FREEDOM FROM FEAR!

FREEDOM FROM FEAR!
by Chip Brogden

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love" (I Jn. 4:18, ESV).

Most of our fears are a consequence of not knowing God well enough. Fear comes from uncertainty. If we are confident, secure, and certain about who we are in Christ, and who Christ is in us, then we won't be worried about what the devil might do, and we won't be worried about what other people might do.

Now folks, that's a lot off your plate. Imagine what a relief it would be to just live your life in friendship with God, unaffected by worries and fears about the devil, unmoved by worries and fears about other people - what they might think, what they might say, what they might do.

Think about all you could accomplish if you were truly unafraid. I'm not saying you go out and take foolish risks. I'm saying fear holds us back. God tells us to go but we're afraid to go. God tells us to stay put but we're afraid to stay put. God gives us something to say but we're afraid to say it. God gives us a talent or a gift that will bless and encourage and help other people, but we're afraid we'll make a mistake, or afraid we'll look foolish, or afraid we might fail.

Let me go ahead and allay those fears right now. Let me share something with you that will set you free from fear of failure, fear of making mistakes. I'm still relatively young, but I've been at this for a long time. People say, "How can you know so much and be so young?" I'll tell you why, it's because I've made enough mistakes for three people twice my age. By the time I was twenty I had made enough mistakes for someone eighty. I have failed more times than I have succeeded. I have fallen down, gotten up, fallen down, gotten up, fallen down, gotten up, and sometimes I think God created me to be an example to others of what NOT to do. I'm only just beginning to experience some victories, some successes, some fruitfulness. I've had to learn it the hard way.

But here's what I want to share with you, to set you free from fear of failure, fear of making mistakes, fear of stepping out, fear of stepping up. Here's what God showed me: His plan, and His purpose for my life, is based on my making lots of mistakes. His plan accounts for the fact that I'm going to fail. He already has that factored into the equation. We don't take God by surprise, or derail His purpose, by anything we do or fail to do. His purpose and His plan for your life is not dependent on you never making a mistake. Not only does He know that you will make mistakes, and you will fail, He makes His plans based on the fact that things are going to come along to try and mess up His plans.

Have you ever made plans to do something? Do you plan for things to go wrong, or do you plan for things to go right? Most people come up with a plan and the plan assumes everything is going to go the way it should. But what happens? Something always goes wrong, and then the plan collapses.

For me it happens every Saturday. My wife gives me a little home repair project, and I think it's going to be pretty simple, just need a hammer and some nails and this and that. So I plan to take five minutes to do this simple repair. Then I get five minutes into the project and realize it's worse than I thought, I need a watchamacallit and a thingamajig and I don't have what I need, so now I have to make a trip to the store. They don't have what I need so I have to go somewhere else. Then I come home and the part I thought I needed doesn't fit, I need something larger or something smaller, and now I have to go back to the store again. What should have been a five minute project becomes a five hour ordeal.

Now, do you think God is like that? Do you think He is so foolish as to have one plan that relies upon you and me doing everything perfectly, never making a mistake? Do you think you can make a mistake or fail so miserably that you can outsmart God and thwart His plan for your life?

Certainly we can delay His purpose, and we can bring a lot of unnecessary suffering on ourselves by being willfully disobedient, but if our heart is right and we're doing the best we know how to do then God is able to work everything out for His glory, even our mistakes, even our failures, EVEN OUR SINS. I'm not saying go out and sin, because there are consequences for sin. I'm talking about your past right now. Don't worry that your past disqualifies you, because it doesn't. You can't go back and undo these past mistakes, past failures, past sins. I'm saying don't let fear about your past keep you from loving God now, living life now.

Don't worry about being perfect in the future, because God's purpose for your life is based on you being imperfect. God wants to show the world how He can take anything and bring good out of it, how He can take imperfect people who make mistakes and still do something good with their lives.
That is going to be the history of mankind, we're all going to be amazed one day when we look back and see how God worked all things together for good, brought light out of darkness, and used evil for good.

WORRY FREE LIVING

"Do not worry about tomorrow."
MATTHEW 6:34

Most of us, from time to time or nearly all of the time, worry about something - our health, our finances, our loved ones, and so on. Yet the Scriptures say to take no thought for your lives and be anxious for nothing. Why is worry a sin? I know we consider it "only human," but worry really implies a lack of trust in God. It is believing a lie. Identify the lie and you can quickly discover the Truth. What is the lie? That God is somehow less than sufficient, that perhaps He will not come through for us.

So you see, the enemy gets us to believe a lie, and then gets us to think that we are just being "human." So then we accept something less than the normal Christian life - overcoming - and think that is just the way it is. Remember: satan has no power apart from our belief in his lie.

Daily Dying

"Our old man was crucified with Him."
ROMANS 6:6

Thank God for the Cross of Jesus Christ! For it is there that my sins are forgiven; it is there that the "old man" died. Yet it is also true that there is something as wicked, if not more wicked, than sin, and that is Self. It is true that every sin is rooted in Self.

As we must initially accept His death for sin, so we must daily accept our death to Self. As we are once crucified with Him for the remission of sins, so we must daily take up the Cross, deny our Self, and follow Him. We walk in the narrow Way just as we entered the narrow Gate - by way of the Cross.

Glimpsing Another World

"Suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?'" ACTS 22:6,7

All it takes is a millisecond of time for the Revelation to strike you down. I recall when I first received the Revelation of Jesus Christ. I had had many religious and spiritual experiences up to that point, more than the average person. I had been a pastor and teacher for many years. I thought I really knew the Lord. But one day God revealed His Son IN me. I was sitting in the backyard reading the Word and without warning, in my heart of hearts, I "saw" (not with my eyes, but inwardly) Jesus seated at God's right hand, and I saw myself raised and seated with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6).

That day was like walking out of one room and into another, closing the door behind me. I got a glimpse into another world. I saw the real Jesus and realized He was nothing like flesh and blood had said. Hallelujah!

GREATER IS HE

"You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world."
1 JOHN 4:4

John declares that no matter what comes against us, the One within us is Greater. It does not matter what you feel like, what you see, what you hear, what people say, or what the devil does. It does not matter if Lazarus is dead for four days and is beginning to stink. It does not matter if the girl dies before Jesus can get there. It does not matter if the waves are about to capsize the boat. It does not matter if Paul is stoned and left for dead. Lazarus will be raised, the girl will be brought back to life, and the storm will be silenced, and Paul will preach again.

The Greater is always Greater, and the Lesser is always Lesser. We only have a problem when we see everything else as "greater" and see Christ as "lesser."

No Argument Necessary

"While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him." LUKE 24:15,16 ESV

You see that Christ is revealed or hidden from men as He so desires. So many professed disciples of the Lord Jesus fail to recognize Him.

Even His closest disciples are prone to doubt and unbelief. After the resurrection, Thomas declared, "I will not believe unless I see the scars and put my hand into the wound in His side." When Jesus therefore appeared to them He did not argue or try to convince Thomas. He simply said, "Look! See My hands and My feet!" When Thomas saw the Lord, he spontaneously cried out, "My Lord, and my God!" This is revelation. Revelation does not require any arguing or convincing, as if it all depends on how well we can make a defense of the Gospel. I see no argument in the Lord Jesus, I only see Him. Seeing Him, I am convinced, and no argument is necessary.

Do we look for another?

"When John had heard in prison about the
works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to Him, 'Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?'"
MATTHEW 11:2,3

Have you discovered Him yet, and is He enough, or do you look for another? We do not proclaim the preeminence of Christ because it is a nice doctrine to believe in; for us, it is a matter of life and death, because everything hinges on whether or not Jesus is preeminent. If He is preeminent then He is Enough, and there is nothing else but Him, and there is nothing worth proclaiming except Him.

To John in prison, and to us wherever we may happen to be, Jesus says, "No, you did not make a mistake. I am the One, but I am more than you can imagine, more than you dare to dream. Blessed are they who are not offended in Me."