Do You Struggle With Fear?

-Rich Meyers

Do you struggle with fear? I know I do. The Lord has been challenging me lately to understand why I have fear in my heart. I'll be honest — there is more fear there than there should be.

To overcome fear, we must first understand it. There are four sources of fear in our lives:

The first is the fear of extinction — the fear of annihilation, death, or no longer existing.

The second is the fear of mutilation — the fear of pain, suffering, sickness, and illness.

The third is the fear of loss of autonomy — the loss of control.

And the fourth is the fear of separation — the fear of rejection or abandonment.

I have various levels of all those fears. I don't know if you can relate to that or not, but that's kind of where our fear all starts and can really keep us in a state of paralysis from time to time — obviously, if it becomes unhealthy. I characterize unhealthy fear as a fear that holds us back from fully becoming what God has created us to be, holding us back from walking out the gospel.

Most of our fears are based on these four base fears and manifest themselves in different ways.

But here is the good news.

I was reading Second Corinthians, and I want to share 2 Corinthians 4:7–18, which was very encouraging to me:

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body… Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Very powerful words from Paul. And I think the more that I deal with fear, the more I realize the importance of the gospel and what it means for my life — and how it really deals with all of the major fears. We won't die, we won't be destroyed, and God will never reject us. And the loss of control? What we're called to do is give up our authority, give up our control, give up our autonomy to Christ, who will reveal His glory through us in our salvation.

I think it's very important that we understand the gospel and begin to subject everything in our life to Christ, putting nothing above Jesus — so that basically nothing can be taken away from us, nothing can be stripped away from us. And in fact, what we receive then is eternal life in Him. It's very powerful.

Father, we just thank you for your gospel this morning, Lord. We thank you for what you did for us on the cross — you gave your life that we may be free in you. Free from death, free from persecution, free from abandonment, through your gospel, through your blood. Thank you, Jesus. We just pray for this morning, Lord, and thank you that you're with us when we gather in your name. We thank you that we can worship you, and just bless each one of us and strengthen each one of us as we worship you this morning. Amen.