Monday, April 27, 2009

FEAR - False Evidence Appearing Real

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not fear; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go" (Joshua 1:9).

If my calculations are correct, this is the third and most emphatic time God told the Joshua generation "not to fear" in chapter one. It was imperative they did not repeat the pattern of the Moses generation who chose to disobey God basically out of fear. For them Proverbs 29:25 proved true, "the fear of man proves to be a snare."

Usually what stops us from following God's will is fear. Fear is often times invisible...a wall of uncomfortable feelings. Some of the foundation stones in the wall is anxiety, foolishness, doubt, exposed, weak and incompetent. If you have time today, read Numbers 13 and 14 and note how the wall of fear kept the Moses generations from entering the Promised Land.

Human nature is such that we like a padded nest. We spend so much time and resource building it that it becomes the familiar, our security. We wrap ourselves in the quilt of human relationship. Friends make us feel good but often they sequester us from following God lead however. They too have fear... the fear of loosing something... their comfort. They'll say, "It's not safe; It's impossible; That's not the way we do it; I won't let you!"

We pad our nest with routine to make us feel good and our lives seem consistent and normal. We feel secure behind the fence of acceptable behavior while peering through the glass in the front door of our success. We work to "get all we can, can all we get and sit on the can" out of fear of there not being enough or selfishness.

Fear. It will keep us from following God. It will sap our strengthen and courage. It leads to discouragement and the feeling that God is not with us. May fear not hold us back from entering our Promised Land. What's your thoughts on fear?

Thanks for stopping by!

------
Adrian

10 comments:

  1. All change involves the fear of the unknown.
    We chase after some false sense of security, even giving away our freedom to those who promise safety.
    If one does not fear the Lord, I wonder if they know Him at all.

    Carry in!

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  2. And it's strange (or crazy) Narrow, that we fear the unknown, yet we'll stick with the things or people that we know even if they are not healthy for us. One saying that I picked up in counselor training was that change happens when "the fear of remaining the same is greater than the fear of change."

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  3. Do you think people are afraid that God might actually speak to them?

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  4. Not that He would speak but what He would say.

    Just what does He demand of His Disciples?

    Carry on!

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  5. I think there's fear of accountability. People know that if God speaks, with that comes expectations and deep down, I think most people know what God wants (to the degree that we can know that). They know He wants our all, our life. That He wants us to come up to higher ground and that would mean leaving the existence to which we've become accustomed, even if we know it's not what's best.

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  6. Pat, I think you hit it on the head when you mentioned accountability. After all, if God asks something of us, we 'deep down' know we can tell Him "No" and thats scary.

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  7. I think of the movie "Golden Eye" where the computer hacker sat around saying, "I am invincible". We all know that from a human perspective we are anything but invincible. Yet man's quest is to be invincible. We Christians are in fact invincible because even if the body is destroyed, we live on, in fact in a much better way than we can ever achieve here on earth! We need to live like we are invincible because in Christ we are. Great saints of the faith I believe understood (understand) this concept and live that out. In "The Fisherman's Testament", Petros is before Nero telling his story, with no fear. I think that is because he knew it to be so true, it didn't matter what anyone else thought even to the point of death. Do we live in faith? or in fear? Good question!

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  8. Martyrdom is a gift. I can’t grasp it. He has not asked it of me. I don’t want to ask for it. It scares me.

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  9. Monkeys are afraid of water too!

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  10. I think I hear Him calling you to something.....

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