Perfect love drives out fear.
God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of boldness.
These are verses that give followers of Jesus a sense of empowerment. When staring down an impossible task, these are the verses that believers rest in. Pastors, missionaries, and other laborers in the gospel find solace in the concept that fear is not a “club in God’s bag.”
When looking at the news, when looking at social media, when listening to some of our friends and family at Thanksgiving, we see that fear is ever present. There are a lot of people that are afraid and many of them are people we know. We are a people who universally have been gripped by fear and that fear has devastating results.
In the past couple of weeks, we have seen that fear manifest itself has the hearings to install Justice Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The fascinating thing about this episode in American life is that almost the entire country experienced a moment of fear. Whether or it is fear of missing out or fear of the unknown.
Fear does horrifying things to people. Fear makes people act irrationally and emotionally. Fear creates enemies out of allies and interjects suspicion into almost any conversation. Fear isolates us from the body of creates and banishes us from the mission fields that each and every one of us is called to embark. Fear is a useful weapon of the enemy because we all succumb to fear at some point in our lives.
As the news of Justice Kavanaugh concluded, there was something that I noticed. I noticed that many of our brothers and sisters in Christ put a voice to that fear. They expressed that fear in the open and in that expression they put on display for the world to see. As our friends shared their stories and concerns, it was heartbreaking to see their fear center stage.
The other thing that I noticed, that those who were offered unmitigated support for Justice Kavanaugh observed those acting out on their fear, that they ridiculed them as irrational and emotional. People (way too many of them Jesus followers) pointed fingers at the expense of others, while either 2 weeks or 10 years earlier had their own moment where they also feared the unknown.
To rest in the spirit of boldness and reject the spirit of fear is also to be agents of that spirit of boldness and to recruit those who are ready to dismiss the spirit of fear. To be this agent is no longer admonish or ridicule those who are gripped by fear, but rather to offer the balm of the gospel to soothe those fears. To be a follower of Jesus is to compare the Kingdom of the living God to the news of the day and let the triviality of this world shrink in comparison to the majesty of God.
In short, at this time and place in history, followers of Jesus are called to break the grip of fear.
RPCR Update:
Join us on October 21st @ 8:00 PM as we interview Andy Harrison from the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.
Also, I am excited to announce that Jeremy Coleman from Crossover Radio and I are partnering with the National Immigration Forum for their Leading the Way event in Washington DC November 14th and 15th.
