Are You Masking Fear? How to Get Free!

Internet wars, Facebook battles, media hackling its watchers with dangers and fears.

It used to be, we would have to open the door to our house; jump in our car and drive somewhere local before we would let the world intervene us.

But now, terrors arrive through the screens of our t.v. watching, kids holding their own devices, often without walls or filters, accessing them to a world of doubts and fears.

Fear squeezes in through online bullying, “warning” posts showing us the dangers in everything we touch, and headlines capturing the latest disaster, the most recent tragedy….

No wonder we are a nation riddled with anxiety. A world where ADD manifests to the point where they bring crates of prescriptions into our local Elementary Schools each week.

When did the world stop becoming slow? Our homes cease from being refuges? Our doors change from something we intentionally opened to let people in, to something we lock to keep others out?

When did we stop letting God become the gatekeeper of our hearts? Our minds become filled with public opinion, more than what Scipture alone holds and teaches?

Why must our schools teach every different possibility, religion, belief system, except Christianity? Failing to access all things life stood upon when culture and morality thrives from every facet?

I wake and pour over my Big Black Book this morning.

I see “Fear”, in Greek the word, “phobeo”. The word looks at me with questioning eyes, calling forth the lies that keep my own mind sheltered from the truth.

Fear lives inside all of us. But what will we point our reverence to?

“Fear of the Lord, it’s the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 9:10)

Why is it, the last thing we fear is the One who took dust and made us, The One who carves the white mountains, spoke into creation the vast depths of the sea?

“Phobeo” or fear is a panic that grips you, induces the instinct to run. And how many of us instinctively just want to flee?

Fear causes alarm, dismay, an onslaught of dread. It brings intimidation, anxiousness, and apprehension.

Yet, we let fear into our lives almost daily through the internet, murder mysteries, lies we let the enemy add into our heads.

When will God’s voice be louder than the worlds, louder than our fellow man, louder than the noise shouting at us continually?

Scripture says, “The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be secure.” (Proverbs 29:25)

“Perfect love casts out ALL fear.” (1 John 4:18)

The only way to rid ourselves from fear isn’t to read more, know more, strengthen ourselves better, but to confess our weakness and to be FILLED with the Spirit of the Living Lord. (2 Timothy 1:7)

When was the last time we sat in His presence, filled ourselves up in the goodness of the Lord?

The people were terrorized by the demon possessed man, so much so that they chained him up and left him outside the city. But even the chains couldn’t bind him.

He had been chained by his hands and feet, but chains couldn’t keep him. The evil possessed man terrorizes people after breaking free.

Then, Jesus stepped on the scene. (Read more on this story in Matt 8:28-32, Mark 5:1-13, Luke 8:26-33)

Everything always changes when Jesus steps on the scene.

“What is your name?” It’s the first thing Jesus asked this man riddled with evil.

And I think it’s like that for us too…When we are taken and shackled by something we cannot control or subdue, it’s then we must own it, name it and identify honestly where we need freedom.

Fear is a characteristic hard to label.

Fear is often masked by secondary behaviors or conditions. It hides in lies, until it overtakes the chains of our own strength and wisdom.

Fear disguises itself in anger, perfectionism, and our own need for comfort and control. Fear hides in business, firm mindsets and procrastination.

But like the man who was possessed when Jesus met him, what we disguise eventually becomes part of us.

Fears goal is to overtake us, paralize and isolate us….just like the man filled with demons.

“The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy.” (John 10:10)

Imagine the life this man had living in the tombs, painfully plagued by sin and evil.

This man answered Jesus as the demon himself, “Legion”, he tells Jesus. Nothing about this man was his anymore….not his words, not his actions, and not his life.

That’s the lie of fear. It tip-toes next to us, but eventually it will own us, without the saving power of Jesus.

Thankfully, God says, “I am bigger”, “I am live”, “I am the resurrection.”

God promises, “Just like the demon possessed man, I can set you free. I have the power where you are weak. Child, give every fear to me.”

Friend, please know, I have known the debilitating weakness of a fear that isolates and hides, keeps us from true hope, and pa

ralizes with doubt.

But I also have come to know the God who called me from the tomb of my own fears and doubt.

He is capable. He is able. He is more than enough to save you from our fears.

• Won’t you ask Him to expose all the ways fear may be hiding?
• Won’t you confess your weakness to Him?
• Will you open yourself up the saving grace, power, and deliverance that only Jesus can bring?

If He was enough for the demon possessed man, enough for me…my friend, I guarantee, Jesus is fully and completely enough for you also.

Jesus has the power to save and deliver you from fear.

Matthew 5:16-20 “Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis^[b] how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.