I have been on vacation the last two weeks. In fact, I hadn’t even planned on blogging at all over those two weeks, but as things sort of imploded around our country, I felt compelled to write about it. You can read that post HERE.
In that post, I talked about how FEAR plays such a big role in the racial issues that keep boiling over. As I’ve meditated on what fear is and how the enemy uses it to distract us and shut us down and turn us against each other, the verse in 2 Timothy keeps coming to my mind.
“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity (or fear), but of power and love and discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:7
The fear that is choking our country is NOT from God. That fear is from the enemy because he wants to kill and destroy. Instead, what God gives us is power, love and discipline.
The word power is from the Greek word dynamis (also the root of dynamite) which means strength or ability.
The word love is from the Greek word agape which means love feasts or benevolence or charity. (personally, my favorite is love feasts).
The word discipline is from the Greek word sophronismos which means moderation or self-control.
I don’t know about you, but I think the world could use a little more strength and love and self-control.
It would be so easy right now to feel helpless and hopeless. It would be easy to feel like the answers are too hard or too complicated. It would be easy to be overwhelmed by the violence and death, to drown in the waves of grief and hate and rage that seem to be all around us.
But that isn’t truth. If we are God’s children, He tells us that HE has equipped us to to do what we can’t in our own strength. He has equipped us to combat fear at its root.
We can’t do that, though, if we allow fear to win.
This morning I was reading Psalms 118, and a few verses stood out to me.
Oh let those who fear the LORD say,
“His lovingkindness is everlasting.”From my distress I called upon the LORD;
The LORD answered me and set me in a large place.The LORD is for me; I will not fear;
What can man do to me?The LORD is for me among those who help me;
Therefore I will look with satisfaction on those who hate me.It is better to take refuge in the LORD
Than to trust in man.It is better to take refuge in the LORD
Than to trust in princes.
What stood out so clearly to me in these verses is that who and what we put our trust in is the key to defeating fear. It would be so easy to put our trust in so many other things: politicians and movements and protests and hashtags, even our own anger. But our true refuge in any crisis is God, and I can’t help but think that the answers start there too.
What about you? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Blessings, Rosanne
2 Comments on Fear is NOT From God
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Rosanne, This is what Pastor Al preached on this past Sunday. And so right on target. I must confess to surrendering last week to some despair and discouragement and I seldom if ever do that. But the world just seemed so dark. And then my sunshine was 1 John 1:4-7. ” In Him there is NO darkness at all” (my emphasis) .
Thanks for stopping by Kellie! Yes, it seems everywhere I turned the last week, that verse in 2 Timothy kept popping up. I found myself using it in Sunday school when that wasn’t even what I had planned on, and then Pastor Al used it. I love that verse in I John. Thanks so much for sharing it! 🙂