification of terror, called panic, when it is irrational can become a phobia. Anxiety is when we don’t know the exact cause of our fear. Fear of the unknown is common to man.
And the World System likes to inflate both our money & our fears. Hollywood, the press, and Billy Graham have emphasized the end of the world. Doomsday prophets have been with us for a long time. The German prophet Bernard had many in Europe convinced that 992 was the end of the world. In 1910, the World’s press quoted scientists that the world would end when the earth passed through the tail of Halley’s Comet. Paul Erlich predicted mass global starvation in 1975 from overpopulation. Christ gave assurance, “I am with you always, to the close of the age.” We need a healthy diet of faith & hope, not fear, which is why the prophet said there is a famine for words from God (Amos 8:11) and Christ said, “Men will not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” These words of Yahshua, recorded in MT 4:4 are actually a quote from DT 8:3 where we are taught that the manna was given to show mankind our need for spiritual nourishment. In today’s climate of fear, Christ’s manna of faith & encouragement are important to us on a daily basis.