“I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears” (Psalm 34:4).

The definition of fear is that it is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

Fear is something we deal with all the time. Because of this, we get anxious and can suffer from anxiety due to fears. My biggest fear, which causes anxiety for me, is the fear of the unknown. It is the unknown that scares me. My fear isn’t rational or based on anything tangible, but I still fear the unknown in my life.

Like Psalm 34:4 above says, the Lord will deliver me from my fears. And when I ask Him to, my fears go away because I put my trust in Him. But sometimes I lose that focus, and fear comes creeping up in my mind again of the unknown, those things of which I have no control over.

Fear, at its root, is propagated by Satan and his minions. They use the things of this world and the unknown to cause us to fear. If we can remember that God is in control of everything and directs everything for the culmination of the end of our time on this earth and the betterment of us, life is not so fearful. We forget this sometimes and slip into the mindset of fearing things.

I’m not talking about fear of venomous snakes, spiders, or things like evil people, etc., but I am talking about those fears that are spiritual in nature. I’m talking about those things that interrupt our close relationship with our Father in Heaven. These things, again, stem from the actions of Satan to cause our trust in God to lead us, out of fear, to be minimized or nonexistent.

There is no doubt that Satan is in control of the ways of this world. We are strangers in a foreign land, pilgrims in our journey to Heaven who are filled with obstacles originating from Satan. He will insert fear into our lives to interrupt our relationship and trust in our Savior and our God. This influence of fear that Satan puts in us can cause us to question the validity of God’s power in our lives and/or the freedom Jesus gave us when He gave His life for us, to be the propagation for our sins.

Having and succumbing to the influence of fear in our hearts is easy, and fighting these seeds of fear takes daily effort to overcome and avoid. Each day we need to renew our minds to the things and promises of God to battle the fear that can easily overcome us. It is the renewing of our mind that refreshes our soul and spirit to be God-focused each and every day.

Do you notice that when you are more in tune with God that fear is not effectuating its influence in your life? Do you notice that you have fear when your relationship with God has taken a backseat in your lives? If we keep the Lord as our focus, we will maintain a strong relationship with Him and will place our trust in Him to help us overcome fear.

Being in tune with God allows God’s power and influence to affect your innermost being in a good way.  When we closely walk with God, fear has no room to affect us. When God is a priority in our day, fear won’t come floating into your mind and then your heart.

We must always be on guard against things that can cause fears we may hold. We need to remember that God is active in our lives and will never introduce fear into our hearts. He is the God of light, and fear is a product of darkness. We need not fear anything spiritual in our lives because God is on our side and wants us to live under His light, not the darkness that Satan introduces to us to try to influence us to have fear.

John 16:33 tells us, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

The opposite of fear is peace. We cannot get peace from the world because the world is designed to cause us fear under the influences of Satan. We find peace in being under the wings of Jesus, under His protection and love that stomps out the fear Satan wants us to have.

When we have the peace of Jesus, our mindsets are on the positive outlook on life and circumstances.  When we trust Jesus and obey what and how he wants us to live, we cannot help but not be affected by fear, because in Him is pure and unending love, and love has no fear attached to it.

When we choose peace over a spirit of fear, we are choosing to live under and for God. Our lives were bought with a price by Jesus so we wouldn’t have to fear anything that Satan may throw at us in this life. We are held in the hands of Jesus because, with Him, there is nothing to fear.

When we come under tribulations, this can cause us to be affected by fear, but, as John 16:33 says, “… be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” You get that? We need not fear because Jesus has overcome the world; and because of this, we can live and know that regardless of what we face from the world, we can have that holistic knowledge that Jesus was victorious over death and opened the way for us to have that peaceful relationship with Him.

When we find ourselves falling into the trap of fear, this is when we should refocus our minds and rejoice in the Lord for who He is – Jesus, the Savior of the world, for those that believe in Him and His atoning sacrifice for our sins.

The world will not remedy fear. Only Jesus can. The world cannot provide us the peace that Christ can. The world is a propagator of fear, and we are not bound by the chains of the world. And because of this, we can trustfully exclude ourselves from the fears the world wants us to have, and instead fall down to the feet of Jesus to give us the peace we need so as not to become a victim of fear.

So, I ask this again: what are you scared of? What causes you to worry and what causes you stress and anxiety? When you know the root of your fears, you can give them to Jesus and let Jesus provide you peace in your heart so troubles are no longer troubles, but a rejoicing heart that knows He has overcome the world.

Johnflysaught@gmail.com

I don’t know about you, but I love living with Christ as the center of my life. I love being a Christian. I’m so glad that I am an adopted son of God’s. I am overjoyed with the knowledge in my mind and the assurance in my heart that my trust in Jesus is not for nil. I wouldn’t want this any other way.

Like you, I was lost before I was drawn to Christ. I wandered the world and life going this way or that way in search of something more than myself, something or someone to show me the way to eternal life. I had this emptiness inside my heart that I couldn’t explain or satisfy with the things of the world. There was nothing to be the center of my life that the world offered that fulfilled me. The world entertained me for a short time but was always fleeting to my heart with no permanent joy and satisfaction.

There was a time in my life that I knew of Jesus. I even went to church, but that was the extent of it. I wasn’t really committed and really didn’t know Christ. I knew Him at a distance. I didn’t understand Jesus or what He was really about. I just knew that people prayed to Him and people told me He was the Son of God, which I didn’t understand.

This went on for some time until about 2011. I had a cancer scare during this time and it really shook me. I didn’t have cancer, but that didn’t matter anymore. I realized my mortality on this earth. I knew I had to do something, and the draw to Christ became overwhelming. I heeded that draw and came to Christ.

Grace drew me to Jesus and I didn’t look back, but moved forward in Him.  No more messing around with my life. No more sitting on the fence. No more being self-ignorant about who Jesus was. No more loneliness in my heart. I wanted Christ to be the center of my life.

There is peace when Christ is in the center of your life.  Isaiah 26:3 says, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” Some say this is an unexplainable peace, as I have before, but it is explainable.

When one has this peace, it is from having trust in Christ, His ways, and the promise of the New Covenant. This peace comes with the assurance of our faith that what Christ says is true, that His sacrifice on the cross is true, and that He rose from the grave and ascended to heaven to prepare a place for us is true. This is what the peace of Christ means.

Trust. Trust is something that should be inherent in our faith for peace, but is hard to do at times. To give all to Christ can be difficult for some. We trust in what John 14:6 says, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me,” but do we practice this truth as the center of our lives?

Giving and surrendering to Christ is an exercise of faith and is part of keeping Jesus as the center of our lives.  Most of us are partial-faith believers. What do I mean? I mean we are part-time Christians in our faith. We have issues giving all to Jesus so that He is the true center of our lives.

Not giving all can stem from not trusting Jesus with your finances, repeating sins such as viewing pornography, coveting, gossip, or something else that has a strong hold in your life. When we do this, we are not really saying Christ is the center of our lives because, if He were, then we would trust Him to help us overcome the ills of our lives so we don’t live in a cycle of sin.

Does this mean we won’t sin? Of course not! We will because we are of flesh and of a sin nature. Yet, when we have Christ as the center of our lives, we are not controlled by sin, such as repeated sin. We are free from the bondage of those sins and future sins. It takes effort to overcome habitual sin but we can with Christ as the center of our lives.

When Christ is the center of our lives, it means we have complete trust in Him to control our lives. We have issues with this as well. We may desire to give Him complete control of our lives, but do we really? If we desire so, what is holding us back from giving it all to Him? It is control. We want to have control of our lives, even just a little bit, aside from letting Christ drive our will and desires.

Why is this? Why do we want to keep control of our lives? I think it is selfishness and pride. These two actions hinder us and prevent us from giving Christ full control of our lives. We want to drive, per se, and are content to only let Jesus drive occasionally, depending on the situation.

1 John 2:16 tells us that, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”

Pride and selfishness come from the world and is opposite of humbleness, which comes from reverence and godly fear of God. Jesus wants us to have a humble heart, and we do, in some areas of our lives, but to have Christ as the center of our lives, we must be humble and not have pride in all areas of our lives.

This means giving up self and bowing to our Lord Jesus. Jesus is our King, and to oppose Him is sinful. We must serve our Lord Jesus and not ourselves. We must put His needs and wants for us before ourselves. He will take care of us and will never leave us but we ignore Him when we sin by not being humble to Him and not making Him the center of our lives.

Keeping Jesus as the center of our lives is not something that automatically happens upon salvation. Can it? Yes, but most of us have to work at it. For some, it is a little at a time, much like myself.  We tend to put obstacles in front of Jesus to be the center of our lives so He doesn’t’ have complete control of our lives.

At the end of the day, we should ask ourselves what our obstacles are with our faith and trust in Jesus to be the center of our lives. Is it control? Pray and work on giving all control to Jesus of your life. Is it a habitual sin that you can’t shake? Pray again, and work to let Christ lead you to repentance, true repentance, to not repeat those habitual sins.

When we truly trust our lives to Jesus, then He truly becomes the center of our lives.  We can’t do it alone, but need to be open to Christ to lead us and help us to do this. If we trust Him to control our lives in action and actuality, then He will be the center of our lives, and we will truly accept and treat Him as our King.

Johnflysaught@gmail.com