Aug 27thDevotion Isaiah 41:10 Fear Is A Decision And A Revelation

Isaiah 41:10 – So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Genesis 15:1 – After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram.  I am your shield, your very great reward.

The first thing I would like to ask is if anyone truly thinks the Lord has failed if we fear?  Does anyone say “The Lord is not taking the fear away?”  So if fear remains is it the Lord’s fault?   I hope that you really don’t think that, it sounds more like frustration.

Let’s look at where fear comes from.  It comes from the enemy or from within us.  But let’s now frame the battle of fear as having three parts, the enemy, us, and the Lord.  We know the enemy is evil and that he is a malevolent being who hates us and wants to destroy us. (1 Peter 5:8, John 10:10)  He wants to separate us from God, just as He did with Adam and Eve. (Genesis 3:  He tells us lies undermining the Lord’s honor, integrity, and the very truth of who God is.  He wants us to not believe God.  If we don’t believe and trust His Word or are lacking in the content and understanding of it, and if we do not aggressively protect our time of fellowshipping with Him, then we are easy victims for Him to prey upon.  We are weak in the faith if we are weak in fellowship with Him and having Him open His Word for us.  We become the weak member of the herd that the lion preys upon.

Let’s now consider what we know of the Lord.  He is faithful and will protect us from the schemes (including fear) of the devil. (Ephesians 6:11)  We know that the devil is a liar (John 8:44) and we know that God has never lied and does not and cannot lie. (Numbers 23:19, Hebrews 6:18, Matthew 24:35, 2 Samuel 7:28, Psalm 119:160, James 1:13, John 14:6, Titus 1:2)  As we consider the question about fear, the integrity of the Lord’s words are central and must be established.  If it is possible for the Lord to lie, or even worse if He is an inveterate liar, then why would anyone follow Him?  If the Lord were guilty of one lie than that would mean that everything He said is suspect.  That means if we cannot trust everything that He says we could not trust anything that He says.  So that would mean we could not trust His Word in which we know that Jesus is Savior and Lord.  If God is not always true, than we have no sure foundation for our faith.  So, for all believers, we must believe that God is always faithful and true or we are not believers at all.  But we know that there is no deceit in God and that He is always and entirely trustworthy.  He does not lie.  He keeps His word.  In that we are eternally safe and in that we do trust.  Trusting God, believing Him, having faith in Him is vital to our salvation through Jesus.  We trust that there is no deceit in Him (1 Peter 2:22) and so we have faith. (Ephesians 2:8)  We know that God is true and cannot be unfaithful to us even if we are unfaithful to Him.  (2 Timothy 2:13)  We also know that God loves us and nothing can separate us from His love. (Romans 8:37-39)

Plain is it that the Lord does not want us to fear, but to be brave, because He is with us.  Not because we think that we ourselves have any strength, but because our Omnipotent God is always with us.  Because of Him with us He has commanded that we do not fear.  Again, trusting His Word to us, He is always with us.  Since He is with us and caring for us, why should we fear?  We need only remember that He who loves us (John 3:16) is always with us.  The hyena is not fearful of the lion cub, but is fearful of the cub’s mother who is always near.

We have established that the enemy is the one who hates us and would like to cause us to fear.  We know that the Lord loves us, that He always tells the truth, and we know that He works all things out for the good of those who love Him. (Romans 8:28) The enemy against us, the Lord for us.  Should we fear?  Absolutely not, He is with us!

So the third person in this fight of the ages is us.  So who is responsible for us to live in fear of anything? We could say it is the enemy who pursues us to destroy us.  Yet, he can’t make us do anything. (1 Peter 5:9) The devil cannot make us do anything, he can only tempt us.  Besides, we have the Spirit of the Living God within us and He is greater than the devil. (1 John 4:4)  We know that God will not tempt us and that the devil cannot make us do anything.  Since God has given us free will to choose, what do we sometimes choose, or slip into, concerning fear.  Sometimes the devil will get us to concentrate on him, on what he says, instead of what the God says.  Sometimes he can deceive us to believe him rather than God.  Too often we can ponder and believe his lies rather than God’s truth.  Let us not be silly.  Knowing God we must immediately and completely reject the lies of our enemy and always embrace the truth of God.  Who is the truth but our Savior and Lord?  He identified Himself as the one true Truth.  If two people are talking to us and one hates us and would like to kill us and the other loves us and has done everything needed to express His love to us, who will we listen to?  One is dedicated to hurting us and deceiving us into eternal foolishness and the other will only love us and do everything in our behalf.  Really we say that decision of who to pay attention to and who to believe is obvious.  It is not even a contest.  Then why, oh why, can we sometimes doubt God.  Even worse, we accuse Him!  Oh my goodness, what a horror it is to accuse God, to say it is not our fault but yours!  Instead, believe Him.

Family and Friends the main reason we live in fear is either a lack of knowledge of God and His Word or because of a weakness in faith and lack of cured cemented faith in the Lord.  Either we don’t know who He is (lack of understanding of the Word and lack of personal intimate communion with Him) or don’t fully understand what He is.  The more time we spend with someone that loves us the more we know them and the more confident we become in them.  We believe them and trust them and take their advice.  How much more so should heed the Words of God and believe Him.  So the person who allows and brings fear into our lives is us.  We are the guilty ones.  Let us not accuse God of not doing His part.  He is faithful and will never leave us unable to not fear.  If you will, even the devil who hates us is faithful to do his part of hating us and trying to hurt us.  It is us who will be unfaithful.  So to not fear we must know God and His Word.  We must know Him and understand it.  Even more than we know our own names we must know and trust God.  This is done by sitting daily at the feet of our Teacher the Holy Spirit as He teaches us the meaning of the Word.  And it is done by living within breath distance of our loving and almighty God.  Stay close to God and fear will be overcome.  Not that we can’t be tempted to fear, but that the temptation will not overcome us.  With faith in Jesus the filth of fear is continually washed away.  It cannot stain us.  Believe God.  Stay ever close to Him and thereby don’t live in fear. (Deuteronomy 1:29-30, 3:22, 31:6, Joshua 1:9, 1 Chronicles 28:20, 2 Chronicles 20:15, Psalm 56:3-4, Psalm 91:5)   Praise God!

Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord!

Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will Hear me.

Micah 6:8 – He has shown you, Oh man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

Numbers 6:24-26 – The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.