BY: TERRA WAGNER
“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
2 Timothy 1:7
“Everything you hear and receive into your life gets filtered by love or fear. Everything that flows from us is effected by love or fear. Our reaction and response to all the issues around us either take place out of love or fear.”
Bill Johnson, Senior pastor at Bethel Church
There are two different types of people in the world. Those that are motivated by love and then those that are controlled and manipulated by fear.
The most repeated command in all of scripture is the command, “Do not fear.” The reason that it’s so important that we understand this command is because satan’s goal is to dislocate us from the father. He cannot take us away from the God but he can render us useless due to a mind that is a slave to fear.
“And great shall be the peace of your children. In righteousness you shall be established; You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear...” Isaiah 54:13-14
The key to keeping yourself free from oppression is to not fear. When you believe a lie, you have believed the liar. You have aligned your thinking with his therefore giving the liar power and authority in your life. Scripture tells us that satan is the father of lies. His mission is to keep you believing every lie he feeds you.
Two things we should remember: Feeling fear is not a sin but embracing it is.
When we squash the lie and choose to not embrace fear we are reminding the enemy that he will never win. Grace is what empowers us to conquer fear. Jesus conquered death on the cross therefore giving you and I a spirit of power, love, and self-control (2 Timothy 1:7) in return as a gift.
When I first became a mom I had a mom friend that was deathly afraid of animals. Every time an animal would come near to her children she would panic and force her children behind her. Even if the animal was far away she would make known the animals presence to her children, warning them about all the things that could go wrong, and then proceeded to stay as far away as possible.
Not only was my friend completely gripped with irrational fear but she was teaching her children to fear what she did by using fear as a manipulator. She didn’t calmly give the facts about the animal, tell her child the rules in order to stay safe, and then observe to allow the child to form his/her own emotions. Instead she embraced her fear and ran wild in panic using her fear as a tool to cause the same reaction in her children.
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.” 1 John 4:18-19, 20-21
Perfect love is a love that has been made complete. Complete love is not only when I have discovered love from the Father but when I have discovered his love and then I give it away to my neighbor. Perfect love can be simply defined as this: I receive God’s unconditional love and I chose to fully love Him back.
The minute I begin to act out of complete and perfect love, I become a threat to the enemy. By embracing perfect love and uprooting our fear we will begin to finally walk in freedom!