Fearless

A friend gave me this book for Christmas and I wanted to share a little of it with you. It's called "Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear" by Max Lucado.
Max Lucado, the author, asks the question, "Why are we afraid." A loaded question, right?

On page 5 Max says, "Fear never wrote a symphony or poem, negotiated a peace treaty, or cured a disease. Fear never pulled a family out of poverty or a country out of bigotry. Fear never saved a marriage or a business. Courage did that. Faith did that. People who refused to consult or cower to their timidities did that. But fear itself? Fear herds us into a prison and slams the doors."

He then goes on to ask the question,

"Imagine your life untouched by angst. What if faith, not fear was your default reaction to threats? If you could hover a fear magnet over your heart and extract every last shaving of dread, insecurity, and doubt, what would remain?" (pg. 6)

Every day when we choose to make agreements with fear, we allow it to come in and weaken our faith.  The truth is either our faith is growing strong or our fear is taking over our faith. Fear steals our joy, and covers up our hope. It's a prison. And the only way out of it is to look to Jesus and let Him free us from the chains.

The times when I've feared things in my life, my fear grew because my faith didn't. I wasn't looking to Jesus first. I was looking to my problem, my circumstance. I was looking to myself to fix the problem when the issue could only be taken care of by God.

The first time when fear comes knocking on your door, stop and ask yourself, "Does this fear do anything for me? Does this fear bring me closer to God? or away from God? Does my fear solve any problem or make the problem worse? What can I gain through letting fear rule my emotions?"

The answer is no. Nothing. Fear does nothing good for you.

Usually we fear things that aren't even reality. We fear tomorrow. We make up things in our mind that we believe "might" happen or "could" happen. We fear the worst.

The only fear we need to have is a healthy fear of God.
Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments. His praise endures forever."