How Are We as Christians to Combat Fear?

In order for us to really press forward in our life for God's Purposes, we've got to get free of our fear. Johnson Bowie, at http://www.fusionatl.org/p/12081/Default.aspx, continues his "Know Fear" series, titled "I Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts" by saying that we have to know the stuff that spiritually comes against us. In order for God to set us free, we have to ask God to expose us. Until we know who God is, we will continue to put the approval of man in front of Him. If we know what God says about us (He smiles when He thinks of us and He rejoices over us when we sleep), then we can step boldly into life. (picture labeled for reuse on flickr)

Last year, Johnson went skydiving at a Fusion event. The crazy thing about that is, Johnson was wildly afraid of heights. But he was determined to conquer his fear. In a funny tale about the episode, Johnson talks about the details leading up to the jump, his experience as he jumped and then the slow descent with the parachute. He was connected to a guide, which which made him feel safe, "but then he did one of the top ten stupidest things in my life." The guide reaches back and starts undoing buckles which absolutely freaks Johnson out. Even though Johnson was terrified as the parachute straps loosened, things obviously turned out okay. Johnson says he was not so much afraid of the height, it was fear of what was on the other side of the height, i.e. the fall and the hit after the height. Likewise, it's not so much a fear of the dark, but it's about what's in the dark.

What Johnson is talking about today is a fear of the supernatural. Are angels or demons normal? Is speaking in tongues natural? We're talking about the reality is that there is another dimension. God is with us despite the fact that we can't see Him. The supernatural events happen when the spiritual realm steps into the physical. Demons, weegie boards, bodily possessions, Satan and angels are all real. This isn't just a fluffy world. There are nearly 300 references in the Bible about angels. In Ephesians 6:12, it addresses this hidden world; "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (picture labeled for reuse at http://www.gallery.mobile9.com/)

Johnson personally experienced this when he was involved in a healing service and six guys couldn't lift a 100-pound unconcious woman who seemed possessed!  When we encounter stuff like this, it scares us because we don't understand it, but the Bible gives us guidance. In Isaiah 14:12, it describes the story of Satan. Lucifer was an angel who wanted all the power of heaven. He attacked the armies of God, but was cast down. Lucifer is but a fallen angel. He is not the mini-me of God. In Revelation 12:9, it again talks about the great dragon cast from heaven. The word demon is a scary word; much scarier than "fallen angel". But if you hear the words fallen angel, it gives you the perspective that Satan has been defeated and we have God on our side. One of the keys to conquering our fears is to demystify the supernatural. Demons and devils were created and, at their core, they want to be worshipped. If we give them fear, we are effectively worshipping them.

 
Have you ever been in a service and someone stands up and screams?  It's because they are trying to pull the attention off Jesus. When we give Satan a foothold in our lives, they hold on to it and torment us with it. "Something inside of me says, 'no'...I will not worship Satan. I will worship Christ." Most of the time, as Christians, fearful things get worse in our lives because of our new power as believers. There's power in the name of Jesus and, when we start talking about Him, the entire world seems to come down on us! There are strongholds everywhere. "When I decided to do this series on Fear, I came down with the flu and Jeremiah, my son, started having nightmares..." Johnson says, "Oh, it's on now, man. You're going in the room of my kid?" When leaders step into their positions at Fusion, there are so many blessings, but at the same time, they get a ton of resistance.
 

New level, new devil.
Johnson Bowie

 
But we are armed and dangerous!  Colossians 2 talks about how we were dead to the sin of the enemy and Jesus went down to satan's domain, took the keys and gave him the Tyson one-two punch. We need to know that God created hell for the demons, not for people. They are going to burn in an everlasting fire, but some of the world actually chooses to go the route of the devil!  Demons are encouraged by this and they are trying to deceive us to burn with them. We need to encounter demons with the knowledge that they are already a defeated foe. Revelation 20:10 retells the fate of Satan.
 
Who then, can be against us? God is omnipresent. He's everywhere. "He's inside your earball." Satan is NOT omnipresent. "He's in Antartica somewhere." God is all-powerful. Satan is finite as a creation. God is everlasting, while we know the fate of Satan. Big God. Little devil (go to your high voice when you say "little devil"). God even assigns His angels to us. When we think about angels, though, we have a huge misperception. "So cute little naked baby angel...thank you for coming off your cloud...play me a song on your harp...But that's not what angels are!...Angels are stinkin' kickbutt warriors." We have these amazing warrior angels assigned to each of us!
 
Genesis 3:24 is the first description of the cherubim (angel). Seraphim have six wings and are covered with eyeballs! "What!! They don't have pictures of those on the front of Guidepost!" The archangel Michael, single-handedly defeated thousands of demons. In Revelation 2, there will be 4 angels on each corner of the earth to hold back the winds. Why is it that whenever people in the Bible encounter angels, the first thing they say is, "Fear not."?  These are unbelievable creatures!


 
Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.  What we have to grasp is that we, as his followers, have the power of God already in us. In Exodus, Moses comes to the edge of the Red Sea as they are running from the Egyptians. Moses calls on God, but God tells Moses that he already has the power and to use his staff! We can't call the angels down ourselves, but we have authority here. Multiple times, Johnson describes times when he was just minding his own business and this super lustful dream comes or this gory, bloody dream comes or he is scared by an experience. In the dream, he is stuttering trying to say, "Jesus". When he finally says it, everything leaves. There is no power in anything we say alone, but there is power in the name of Jesus. Phillipians 2 says that the name of Jesus is above the name of any other to the glory of God the Father.
 
It is Easter coming up (when Johnson delivered this message) on Sunday, "but I think so many of us are stuck on Friday." Something changed Johnson and the way he thinks about his life. "If you really want to find out about what God says about your power and authority, go through Ephesians a couple of times." God exalted Jesus to the highest place. In Ephesians it says that we are seated with Jesus in Heavenly places!! We are armed and dangerous and we don't even know it! Think about that! We are seated with Christ in the Heavenly realms. Luke 10:19 & John 14:12 tell us about our authority. Isn't it crazy that Jesus actually expected us to do what He did; even greater works!! It's because we are seated with Him. James 4:7 tells us to resist that devil and he will flee from us. Oft times, we only remember the "flee from you" part. But we must resist the devil.
 
One morning, Johnson was coming into a very dark church at night. "The only light I had was the demonic exit signs; you know what I mean?" Here he was, preaching about fear, and he was afraid. Then a little voice in him says, "I called you to flee from temptation, not to flee from the enemy. Johnson had a change of heart; "Armed and dangerous, baby...seated with Christ" Years ago, Johnson had this dream where he is on a mountain top. The wind is blowing and lightning is around him. On the other side of the mountain, there is this huge warlock who is about to fight him. Toe to toe, Johnson remembers how he had just been reading Elijah, so he screams "Fire of God!!" and this tornado comes down and scoops up the warlock.
 
"Stop asking God to rescue you when He gave you the authority." Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. "I'll give you a double cheese burger promise." Step into who God called you to be!

What Does the Bible Mean By "Fear the Lord"?

"Guys, I was watching the news the other day...anybody made the mistake of doing that lately?...I think they are required to depress you...somebody got shot...people are getting poisoned...a puppy was burned...the bird flu is coming..." There's so much fear floating around isn't there? Beginning his series, "Know Fear", Johnson Bowie addresses our perceptions of fear.

If it's not Satan, it's our parents or others. They should just start out the news saying they're surprised we made it through another day! We've even named our fears. Johnson looked up a few; acrophobia - fear of heights, arachnophobia - fear of spiders, aeriophobia- fear of flying, ecclesiaphobia- fear of church, dentaphobia- fear of dentists, glossaphobia - fear of speaking in public, turnaphobia - fear of being tickled by feathers. Aren't we all surprised to have made it through Y2K?

A lot of people carry around fear. Fear of death, rejection, harm, bankruptcy or of being single forever. We're on this journey of trying to recover our ancient path, but one of the humongus hurdles for us is fear. Fear is the prison of the heart.  2 Timothy 1:7 talks about how God did not create us to be afraid. We have power, love and a sound mind. God doesn't want us to be afraid, but to be more than a conqueror. We are to live life to the fullest. But so often, fear steals that away from us. We have to know the fears that are in our lives or we are going to be knocked down again and again. We can't always sleep with the TV on to kill the night time noises. We can't always drug, medicate or counsel our fears away. We have to call our fears out to a high noon and then whoop their butts.

For every thought plaguing our mind, God has a Word against it. He has a plan for our lives that is a billion times better than Satan's. More than 60 times in the Bible, God says, "fear not". If someone thinks they have no fear, they are called to help others not to have fear. God wants to drop kick our fears away. BUT....Not all fear is bad. God wants just a little fear in us; the fear of the Lord. In Proverbs, it says that the fear of the Lord is "the beginning of wisdom". Many of us have heard that before, but how many of us really understand it? Why is it that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom? Johnson doesn't presume to answer that for all of us, but he wants to try and share what he feels God is showing him. If fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then shouldn't we spend a lot more time on it? If we don't know the fear of the Lord, then where are we? At square one? If we can step back a little from how we're accustomed to viewing God, then we can see a little better.

Who are we to be in His presence? After God set the Israelites free from Egypt, He led them to Mt. Sinai. He gives Moses the Ten Commandments and then it says God came! This wasn't a stretch limo, God came down with trumpets, lightning and thunder, earthquakes, fire and smoke. The people were terrified, but Moses tells them to "Fear not". But, in the same sentence, Moses tells them to fear God! As the people stood in the distance, Moses approaches the black cloud. But doesn't it seem to be contradictory that he told the people not to fear but to fear the Lord. The word for afraid here is "yah rae" which means "to dread or to be frightened". But the word used for fearing the Lord is "year rah" which means "reverence". So, Moses is saying not to fear because God is testing them so that His reverence would be with them to keep them from sinning. He separates the fear of the Lord from being afraid of God.

The love of God is for us. There's a differernce. Being afraid of God makes us draw back from Him, but fearing God makes us press into Him. Sin cannot stand in His presence. God has two unchangeable attributes. 1 John 4:8 says God is Love, but Hebrews 12:29 says God is a consuming fire. God is love, but God will burn your socks off!! The God of all creation loves us, but He is also an absolutely terrifying inapproachable light. Yet He says that if we will draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. Philippians 2:12 says we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. He is wonderful and terrifying at the same time. We can't truly love God if we don't fear Him. These are two things that go hand in hand.

Johnson went to the Grand Canyon not expecting much. But when he saw it, it was amazing. It was a little bit like what God might be like. Or maybe God is like what you see in the Hubbell telescope. Every time we invent a new telescope, we see more stars. It keeps going... Revelation 20:11 says God is so terrifingly great, but there is no where for anything to hide from Him. He weighs the oceans in his hands.

Johnson was in Nicaragua last year and he took a twenty minute drive to the top of this volcano. When he went to the top of it, it was amazingly huge. Steam was coming up from the middle and there was a sign that said, "Warning, this volcano can erupt at any time." This sign said to hide under his car if it erupted!! But that's the last thing he would do. He would speed to the bottom! Looking at the volcano, he knew he was in the midst of something that could destroy everything within many miles, but here he was looking into it. He wasn't afraid, but he was respectfully awed. This was probably a glimpse of what it is like to be before God.

St. Augustine wrote many books and one of the first autobiographies. Over 1,000 years ago,he lived and there is this part in his autobiography which describes his death. He was slowly dying in his bed and his relatives were watching him peacefully drift off. Then he sits up and shouts, "I've seen the Lord. All that I have written is but straw." In Revelation, it talks about this massive throne with terrifying seraphins circling and shouting the holiness of God. The entire throne is shaking. Revelation 1 talks about how John is describing a terrifying God, with a sword in his mouth and fire in his eyes; a man holding stars with white hair.

Jesus is the terrifying, but loving son of God. This is the same God where people would not even write His name or speak it in ancient times. In Exodus 3, when Moses saw the burning bush, God asks him to take of his shoes because he is on Holy ground. Then He sends Moses back. Moses asks who he should tell the people is sending him and God says to tell them that "I AM" has sent him. This comes from four letters in Hebrew "YHWH". It's the inefible name.

Orthodox Jews won't even spell "God". They write G-d out of fear of Him. When men would write His name in the Bible translations, they would throw the pen away every time. Exodus 20:7, God says that we should not us the name of God in vain. Profaining the name of God means to make common. It's as simple as saying, "Oh God!" Take "I swear to God" out of our vocabulary! Why do people do this with God or Jesus? Why don't we say, "Oh Buddha?" In Matthew 6:9, Jesus is teaching the disciples how to pray and one of the first things He says is, "Hallowed be thy name". This translates to "May your name be kept holy". His name is not holy in many of our minds. We pay money to hear people defame the name of God in movies or to comedy acts! This is the same God with the seraphins crying, "Holy, Holy, Holy". The fear of the Lord is what keeps us from sinning.

Some people think that delayed judgement means there is no judgement. Where is the fear of the Lord? Sometimes, it seems that people think that Jesus came to make God less scary and less intimidating. But what Jesus did was, he became the door to give us access to this amazing God. This is the same God of the Old Testament. Don't fear men, fear God. We're called to realize that God is love and a consuming fire. 1 John 4:16 says God is love and that He can wash away all of our fears. He is for us and not against us. If our sins have been forgiven, then there is no fear of judgement. If there is no fear of judgement, there is no fear of death. If there is no fear in death, what do we have to fear in life? This is the beginning of wisdom. Fear God.