Neal spoke on spiritual fear and freedom.
Fear stops us doing what we want to do because of the consequences of our action. We have heard of the expression “Frozen with fear” and today we looked at how fear affects us in our walk with God.
Questions:
Research has found that the major barrier to mission is the paralysing fear of rejection. The name of the game is safety and not the risk of faith. If we keep waiting for the right moment, nothing can go wrong because the right moment never actually comes. How do you feel about this statement, have you experienced this yourself and how do we move from “safety” to “faith”?
R.T Kendall says “ Better for us to have a healthy fear of God than an unhealthy fear of man” - Proverbs 29 vs 25 says “ The fear of man is a trap but whoever puts his trust in the Lord will be safe”.
Why do we have a fear of man and worry so much about what other people think of us? Does this hold us back in our walk with God?
1 John 4 vs 17-21 says “ there is no fear in Love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment – the one who fears is not perfected in love” We spent some time today looking at the fathers heart towards us to understand better this “perfect love” – This is key to trusting God and stepping out in faith – Does this help us in our understanding?
Do you know what your own individual fears are? I think in our hearts we all know our areas of weakness and fear and so let`s bring them to God and ask him to help us so that we may not be walking “in a spirit of fear – but of power and love and self control” as Paul encourages us to. Take one fear that you have –pray about it and then step out and see what God will do – The results will be amazing!