Five Reasons To Practice Positive Fear

UV 3209/10000 Five Reasons Not to Fear
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
Isaiah 41 v 10
The Word of God is the secret solution that we should drink thrice a day like medicine. We will be greatly strengthened when we drink of the God-provided solution to all of man’s ills. In the above uni-verse, the Lord gives us five reasons not to fear anything- that, He is with us, that He is our God, that He will strengthen us from within, that He will help us from without by changing circumstances, that He will uphold us. These five reasons are like the five fingers of the right hand of God holding us up. The Lord asks us not to fear, not to fear our enemies, not to fear disaster, not to fear death, not to fear failure, not to fear the future and the unknown, not to fear for the future of our children. He promises in this uni-verse that He who is Immanuel and the Great I Am is with us. He will not disappoint us. He will not forsake us. He will not give up on us. He will not fail us. As Ebenezer, He helps us. The character of God as delineated by the Word inspires confidence in Him and neutralises or negates disillusionment, frustration and disappointment. The presence of God defuses stress and tension. The help of God guarantees victory. The strength He gives us enables us to endure hardship and troubles of different kinds, to overcome both temptation and trials. The supporting hand of God delivers us from disasters of different kinds.
The Lord God is the source of our security. He is the One who upholds us when we seem to be sinking. Jesus held the hand of Peter as he sank in fear in the water he was attempting to walk on. It implies that even when our faith fails, when fears threaten or overcome us, the Lord will stretch His right arm to hold us up, to lift us out of our despair. He lifts us out of the miry clay of this world which is slippery and filthy and places us on the rock of Jesus. The Lord knows that we are dust but He transforms us. He equips, enables and empowers us. He works out His glory out of our many weaknesses. He strengthens us with might in our inner being. Like St Paul, we can affirm in faith, “ I can do all things through Christ who strengthen us.” We gain confidence to face intractable, difficult or impossible situations. Christ is our Redeemer not just from sin and death but in all the practical situations of life.
Fear , as someone defined it , can mean either forget everything and run or forget everything and rise. The glory will rise upon us even as we forget the cause or source of our fear and focus on the Lord, His presence, His word, His power, His love. When Gideon was visited by the angel, he was hiding from the Midianites in fear. But the word of the Lord brought by the angel strengthened him. The angel addressed him in the opposite terms from what was the reality- “ O mighty man of valour..” When we daily drink of the word, the spiritual solution to all human problems, we too become transformed into ‘mighty men of valour.” Instead of grandstanding, we can take a bold stand for the Lord in the real life situations we face every day.