Facing Our Fears – Part 1

by Pastor Kimberly Lemler

Today I want to talk to you about a topic that we can all identify with. It’s something that plagues all of mankind and it’s the most effective weapon that satan uses against people in order to keep them in bondage.   This weapon is called FEAR…

Let me ask you a question. How many of you have some kind of fear or phobia living inside of you? A fear is defined as “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.” A phobia is defined as “a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.”

Some of the most common fears or phobias are:  the fear of death-necrophobia; the fear of being trapped in small spaces- claustrophobia; the fear of being in open spaces-agoraphobia; the fear of flying-aerophobia; the fear of spiders- arachnophobia.

I was in an amusement park last year and we were chatting with a group of people on a picnic bench next to us.  I was standing near a tree where there was a huge spider trying to spin its way down to me and several of the people were coming all unglued just looking at that spider! I reached over and touched the spider and I said, “You mean this little thing! You’re afraid of this?”  They couldn’t believe I touched that little spider, the object of their fear. They were squirming around and jumping up and down like a bunch of kindergartners.

Fear is irrational. It is the polar opposite of faith. In 1 John 4:18 the Word says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love.”

Fear is torment! It’s a horrible feeling that affects every part of our being. It’s torment! It gives physical and emotional symptoms and that’s exactly what satan wants. He wants to steal, kill, and destroy your peace.

Fear affects our minds and our bodies and it can cause mental and physical disease. There are over forty diseases that result from fear, anxiety, and stress such as heart disease, hypertension, colitis, Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel disease, ulcers, headaches, skin disorders, just to name a few.  Fear can take root so deeply that some women have even gone to the extreme by having their own healthy breasts surgically removed in order to avoid cancer. Their fear of getting a cancer diagnoses along with a fear of death causes them do something extraordinarily drastic.

When I was about five years old, I was petting a little dog that seemed quite harmless, but he apparently didn’t like me too much because he barked at me and lashed out and bit my mouth. I wound up in the ER with stitches and a major deathly fear of dogs.  After that, every time I saw a dog or heard one bark, fear would rise up inside of me and I would be a basket case. The danger of the previous situation was no longer there, but the thing I associated with that fear, the sound of the bark, was still present and I had to learn to disarm that fear by breaking that association.  In the Pavlov’s dog experiment, the dog salivated every time he heard the bell. How many of you have an association like this that’s keeping you in bondage today years and years later?

Now, there are many kinds of fears. There is a type of fear that is meant to help us avoid injury or death and I think I would rather call it using “wisdom” rather than the term fear. Of course you don’t want to walk out on a busy highway or put your hand on a hot stove or step off the ledge of a building. You don’t want to play with poisonous snakes or put your hand into the cage of a hungry animal. It’s wisdom to avoid these things.

Then there is the kind of fear that the Bible talks about and it’s really a reverence or a deep respect for the Lord. In Psalm, 34:9 it says, “Oh fear the Lord, you His saints! There is not want to those who fear him.” The Amplified version says, “Oh fear the Lord you His saints, revere and worship Him. For there is not want to those who truly revere and worship Him with Godly fear.”

So we are not to “fear” God. We should never be afraid of Him. He is the One we are to run to when we are in trouble. He is our fortress and our refuge.  We are to worship and respect Him.

Now what are some of the fears that we are NOT supposed to have and what can we do about them?

©Words To Heart Ministries, Inc.  Pastor Kimberly Lemler. 2010.