Devotion VIDEO here
For
God has not given us a
spirit of fear and timidity,
but of power, love, and self-discipline.
2 Timothy 1:7(NLT)
So
far this week we have looked at “fear” as a debilitating enemy we need to expect, because it is the main tool of our
number 1 enemy, Satan, who wishes to destroy the eternal life we receive in
Christ. We begin to deal with fear by exposing it, bringing it out in the
light. And then we, as Jean Luc Picard
would say, engage our fears by
fighting with every spiritual weapon at our disposal.
Today
we want to look at the outcome of this kind of spiritual warfare.
Here’s
what happens when expected fear comes and you expose it and engage it in
faith…you’re:
Hidden
in the cleft of the rock
People
who find the presence of God absent from their lives are people who've gone
away from God. (Remember, He never
moves!)
People
who come close to God in confession find themselves, like Moses, placed in the
cleft of the rock, a place covered by the shadow of the Almighty's hand.
In
Scripture the covering reminds us of the mercy seat on top of the
Ark of Covenant. To be forgiven is to
receive the mercy of God, having our sin covered, as if buried in the
deepest part of the ocean.
The
covering was the place where the Lord's presence dwelt.
My
friend, if you want to have your sins forgiven and placed under the mercy of
God, where one would have to pry God Himself off the lid in order to ever
accuse you, simply bring yourself close to Him in worship; commune with the
Lord, face to face.
Face
up to your past and all the emptiness of fear and defeat.
This
is how you expose your fear and engage it with faith. Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
Do
the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.[2]
I
don’t know of a better example of this than what our daughter, Jennifer, did on
her birthday
She had
a fear of heights. What she did was jump
out of a plane (with a parachute).
That
is exactly what it means to engage and face-down the fear-demon.
For You Today
So….got
fear?
The
first step in doing what you fear is always the hardest.
And
the promise of Jesus is always, “…take it – and I’ll handle the fear factor!”
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