Fear? Yeah Right!

Psalms 27:1 (NASB77)
The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread?

What a great truth in the Bible. Yet it is not so easily lived out in our lives. It begins with trust. How do we know that the Lord will defend us? How do we know that He is our light and salvation? Experience.

As Christians we bemoan and whine when difficulties come to our life. Whether they be of our own making, or of the hand of the Lord, or of the hand of Satan, we do not like troubles when they come. However, it is because of these times and the faithfulness that the Lord shows to us during these times that we can learn to say that the Lord is our defense, light, and salvation.


Romans 5:3-4 (HCSB)
And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope.

This New Testament passage gives us a clear lineage of events that foster our trust in God. When troubles come and we endure it, we gain a certain amount of endurance for discomfort. In addition to this endurance, our proper conduct through these afflictions (proper conduct being trusting in God) proves to ourselves and others that we are people of character in our Christian practice. This character gives us hope: Hope that we can endure difficult times. Hope that God will bring us through them, whether the outcome is good for us or not. Christ never promises that we will have all we want or that we will be prosperous, but that He will be with us in every event of our life. This is the hope that He gives to us when we endure trials and troubles. This is when we can look at life and proclaim loudly that the Lord is my defense! The Lord is my light! The Lord is my salvation! When we get to this place we can have no fear and no dread.

The greatest example of this I can think of is Lazarus. Jesus delayed going to him when he was told that Lazarus was sick. Lazarus had been in the grave for three days when Jesus arrived. Yet with a word, Jesus raised him from the dead. And we complain about our difficulties!! The Bible says that the Chief Priests also wanted to kill Lazarus because many people were believing in Jesus because of him. Can you imagine Lazarus response? Been there, done that. This was a man who had tasted death and was no alive again. Is there anything they could actually threaten him with?

As Christians, we have this same testimony. We were once dead in our sins and trespasses before God. Yet Jesus has made us alive before God through His work on the cross. Christians above all people should say, "I will not fear what man will do to me!"