God Commands Courage

note: i borrowed this blog post from my friend Cara because i read it & it spoke to me,

so i really believe everyone can benefit from reading this, i know i did. :)

He commands us to be courageous more than anything else in Scripture.

"Who dares, wins."

Our Heavenly Father is committed to us overcoming fear in our life. Fear is one of the greatest works of the enemy in the life of the believer. Fear is absolutely debilitating. Fear is crippling. Fear is devastating. And the enemy works with fears in our lives on a continual basis. Fear is like faith in reverse gear - the exact opposite of faith. Fear provides for you evidence of that which is not actually there, but it will come across in such a way that all of your thinking & actions can be controlled by it.

I don't believe that there is a single believer that does not have to deal with fear, one way or another, in their life.

I believe that God is committed to dealing with fear in our lives, & at times, like a good Father, He will actually orchestrate circumstances to enable us to face up to issues of fear in. Sometimes, we run away from those situations instead of realizing, "No this is GOD designing a circumstance of fear in my life that I can overcome."

Fear begins with something small & it escalates & grows & it actually becomes something really crippling.

It's interesting, isn't it, that our walk with God begins with faith. We're saved by grace through FAITH. Faith is what activates salvation! Your walk with God began with faith - should we really be surprised that it continues as a walk of faith? Faith by faith we grow & we develop, & of course the enemy is always looking for opportunities to sew seeds like fear in us. I believe that we need to wage war on fear. We need to take fear seriously, & wage war on it. We can tend to categorize sin so that in our minds, some sin is "insignificant." We categorize it as such a low level of importance. Fear is one of those that has been categorized as some sort of petty misdemeanor. But God is FAR more committed to the eradication of fear in your life than you are. He understands that it is far more dangerous than you think it is.

I think one of the strategies of the enemy is to trick us into thinking that fear is not a big deal. But the fact that we all struggle with it does not mean that it's insignificant.

We need to wage war on fear & BELIEVE that it is going to be destroyed in our life. I will not be a person who is captured by fear. That's not going to be the way that I'm going to live.

I believe that God takes anxiety, worry, concern, fear, as seriously as He takes lust, pornography, adultery. If you had an issue with pornography, or stealing, or lying, you wouldn't just "learn to live with it!" You wouldn't accept it as a characteristic of who you are! You would say, "This has got to go! I know it offends Him & that He hates it!" He hates fear too. But He loves YOU. But He hates these things that bind us & often cause us to be fruitless. Nothing contributes to lack of fruitfulness like fear. Fear & courage tend to be the issues on which fruitfulness pivots in your life. You won't bear fruit if you don't find courage, & if the stranglehold of fear is not taken off of your life.

Fear has been minimized to something that's sort of not good to have, rather than something that actually takes lives...something that can rob us of freedom. We need to understand what we're really dealing with. It isn't just fear we do this with - we have these weird standards with things like vulgarity & things like that. Why do we take it lightly? All of these things matter to God!

God wants to meet us in fear. He might give us grace there & then, or He might give us strength to overcome it. But He WILL meet us in it. When your worst fears are realized, you will find grace in God.

When you confront fear with TRUTH, the enemy's lie is disbanded.

And you are set free.