When you’re afraid, your body goes into action, and the fight-or-flight response kicks in. Additional blood flows into your muscles, which can make you feel jittery and edgy. You sweat or get goosebumps. These reactions are nearly universal, and part of the human experience from the time of birth. It is inescapable that you will experience fear in your life; the question to ask is how to deal with it.
Fear is inescapable, but our reactions to it can lead us in many directions. Sometimes our most immediate instincts is to withdraw are wrong. What if the biblical witness calls us to courage and confrontation? It seems counterintuitive, but it’s exactly what we find when we begin to look around.
The phrase “fear not” appears dozens of times in the Bible. God says it. Angels say it. Jesus says it. It’s a persistent theme, to be sure. However, if we’re not careful, we might misread it as a moralizing statement about fear, as though the feeling/emotion itself were sinful or wrong. Instead, we should see these statements in the context of the stories they occupy. “Fear not” is the response to fear, not a shaming of it. It’s an invitation to courage— to draw near to the presence of God or go into the world with the confidence that God is with us.
Before God tells us “do not fear,” He reminds us of who He is and what He has done. He’s Abraham’s friend who has “taken” us, “called” us, and “chosen” us. This reality lies in the background of our fearlessness: We belong to God, who loves us and calls us friends. He’s brought each of us to a place where we can know Him, and as His children, we’ve been rescued from the very worst thing that could ever happen—separation from Him. We’re drawn in, and that gives us reason not to be afraid.
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