“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind”
2 Timothy 1:7
Wherever God makes a promise to his children fear often rear its ugly head to thwart or threaten these promises. This is the ancient objective of the devil to use fear to snatch God’s promises from his children.
Pharaoh did the same thing fiercely pursuing the children of Israel as they made their way out of Egypt-their lane of bondage- to the promised land of freedom.
While faith operates from within, fear on the other hand operates from outside manipulating our thoughts, and often through what we see and hear. That’s why it is important to keep a diligent watch over our ear and eye gates.
Know that Satan hates your freedom. When the promises of God are received by faith in the seat of our heart where faith resides fear comes to strike such heart with the aim of keeping us from obtaining the promises.
Fear not resisted creates a stronghold around divine promises mounting oppressive thoughts against the promises of God. In fact fear can go on to become a tumultuous campaign harassing the promises of God in our lives. It must be resisted.
With the exception of Caleb the other spies sent to gather information from the promise land fell to fear and brought back an evil report which only served to depress the people. (Numbers 13:28)
The scribes of Hezekiah understood the power of negative information as a stronghold for fear.
While an enemy field commander boasted of his intentions to assault the inhabitants of Jerusalem the scribes pleaded with the commander “not to speak in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.” (Isaiah 36:11).
The intention of the scribes was to prevent fear from striking the heart of their own people.
When Nehemiah purposed in his heart to repair the broken walls of Jerusalem Sanballat and Tobiah struck saying: “What do these Jews think they are building? If even a small fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones!” (Nehemiah 4:2).
It will take only a practiced assault on the stronghold by the word of God to bring down such stronghold. We can’t defeat such stronghold through a counter reasoning.
Why? Because fear doesn’t work alone but works with allies like the spirit of discouragement and depression and it will take only the power in the word of God to deter these combined forces of fear.
How do we overcome fear and to keep our heart secured against it’s assaults? One thing to do is to resist communications and information that are contrary to the divine promises concerning your life.
When the field commander of the enemy army continued his campaign of negative words carefully chosen to paralyze the heart of Hezekiah’s people with fear King Hezekiah understood that it was worthless to continue to engage fear in a conversation.
He did the right thing: “But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.” (Isaiah 36:21). Rather Hezekiah went to God in prayer from where he received instructions on how to silence the enemy in battle.
Secondly, we must spend more time seeking after, and digesting information in the word of God and other like minded literature that helps to strengthen and confirm God’s promises for our lives. This is where the power to break free from the bondage to fear lies.
Reading Isaiah 37: 1-36
