Fear is a natural God-given emotion to protect us from danger. When faced with danger, our immediate fear response alerts us to do something to protect our selves. It’s like the sounding of a fire alarm.
When Faced with Fear You May Feel These Discomforts:
- Rapid beating heart
- Sweating
- Trembling or shaking
- Shortness of breath or heavy breathing
- Sick feeling in the stomach
Our bodies weren’t designed to operate continuously in fear. The stress fear causes leads to chemical imbalances that lead to chronic disease. Uncomfortable feelings and symptoms of fear manifest when a person is under the stress of fear and worry. In more advanced stages, the condition can be present continuously.
Fear: Protector or Tormentor?
Here’s how you can distinguish the difference between the protection mechanism God created in us and the tormenting aspects of our emotions. When faced with a dangerous situation like a “scare” while driving on the freeway, the fear mechanism alerts us and prepares us within a fraction of a second to take immediate action or react in the situation. This is the protective side of fear.
By contrast, there are times when the discomfort of fear result when there is no imminent danger. It is not helpful to have this lingering emotion when there is no clear-cut action to get us out of our condition. This undefined fear is better known as anxiety. This is the tormenting side of fear.
While the world’s antidote to anxiety is pills, those with a little more insight realize that there are deeper causes. The symptoms of fear, anxiety, and panic attacks should be telling us to address underlying causes—not cover the symptoms with drugs.
Many people trying to be helpful will often relate the popular Christian verbiage, “Take it to the cross.” We hear this solution expressed many times but the vagueness of this statement leads many wondering, “How do I do that?”
Let’s remove the ambiguity about “taking our problems to the cross.” Paul writes in Galatians 5:24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.
The figurative phrase, “to nail an issue to the cross,” literally means to express it, to acknowledge it, and to agree to it. The single word that expresses this, by definition, is to “confess.”
The second part of the crucifying process is to kill it. How do we kill it? We don’t do it alone! The Holy Spirit completes the process. Galatians 5:24 explains how we obtain the Fruit of the Spirit. Our part of the process is to confess it and the Spirit’s responsibility is to kill it by removing the belief and replacing it with God’s truth.
This is still confusing until we consider Romans 12.2 which tells us that we will be transformed by the renewing of our mind. I am convinced that the renewing process is changing our old beliefs, which came from past experiences, to the standard of God’s truth so that we live aligned with His beliefs.
In the case of fear, confess it and ask Jesus to remove the fear from our mind. It amazingly will happen. See my blog entry Prayer to Get Free for more specific details on how to do this.
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Neil Elmer is author of the book PreScriptures for Life: A Believer's Guide to Praying Scripture. His ministry helps people achieve peace in life and be set free from the bondages of sin and oppression.
PreScriptures for Life
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