Fear Not, for He is With You

"Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

That's from Isaiah 41:10, a verse that every Christian should engrave upon their heart. 

There is no fooling anyone, we live in a dangerous, scary world. All you need to do is open up the paper or check the news. Every day it's suicide bombings, rocket attacks, mass shootings, kidnappings, human trafficking, the list goes on and on.

Terror is like a rock tossed into a pond, creating ripples of fear across the entire body of water. People close themselves up, harden themselves against a world that frightens them. They become distrustful of their neighbours, looking for someone to pin the blame on, to try and make sense of what is inherently senseless. Look around, antisemitism is on the rise in France, xenophobia in the States, brother turned on brother with no reason to it - all around the world people are gripped with fear.

But God says "fear not.”

Fear not because He is with you. Fear not because he will strengthen you. Fear not because he will help you. The King of Kings is watching out for you - he sees your struggle, the forces aligned against you, the terrors of sin and hatred that have infested this world, and He will protect you. 

These are words of comfort of course. Words of support and mercy - anyone can see that. But do you realize they're also a commandment? 

God isn't asking us to "fear not,” he's telling us to. 

Fear is one of the sharpest knives in Satan’s arsenal. An insidious force that doesn't just weaken our faith, question our resolve, and distance us from the Lord, it goads us into sin. It creates a panic that blinds good men towards evils in their midst, that twists them up into thinking they are doing the right thing when really they are going against the teachings and desires of the Lord.

As Christians, it's not enough for us to fear not, we have to actively fight fear. We need to root out the symptoms of fear in our society and cast a light on them for what they are. Bigotry, the fear of others. Impatience, the fear that we've been forgotten or abandoned. Hatred, the externalization of fear, an attempt to silence dread by inflicting it on other.

When you're confronted with the evils of this world, the daily bombardment of hatred and horror that pierces your heart and strangles your spirit, fear not. The Lord is with you, and he wants you to do your part as a Christian to take fear and turn it into hope. To take bigotry and turn it to love, hatred to forgiveness.

Fear not.