Fear

Think back to the Wizard of Oz. Remember when they were all going to meet the wizard? This picture portrays their fear. They were trembling when they thought about meeting him. They had a reverence for him but also a phobia of him simultaneously. This is a depiction of how we are to fear God.

“Do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread." Isaiah 8:12-13

Everyone of us fears something. Our insecurities produce many irrational fears in us. For example: fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of being alone, fear of others, fear of change, fear of commitment, fear of intimacy, fear of abandonment, etc.

But God tells us not to fear those things.

"Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Matthew 10:28

God tells us not to fear earthly things. The only fear we should have is a fear of God. There are three Greek words for fear: phobos, deilas, and eulabeia. Phobos translates to phobia in English. Deilas means fright or dread, and eulabeia means reverence. Fear of God is referenced with all three fears in the Bible. There are times when we are commanded to have a phobia of God. Just think about that for a second. We should be scared out of our mind at times. We should be fearful of not surrendering our lives to God. We should fear to move when we're not following God. Charles Spurgeon says that when God tells us to go, it would be dangerous to delay.

We must learn to stop fearing earthly things when God tells us to go. If we're fearing, we're not trusting God, which means we're not living in faith.

"Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." Hebrews 11:1

In contrast, fear is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen. When we believe that we're going to fail at something, we do. Sometime we even fail because we don't even try. Let's begin hoping and trusting God for great things! Let's make our God given dreams a reality through His power in us!

"You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father." John 14:13

Let's squash our fears, trust in God, and dream again!