This type of fear is purely spiritual in nature. Ultimately, it boils down to a lack of confidence in the goodness of our Heavenly Father and His promises to either bless us or protect us from evil. That insufficient trust can result from any or all of the following listed here in no particular order:
- A crippled or non-existent personal relationship with God
- Ignorance of His Word
- Little or no faith in His promises found therein
- A greater level of input from the world system than from His Word
- A refusal to humbly surrender to Him
- A corrupted understanding of the things of God due to the encroachment of man’s religion and empty tradition
We all meditate on something. We are either meditating on:
- God’s Word, or;
- The lies of the enemy (aka worrying).
Eastern meditation as taught in Hinduism, Buddhism, and the New Age attempts to remove worry by having devotees empty their minds. This is a satanic deception. Far more than nature abhors a vacuum and this practice tragically opens its practitioners to demonic influence and oppression, even possession (see Matthew 12:43-45).
Biblical meditation as described in Joshua 1:8 and Psalm 1 is the precise opposite. Rather than emptying our minds, we instead fill them with God’s Word. We speak Scriptures aloud to ourselves until our faith in His goodness and mercy and grace and greatness supersedes any fears we may bring to the table resulting in our making good, wise, and courageous choices.
Worrying can be defined as our spending vast amounts of time and mental energy contemplating outcomes which may or may not happen in a future where we cannot visualize the goodness of God prevailing over the situation. Such negative meditation literally attracts what we so greatly fear (see Job 3:25) whether by:
- Attracting and empowering demonic influences, or;
- Pre-programming our minds to make the stupid decisions required to produce the results we had so obsessively feared.
Worrying literally attracts the ungodly information required to support itself. That false information masquerades as “wisdom” and appears perfectly reasonable and rational. The trouble is such deceptive data points — points which we are clearly commanded by NT Scripture to resist and cast down — exalt themselves against our relationship with God and His Word.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
Let’s take a look at some of the words in the emphasized portions of that passage:
- casting down (kathairesis)
- pulling down, destruction, demolition
- strongholds (ochuroma)
- a castle, stronghold, fortress, fastness
anything on which one relies
of the arguments and reasonings by which a disputant endeavours to fortify his opinion and defend it against his opponent - arguments (logismos)
- a reckoning, computation
a reasoning: such as is hostile to the Christian faith
a judgment, decision - knowledge of God (gnosis theos)
- a deeper more perfect and enlarged knowledge of the Almighty
moral wisdom, such as is seen in right living
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty (subtle, skilled in deceit) than any living creature of the field which the Lord God had made.
Genesis 3:1 AMPNow the serpent was more astute than all the animals of the field which the Lord God had made.Genesis 3:1 JUB (emphasis mine)
The Hebrew word translated as cunning, crafty, and astute in Genesis 3:1 is aruwm. In addition to these adjectives used in the translations cited above are also the words “sensible” and “prudent.”
Satan’s lies to Adam and Eve appeared to make perfect sense or they would never have been suckered by him.
Selah!
The Antidote for Worry
The antidote for fear of the unknown is one of my favorite NT passages:
Rejoice in the Lord always [delight, take pleasure in Him]; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit [your graciousness, unselfishness, mercy, tolerance, and patience] be known to all people. The Lord is near.
Do not be anxious or worried about anything , but in everything [every circumstance and situation] by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, continue to make your [specific] requests known to God . And the peace of God [that peace which reassures the heart, that peace] which transcends all understanding, [that peace which] stands guard over your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus [is yours].Finally, believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart] .
Philippians 4:4-8 AMP
Rejoice in the Lord always…
Think of rejoicing as “re-joying,” an act of our will. If it came naturally, then the Holy Spirit wouldn’t be commanding it of us, now would He? If it were not within our capacity to choose joy, it would be unreasonable and manifestly unfair for the Lord to require it.
Here’s the spiritual logic:
- Joy comes through our surrender to the Most High (see Romans 14:17), not by human effort.
- The “Kingdom of God” is where Jesus the King has His dominion. In other words, wherever He actively rules and reigns.
- Jesus said His Kingdom is within us (see Luke 17:21).
- Whenever we surrender in humble submission to Him, we then receive and experience His “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
So when we choose to obey Him by rejoicing in Him, we actively receive His peace and joy through that surrender to Him.
Do not be anxious or worried about anything…
To be anxious is sin, period. I’m not saying this to condemn anyone but to clearly and directly communicate this is a divine command, not a suggestion. Worry is not an acceptable option available to Christ-followers. By the way, I checked the lexicon and the Greek word translated “anything” — amazingly enough! — literally means “anything.”
So what are we to do instead of worrying?
…in everything [every circumstance and situation] by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, continue to make your [specific] requests known to God.
Again, a quick check in the lexicon reveals the word translated “everything” means precise that: everything without exception. This leaves zero wiggle-room for us to mentally categorize various possible outcomes by the severity of their impact upon us, then pick and choose what deserves our attention and priorities in prayer.
Again prayer and supplication (entreaty) here mean precisely what they say. The Holy Spirit then adds the word “thanksgiving” to the mix. I’ve already dealt with that topic in another article here, so I’ll let you peruse that at your leisure. That being said, thanksgiving is an inseparable component to this equation. It’s not enough to merely pray, though that aspect is not at all to be minimized, but to thank God for the answer in advance, receiving the answer as our own.
An what is the result of our obedience to all this?
The Peace of God
More specifically, “…the peace of God [that peace which reassures the heart, that peace] which transcends all understanding, [that peace which] stands guard over your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus…”
Yeah, that peace! Woohoo!
This is a mind-blowing peace we cannot fathom with our corrupted human understanding. We cannot successfully analyze, define, categorize, or otherwise process it mentally. It is divine; a divine mystery, if you will. That means it is well beyond our finite understanding or ability to express, like trying to define beauty or a dozen other such superlatives.
It cannot be grasped intellectually, only experienced.
And that is what is promised us for our obedience to verse 6.
And how do we occupy our minds afterwards?
Meditate on the Positive
You cannot stop thinking about something simply by willing it — you must replace it with something else. Please allow me to demonstrate:
Stop thinking about elephants. I said stop it! Stop thinking about their big flappy ears, and their rough gray skin, and their long trunk which they use both as a nose, an appendage for manipulating their environment, and a straw to drink with. Quit thinking about their sharp ivory tusks and their flat-bottomed feet, and their tails with tasseled ends. Cease thinking about how incredibly intelligent they are and how they can communicate over long distances using low-frequency sounds. Stop it, I tell you! Stop it now! STOP!
All you have successfully accomplished during the entire previous paragraph is think about and imagine the appearance of elephants, despite my repeated commands to the contrary.
Talk about disobedient! Sheesh! 😂
Now let’s change animals. I want you to think about giraffes. Imagine their long, graceful necks which enable them to graze from the highest trees. Because their necks are so long and their front legs are significantly longer than the back ones, they have to splay them widely to permit them to drink from a stream or pond. They have narrow heads with small horns having little knobs on the ends. They have long, pointy, purple tongues. Their coats are kind of a yellowish brown with darker brown spots that are shaped roughly like rounded rectangles or squares.
Now during that entire last paragraph, how many of you had a single thought about elephants?
Unless you are some kind of freak, it’s safe to say none of you!
And that is precisely what God has commanded us to do when considering the future. We are to replace those dreadful possible negative outcomes with “…whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart].”
Thanks for reading!
Fear of Imminent Danger The Fear of Man Return to Series Index
