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June 26, 2020 - January 10, 2021
one of the first steps in combating fear and worry is to slow down. “Be still”
The odd thing is that fear and anxiety are running away from something, but they don’t know what to run to.
If fear slows down for a minute, it realizes that peace and rest can only reside in someone rather than something, in people rather than pills.
If our sense of well-being is at risk, we want someone who loves and affirms. Fear calls out for a person bigger than ourselves.
Don’t forget, fear’s interpretations are not always to be trusted.
So here is the proposal: let fear point us to the knowledge of God, and let the Spirit of God, by way of Scripture, teach us the knowledge of God.
If fear is a personal matter, we must set off to know a person.
“When I am afraid, I will trust in you” (Ps. 56:3).
The issue isn’t so much whether or not we are afraid and worry. Scripture assumes that we will be afraid and anxious at times. What is important is where we turn, or to whom we turn when we are afraid.
Faith was about knowing God in an intimate, personal way and trusting him because he is trustworthy. Faith sees more, not less.
God, open my ears. I don’t clearly hear your care and compassion when you tell me not to worry or be afraid, but I know they are there. Father, open my eyes. I act like I see all reality. I act like I can see even more than you do. But I am seeing now that there is an entire world that is blurry to me, and that world is you. It is you I don’t see well. I want to trust in what you say and see the things you have revealed. That leaves me no choice but to start with humility. This is the way all journeys with you begin. Please teach me humility so that what you say overrules what I feel.
The glory of the Lord means the presence of the Lord.
When he says he is near, watch for his mighty acts. When he is near, he is really near.
God only gives us what we need when we need it.
he wants us to trust him in the future rather than our self-protective plans.
But imagine what it would be like if that same moment—that eleventh hour—evoked an awareness of the God who was present and active. If called upon, you could fall fast asleep because you knew your God was awake.
The resurrection of Jesus issues the surprising command: don’t be afraid. Because the God who made the world is the God who raised Jesus from the dead and calls you now to follow him....Believing in this God means believing that it is going to be all right, and this belief is ultimately incompatible with fear. 11
Worry is focused inward. It prefers self-protection over trust. It can hear many encouraging words—even God’s words—and stay unmoved. It can be life-dominating. It is connected to your money and desires in that it reveals the things that are valuable to you. It can reveal that you love something more than Jesus. It crowds Jesus out of your life.
Fear and worry reveal that our faith is indeed small.
You trust God for some things but not others. You trust him for heaven but not for earth.
In other words, worry is usually about seeking something other than God’s kingdom. Worry is a sign that we are trying to have it both ways, with one foot in the kingdom of the world and the other in the kingdom of heaven.
When trouble is on the horizon, we already feel alone. We feel like we have to rely on ourselves. We might know what God says but it doesn’t seem relevant to the emerging crisis. We have a sense that the kingdom is for the future but our needs and worries are in the present.
Deuteronomy 8:3, “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
The contrast between earthly and spiritual is not a contrast between the tangible and the intangible; it is between the transitory and the eternal. Earthly is temporary, spiritual is everlasting.
If we don’t find our life and strength in Jesus Christ, we will go from one worry to the next.
Do you have any thoughts on how to grow in this? Is a plan emerging? Any plan must include perseverance, talking with others about the King and his trustworthiness, asking for prayer, and regular feeding from Scripture.
A mere mortal would have had enough of our complaints long ago, but God invites dialogue and displays unlimited patience.
His response begins by simply showing us the sheer breadth and depth of Scripture. The Bible is God’s revelation of himself. It claims to contain everything we need to know. That raises the awkward and now unavoidable question: Do you read God’s Word? This is God’s preparation manual for the future. Do you study it? Do you search it for insights when you are anxious?
His grace to you is intended to accomplish his kingdom purposes, not your own.
A withholding lifestyle means that we don’t believe that there will be manna tomorrow. We don’t believe we will be given enough grace.
God likes his people to be outnumbered because then there is no mistaking that he alone is the Deliverer.
When fearful, first recount who God is. Remember that he has promised to be found by those who seek him. Review stories of his beauty and perfection until you find yourself confident in him. Then pray.
You stand either with the true God or the consortium of the Devil, idols, and your own desires. It might sound overly spiritual, but that is the nature of reality.
But in the kingdom, lust is silly. It is wanting less than what we already
have. It is replacing eternal joys with temporary highs.
While worry and fear live in the dark and are ignorant of what is going on around them, confession brings light.
Whatever you think you need will control you.
The problem was that they underestimated the Lord.
You will always be running scared if you worship other gods, because idols can’t deliver on their promises.
Low self-esteem. This isn’t so much that I feel bad about myself, as it is that I feel bad about myself because I think you feel bad about me.
Need, however, isn’t accompanied by warning bells from our consciences. Instead, it seems so right, so human. Yet veiled beneath our use of the word need are the things we treasure, even worship.
But as a child of the kingdom, I want my love and interest in others to outweigh my desire to be liked.
In other words, when you fear the Lord, there is not much else to fear.
Our goal in life is to get rid of fear, not accumulate more of it. The fear of the Lord seems like a step backward. But in Scripture, the fear of the Lord summarizes a very rich response to God. All other responses to him emphasize certain aspects of it.
For example, if you have ever been angry with God, it is because you thought, I would never allow such a thing to happen, and you examined (and judged) God according to human criteria.
The truth is that his justice and love is greater than—different from—our own; and with that knowledge, all we can do is walk humbly before him.
Unless we learn what fear means from God’s character alone, we will either neutralize the fear in the fear of the ...
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But don’t use the experience of human forgiveness to understand the forgiveness of God. Remember: we have been enemies of God.
Do you ever think that your sins are too bad, and that forgiveness for those sins requires you to get your act together first? If so, you don’t fear God. You are minimizing his forgiveness. You are acting as though his forgiveness is ordinary, just like that of any person or make-believe god. If you think like that, you don’t believe he is holy. In contrast, the fear of the Lord leads us to believe that when God makes promises too good to be true, they are indeed true.
He both hates sin and delights in forgiving sinners.
