“I Quit: Living in Fear”
If we go back to the “monsters under the bed” phase of our lives, we can all say that we have dealt with fear! And as we grew older did our fear ever really go away? Maybe you fear being alone, loss, failure, rejection or the unknown. If we are completely honest with ourselves we can admit we all still deal with fear! Many define fear as the opposite of faith…but fear is really faith in the wrong things! Fear is Faith In The What If’s over Faith in God’s Promise!
- What You FEAR the MOST Shows What You VALUE The MOST & TRUST God The LEAST
(1 Samuel 17:45-51)- We see such a different picture painted here! The Israelites have the fear “What if they beat us and take us back into bondage and kill us”, The Philistines have the fear “What if this is another defeat by Israel” and David has the fear “What if I don’t trust God’s Promise”! What’s crazy is that they all have a fear, yet only one is fueled by Faith in God’s Promise!
- When we dig into our fears we can truly see what we value the most in our lives…and if we value something enough we are scared to lose it that reveals to us where we trust God the least. In a nutshell our biggest fear is the biggest area we have to grow our faith in the right things! The hard part is we want to close our eyes and it all go away…but just like the monster under the bed it didn’t go away in one night. It took night after night of someone assuring us that we weren’t facing this alone…and honestly that’s what God promises us (not that it will be easy but that we will never walk through this life alone)!
- ACKNOWLEDGE Your FEAR and TRUST God ANYWAY (1 Samuel 17:51-58)
- When David faced certain death and the Lord delivered him…he was able to take the very words that struck fear in the hearts of Israel & used them against Goliath! This is a foreshadowing of Christ to come! Satan used God’s Word against Adam & Eve and that lead all of humanity to a path of fear (remember the fig leaves) and until Jesus came and conquered Sin, Death and the Grave to fulfill the Word of God we could never experience true deliverance! When we acknowledge our fears, we see how Satan will twist God’s Word to ignite fear in us…instead of us trusting God’s word to fuel in His Promise of Deliverance!
- Many times we get stuck here because we pridefully refuse to admit our fears…but only when we define our fears can we truly grow in our faith to overcome it. Many times we put on the filter of “all together” to stay stuck in something we were meant to be free of years ago…and our fear of letting it go is paralyzing us to grow in the faith!
The Boldest Thing I’m asking you to do today is not face your fears alone! Share with someone you trust what you fear the most…and let them walk step by step with you as you both grow your faith in Christ through it!
Take Away:
What are some of the “what if’s” that ignite your fears?
What are some of the fears that God has delivered you from?
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Tyler West 