Tempted to Fear

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. (Psalms 130:3-4 ESV)

 I don’t know if that struck you as odd, but it did me.  I know all the standard explanations.  When used of God the word means, awe, respect, reverence, worship, and all of that.  I get it.  But that wasn’t enough for me.  It left me unsatisfied.  It wasn’t personal.

 Fear is one of my core sins.  I’ve lived with it all my life.  So when I read about it in God’s word it always stands out.  It calls my name.  And when I read this text I hear it saying, “The purpose of God’s forgiveness is to cause me to fear Him,” I need to know what that means.  It confuses me, even with the standard explanations.

 Now in my head judgment and fear go together.  Fear feels cold. But forgiveness gives me a sense of warmth, acceptance, closeness.  So while I am in awe of God, and I do reverence, worship, and respect Him, His forgiveness fosters the idea of being held in His arms, of rest, protection, and peace.  It has a “snuggly” connotation.

 God is telling me to take my fear and put it in Him; a place where I am safe because I am completely forgiven and protected.  If I fear only God, my fear is swallowed up completely in One who only loves me and who hates all those who hate me.  Remember Psalms 23?  “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.  Your rod and Your staff they comfort me.”

 Why will I fear no evil?  Because His rod and His staff are the shepherd’s weapons.  Weapons are turned OUTWARD.  When I am in Him, His weapons, which are greatly feared by the enemy, protect me.  They turn against anything that stands against me.

 If I decide to be afraid ONLY of someone from whom I have nothing to fear, what happens to my fear?  It becomes boldness.  I can go wherever Christ decides to go, and I am safe within Him.  He does the battle, He defeats the enemy, He decides where to go next.

 I am learning that fear doesn’t just come upon me from nowhere.  At some point, which is not obvious or easy to find, I choose what I will be afraid of.  If I can locate where that point is I can choose differently.  If fear catches me by surprise before I find that choosing point, I can still submit it to Christ and put Him on for the situation that I am facing.  So the fear, when it rises, is actually a temptation.  The enemy puts a situation in front of me and dares me to confront it by myself.  If I fall for it, I see failure coming, and I crumble.

 But if, instead, I center myself in Christ and direct my fear toward Him, the enemy crumbles.  His rod and His staff become my comfort, my protection, my peace.

 So fear must be treated the same way as any temptation.  We’ve already learned those steps and they go something like this:

 1.   Prepare.  When temptation gets you, figure out the steps that led up to it.  Learn where it starts so next time it doesn’t catch you unguarded.  Then be ready for it.  It WILL come again.

 2.   Pray BEFORE.  This flows right from step one.  There are many ways of praying this prayer and they are all personal, but here’s a way that includes Scripture in every part:

 “Father, let me not be led into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one.¹  Yours is the greatness, and the power, and the victory, and the glory.²  Therefore I submit every part of me to Your authority; my will, my desires, my words, my imaginations, and my body.³  By the authority of Christ’s blood, I command Satan and all angels and agents of darkness, all principalities and powers of this age, to get away from me.  I bind them in Jesus’ name and cast them at the feet of the cross.⁴  Father remove them from me as far as the east is from the west.⁵  Father I ask that you would bless me indeed.⁶  Replace my desires with Your desires.⁷  Make me know the way I should go, for to You I lift up my soul.⁸  Let Your hand intervene and intercede for me and deliver me from evil so that I may not cause pain to myself or any others.⁶  In the name of Yeshua I ask, Amen.”

 You can read this prayer from your heart, modify it to fit your situation, or change it altogether if you prefer.  What matters is that you follow God’s plan for dealing with temptation in James 4:7 – submit, resist, repeat. 

 3.   Praise and thank.  This step is the purpose of our creation.  God’s nature is to Love.  So He made creatures He could lavish His love on and who would love Him in return.  But their love had to be of their own free will to have any value.  So here we are.  This is the step that God lives for; us praising Him from our own free hearts.  Here’s where you can enlist the Psalms in your prayers.  Find choice nuggets in the 140's and the 30's. #103 is one of my favorites as everybody knows.  These are God’s own words.  They have power in the spiritual realms.  He dwells within them (Psalm 22:3).

 This is the “putting on” of Christ.  This is the protection from all temptation, including fear, being offended, anger, revenge, bitterness, succumbing to addictions, etc.  It is an act of the will.

 Practice this today and share it with us at Bridging the Gap.  We will hold each other up.  We will put on Christ together.  Make this a part of your meditation every day.  God bless.

¹  Matthew 6:13

²  1 Chronicles 29:11

³  James 4:7

⁴  Mark 16:17

⁵  Psalm 103:12

⁶  1 Chronicles 4:10

⁷  Psalm 37:4