Today we’re sharing an excerpt from Jeannie Cunnion’s new study, Never Alone. Order your copy or view a free sample at lifeway.com/neveralone.
God’s Spirit in you isn’t a Spirit of fear. It’s a Spirit of courage, calmness, and confidence. We can heed God’s command to “not be afraid”—a command that is said to be given 365 times in the Bible—because the Spirit inside us gives us His courage, calmness, and confidence for what’s before us and our kids.
I don’t mean to simplify the complexity of fear in our lives. There are very practical steps we must take and help we must get when our lives are paralyzed by fear. But I don’t want us to neglect the Spirit’s role in transforming us into people whose trust in God’s faithfulness trumps our fear of the unknown. For whatever fears you named, speak this over them: “God in me is not afraid, so neither shall I be, by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Let me share a personal story with you. Growing up, I had an immense amount of fear about my safety. I had terrible thoughts about what could happen to me when I wasn’t alert or on guard. This carried into my adulthood and even my motherhood. I feared greatly for my children’s safety. My husband often traveled for work after we had our first son, Cal. Setting the security alarm at night was only one of many steps I took in an attempt to ensure our safety and soothe my fears. And while I may have ensured our safety, my fear never really stilled. My spirit of fear was all-consuming when my husband wasn’t home. My mom would often come to visit me when Mike was traveling to lend a hand and enjoy her grandson, and she began to see firsthand how my fear was worsening. In her infinite wisdom, she wrote out a list of Bible verses for me to pray over my fear and left the list with me when she returned home to my Dad.
That night, after I put my son to sleep and climbed into bed, I opened my Bible to look up the verses she gave me. One of the first verses on the list was Proverbs 3:5-6. She wrote it using the abbreviation “Pr. 3:5-6.” I have perfect vision so I should have read it correctly, but instead I read “Ps. 3:5-6.”
When I opened my Bible to the passage, I quickly realized that not only did I misread what my mom wrote down for me but God had appointed this moment to set me free.
Psalm 3:5-6 reads,
I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord
sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of
people who have set themselves against me all around.
I read it over and over again through tear-drenched eyes, then slid my finger to verse 1 so I could read the whole chapter, only to become even more undone.
Psalm 3:3-4 says,
But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory,
and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the Lord,
and he answered me from his holy hill.
The Holy Spirit led me straight to truth that supernaturally set me free from fear, and I was never the same.
This is the work the Spirit wants to do in each one of us. He wants to work supernaturally to help us break through what seems like immovable barriers to living free from fear. He wants to empower us to live in the assurance that “the one who is in [us] is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4, NIV).
Want to learn more about Never Alone? Watch the short video below or view a free sample and teaching video clips at lifeway.com/neveralone.
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