You Are Not Given a Spirit of Fearනියැදිය

Day 1: A Showdown Between Fear and Faith

In this world that we're living in today, we can easily be afraid of every little thing. Fear is just mounting up like a river that's about to swell over its banks, but the Bible tells us that God has not given us a spirit of fear. That fear that tries to come on you, God didn't give you that.

Even so, fear comes to all of us, so we need to have some knowledge and tools to fight back. We can’t just let fear have its way and push us backward; we have to recognize the faith that God puts in us when we get born again and use that faith against fear.

The Assignment

In Numbers 13 and 14, we see a showdown between fear and faith when the Israelites start preparing to enter the promised land. First, Moses sends out spies, and he gives them instructions of what they're supposed to bring back. He tells them eight things they are supposed to do:

1. See what the land is like.

2. See if the people are strong or weak.

3. See if they are few or many.

4. See if the land is good or bad.

5. See if the cities are like camps or strongholds.

6. See if the land is rich or poor.

7. See if there are forests there.

8. Bring back fruit.

They have their instructions, so they go out into the land.

Well, those spies get back, and they give their report, and they start saying some of the things that they were told to do. They say:

1. It truly is a land that flows with milk and honey

2. The people who dwell there are strong

3. Their cities are fortified

But then they start talking about how they saw the descendants of Anak there and how small they felt compared to them. They were supposed to come back with eight things, eight answers. That was the assignment. But now fear is speaking and they only come back with four things. They did not fulfill the assignment. They were overtaken with fear and didn't do half of what they were told to do.

Fear is an enemy. Fear will stop us in our assignment. Sometimes, God tells us to do something, and we are ready to do it, and we start moving forward, but then fear begins to speak, and we start to back up, and that’s what happens to the children of Israel.

With the spies’ report, the rest of the people are all upset, and they start backing up. “No, no, no. We should have died in the wilderness. No, we should have stayed back in Egypt. Oh, I know. Let's choose a leader, and let's go back to Egypt and back to slavery.”

Faith Fights Back

But then faith starts to speak. Caleb speaks up. He doesn't just say, “We are able to do it.” He says, “Let us go up at once.” Faith does not hesitate.

This doesn’t mean that faith takes away all the struggles. Paul shows us in Philippians that it may be a struggle. You can hear the struggle in Paul's voice while he is in prison, but he encourages us to put fear and suffering behind us. Faith says, “I am not stopping. I am not bowing to the voice of fear, and I am going to press forward to the things that God has for me.”

For Joshua and Caleb, they have the whole rest of the people fighting back against them. Fear is speaking so loudly that the only thing that stops it and stops the people from stoning Joshua, Caleb, Moses, and Aaron is the glory of the Lord. The glory of the Lord wants to empower us as we go forward with our faith, and if we are faithful, He will look after us when challenges come.

As we build up our faith—praying in the Holy Ghost, reading the Word of God, meditating in the Word of God, watching what we say—we will overcome.

Discussion Questions:

1. Sometimes, God gives us an assignment, either for our whole life or just for the day in front of us. What is the assignment God’s given you recently? How did you respond?
2. Has there been a time in your life where you were ready to go, but then fear caused you to back up? How did that fear speak to you? Was there a voice of faith speaking in that moment as well?
3. Sometimes, the struggles in life can be overwhelming, but the best thing we can do is put our faith in God and put our struggles behind us. What’s a struggle you’re dealing with today? Pray over it and give it up to God.