Favor > Fear

These past few weeks in Moshi, Tanzania, God has been taking me through so many incredible life lessons. One of the biggest ways He’s been teaching me is through an interactive journal I have called Qualities of a Spiritual Warrior by Graham Cooke. A lot of what I am about to share is directly from Cooke’s book, and I hope the story of my encounter with this lesson will bless and encourage you.

The most recent lesson I’ve been going through with the Lord during my time at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro is the concept of defeating fear in our lives. Fear can surface in many ways. worry, anxiety, panic, fright, being apprehensive, nervousness, intimidation, hesitancy, timidity, believing the worst, and expecting something bad are just a few examples of how fear will manifest itself in our day to day journeys. Graham Cooke uses Job from the Bible as an example of what fear can do in our lives. He says that job was an awesome guy… he was blameless, upright, feared God, and chose to turn away from evil. However, he had a fear, a dread that one day he may lose everything. That fear gave way to a self-fulfilling curse, enough for the Father to realize it was going to become a problem in Job’s life. The devil would eventually be given rights over Job because fear is the devil’s domain. We see this in Job’s own words when he says “for what I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet, and I am not at rest, but turmoil comes” (Job 3:25-26).

The Bible teaches that the only antidote to fear is perfect love (1 John 4:18). So what is perfect love then? I have been going through this question with God throughout this entire trip, and He has recently given me some incredible revelation on what that means. Perfect love is our confidence in the Father’s love for us, our position in Christ, and our fellowship with the Holy Spirit. They all combine in us to take us to a place of being so loved by the Lord that we lose all fear entirely. One of my favorite quotes from the journal I’ve been reading is, “Spiritual warriors cannot be intimidated by the enemy, because they are too busy being fascinated by Jesus”. How incredible is that? Perfect love casts out all fear, and perfect love is being captivated with our Lord and obsessed with His relentless loving kindness, grace, and favor towards us.

I asked God to reveal fears in me that were allowing the enemy to have footholds in my own life. He showed me two things. The first fear is that I’m not worth the Father’s love right now. And the second fear is that I may fall away from the faith or burn out one day, and that fear makes me think that I’m not worthy of God’s goodness right now. After having that revealed to me, I asked Holy Spirit to show me the perfect love that would cast out this fear. He started off by bringing me to Philipians 2:12-13 which says that we have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, and timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ). But then verse 13 goes on to say that this is done not in our own strength, for it is God who is all the while effectually at work in us (energizing and creating in us the power and desire) both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.

God showed me that we do have to be concerned about not falling away from Him or burning out in regards to our faith, but it is by His power and His strength alone that I will continue to be sustained and protected from falling. AND, it is His good pleasure to keep me in His hand and to keep me from falling. It is His good pleasure because He loves me and has favor for me. And this is the biggest lesson the Lord wanted me to understand from this battling of fear; that I walk in His favor!

His favor is being poured out upon me because my Father delights in me, and because my Father is a good good Father who delights in giving me (His child) good gifts. God calls me a warrior, and spiritual warriors are entirely convinced that their Father is utterly incapable of letting them down. Abundance is the language and way of life of a warrior, because warriors recognize the fullness of God’s favor offered to them, and they claim that fullness and proceed to run in the freedom it produces.

Since revealing to me the importance of claiming God’s favor over my life, the Holy Spirit has been showing me the freedom that comes from that. I am no longer afraid that I am unworthy of God’s goodness. I am worthy! My Father is madly in love with me. He delights in every part of me, and He loves to give me good gifts. He makes all things work together for my good.  He is always speaking to me, and He always has a new revelation of Himself to reveal to me so that I can continue to draw closer to Him. He gives me the power to will and to work out my salvation with fear, trembling, love, awe, and delight of Him. And it is His good pleasure to do so. I AM WORTHY, because I am my Beloved’s, and He is mine, FOREVER!

And that revelation right there, that produces true freedom. And it was for freedom that Christ set us free, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom! Freedom from all things, including fear! Favor is greater than fear. Fear brings death, but favor brings freedom. The freedom is in Christ, and that freedom is what the Father wants us to have, and that freedom is what Holy Spirit desires to lead us in. So I am continuing to pray for that freedom to define my life, and I hope this post encourages you as well. God bless!