“Do you want to stay?” the Holy Spirit of God asked me concerning something really big I was about to leave behind in obedience to Him.
“Yes,” I said honestly. That was how I felt in those few minutes anyway though my emotions had been all over the place.
“Why?” the Holy Spirit asked me.
God knew the answer of course. But I believe He wanted me to see.
“Because I am scared,” I confessed.
One of the biggest and hardest lessons I have learned about following the Lord Jesus Christ is that obedience to God is not about how we feel. It is about loving, honoring, and glorifying the Lord. It is not about self and the price we pay in sacrificing and forsaking all for God as He calls us to do. It is about Jesus. And it is not about following the flesh to make ourselves feel good and feel better and get and have and enjoy what we want. It is about following God.
And when it comes to fear, which I have tons of experience with over the years as I am highly prone to worry and anxiety and doubt, following Jesus is not about bowing down to and worshiping and serving fear and following fear which I believe comes from a yucky combination of the devil and the flesh apart from God. Following Jesus is about bowing down to and worshiping and serving God almighty!
Friend, I have learned when fear comes to cry out to God, to praise and worship Him, to spend time in His presence, to pray, pray, pray, to pour out my heart to Him, to read and live by the Bible, to be filled with and led by His Holy Spirit, to reach out to His followers for love, support, encouragement, prayer, and help following Jesus – and TO OBEY GOD.
We all will stand before Jesus one day and have to give an account. I don’t want to stand in front of Him and have Him point out all the things I did not do in obedience to God on this earth because I was afraid. I want Jesus to be smiling and joyful that this follower of His loved and served the Lord with every ounce of my heart!
Please understand when we turn to God and yield ourselves to Him and live in obedience to Him by the power of His Holy Spirit He will provide all we need to follow Him day by day and forevermore. Fear may scream at us that we will never make it, that we should cower and hide, that we should run the other way, that we should choose the easy way out, etc., but God makes clear in the Bible and in our lives that His faithful followers have what we need in and through Jesus so long as we humbly live surrendered to Him and press on as His Holy Spirit leads us forth.
Anything God has called you to do that you have been afraid to do? That you have been refusing to do, delaying, resisting, or outright rebelling concerning because of fear or anything else for that matter? Cry out to God and dig into the Bible and reach out to His followers and follow Jesus as the Holy Spirit of God leads you down the pathway of righteousness He sets before you, AMEN!
PLEASE DON’T LET FEAR STOP YOU FROM FOLLOWING THE LORD JESUS CHRIST! HALLELUJAH! AMEN!
“Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.” Psalms 56:3 NKJV
“Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; ‘For YAH, the LORD, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation.’ ” Therefore with joy you will draw water From the wells of salvation.” Isaiah 12:2-3 NKJV
“He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.” Psalms 23:3 NKJV
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV
“For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”” Romans 8:15 NKJV
“”Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:25-34 NKJV