- Fear in Our Faith

Whether we are young in our faith or we have been church-goers our entire lives, the concept of fear is one we all must face. Perhaps you have had a near death experience and now you fear that encounter again. Or maybe you have a phobia from childhood that you have never faced head on. Some of our fears are very private while others are open to the public. But there is one fear that all christians must share, that is fear of God.

We are biblically commanded to fear God and nothing else. But since the fall of Adam, we now struggle with fearing everything else, every single day. Some of us struggle with personal things like anxiety in social situations and we fear breaking down in front other people. We can also have a larger scale fear for other people, a situation we are not closely involved in yet we can still fear it. For example, a hurricane terrorizing homes and families that is thousands of miles away and not a single threat to us, we can still fear that storm. No matter the fear or how close it is to us, God is sovereign and He is greater than that fear.

Some fears can be a huge hindrance to the faith of a believer. Nothing stops us in our tracks like a scary situation. But is all fear something to be avoided? In this intriguing message, Pastor Jeff Schreve shares what types of fear are healthy to have in our lives, the roots of the negative fear that doesn’t come from the Lord, and how we can dig those fear roots out of our lives today.

Since we know to fear God, that means there is godly fear and ungodly fear. The book of Ecclesiastes describes fear as one of our responsibilities to God, “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.” All we need to fear is one thing, just one. Yet our sinful position in this world tempts us to fear so many other things. It sounds ridiculous when you think about it, why do we let ourselves fear so many things, when the right thing to do is to only fear God? It is because “the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field…” Our sin tempts us, and we fall short time and time again into ungodly fear.

Now we must ask, how do we handle our fears and how can we fear God and struggle with so many other fears? The answer comes to us from an amazing love story, God sent His son to die and redeem us of our sins. Jesus Christ didn’t just pay for one sin for one person, God made a way so that Christ’s sacrifice redeems every one of all our sins and the sins we will commit. Christ then raised from the dead to kill that serpent that tempts us, to show that death will not win, because of Christ we have no need to fear anything that tempts us. The only way we can conquer all the fears of this world is by believing that Christ is the savior and that He can take away our sins. It is a comforting fear of God that will save us from our fear of everything evil.