FEAR: A Devotional by The Prophetic Scribe

Why do we fear the things we shouldn’t fear and not fear the thing that we should?
Matthew 10:28 reads… fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

There is a godly fear that is healthy. It is the fear of God.

The fear of God we speak of means to: Stand in awe of, to reverence, venerate, to treat with deference or reverential obedience, to honor, to respect. However, it also means to be afraid of, to fear and dread.

Some will question a God that you must fear, but think about the fear we had of our parents as children. A certain amount of fear of our parents was in fact healthy. There are things we did not do because we were afraid of the punishment and disapproval of our parents. When we did something bad, we dreaded going home to face the music, although it didn’t sound much like music at the time. Some of us remember our parents saying things like, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you…. Yeah, right, we thought. But, the fact is, most of our parents demanded to be respected. Well, so does God…and he deserves our fear AND our obedience even more than any man because HE IS GOD.

God once said to the prophet Jeremiah, “Should you not fear me?" "Should you not tremble in my presence?" He is saying the same thing to us.
However, instead of fearing God, many people spend time fearing man: what will they think; what will they say; what will they do? … Or worse, fearing things that have not happened and often never will.

Some people embrace fear to the point of paranoia…even provoking their bodies to respond physically to the imagined threat….and if it gets too bad, a physician will prescribe drugs to pacify the person with dis-ease caused by unhealthy thinking.

Let me tell you something. The wisdom, knowledge and understanding that you acquire from God’s word is that when you fear him, he takes care of everything in your life so that you have nothing to fear. Did you know that there are over 100 “fear not” scriptures in the bible where God instructs us not to be afraid because he has it? He encourages us to be courageous, and not be fearful. When we fear God, we trade in all of our worldly fears because in the safety of his love, there is nothing we need to fear. So, fear God and walk fearlessly.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

God Bless You,
The Prophetic Scribe
© 7/27/2010 Arletia McInnis. Use by permission only. Thepropheticscribe10@yahoo.com