Overcoming by the Word
Many years ago I became aware of the fact that I had an incredible amount of fear in my life. Much of it was related to personal safety. This fear almost paralyzed me as a young Christian until I recognized it and did something about it.
I had an extreme fear of early death. I lived in terror of car accidents, train crashes, plane crashes, and random acts of violence against me. And in the summer of 1980 a friend and I were planning a road trip across country to L.A. to visit another friend. Months before the trip, I had an uneasy feeling building up within me. “You’re going to die on this trip,” the fear whispered over and over.
Determined to overcome the fear, I grabbed my Bible and concordance and started running my references on the topic of God’s protection. Dozens upon dozens of Scriptures promised that God would deliver me from harm, and I wrote them all down on notebook paper. I studied these verses over and over again and thought about them day and night to combat the near panic-level fear I lived with.
When the time came to leave for the trip, I had that set of Scriptures close. For the first two hours of our journey, my heart pounded in fear. I kept reading the verses, telling God quietly that I believed what He said in them. We made our first pit stop at a McDonald’s on the highway, and I took the verses in with me. I remember sitting at a table with my friend, munching my fries and drinking a Coke, reading those verses for the cajillionth time. And there, under the Golden Arches, the fear simply lifted. My pulse became normal, the panic was gone, and as we pulled out, I was able to laugh and anticipate this adventure to L.A. with excitement.
My life changed when I confronted my fear with an orchestrated attack launched from the Word of God. I didn’t feel any less fearful when I started the Bible assault, but I stuck with it and lived in those verses. And God set me free from fear.
How did Jesus overcome the tempter in the wilderness? He used the Word of God. As Jesus persisted in countering each temptation with Scripture, Satan had to leave Him, hoping to find a more opportune time (see Matthew 4:1-11).
A disciple is not above his or her master. If our Savior used the Word of God to combat His foe, how much more should we? Jesus is the Word made flesh, and as for us humans of faith, the Word is near us, in our mouths and in our hearts (see Romans 10:8). The safest place for a Christian in today’s crazy, agitated world is in the Word of God.
Sometimes Christians have a hard time wanting to pray about the challenges we are being confronted with in this nation because so much that we see is extremely disturbing and makes us feel impotent in the face of it. I get it, one hundred percent.
But as I learned back in 1980, the only good way to overcome fear or any other strategy of Satan is by attacking it head on with the Word of God. If our Lord Jesus used the Word to overcome the devil, then so must we. There is no other pursuit in life that will reap the depth and intensity of real, lasting fruit than the full-throttle search of God’s Word. The needs and fears in your life can be addressed in no better way.
None of us can afford to ignore our fears any longer. Each of us must take a stand against what makes us afraid, and with faith in God, launch an orchestrated assault both on our fears and against the fearsome issues with the mighty, powerful, living Word of God.
May God direct and increase you as you dive into His precious Word.
Dorothy
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:12, NKJV
…[He] upholds all things by the word of His power…. Hebrews 1:3b, NASB
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Revelation 12:11, NKJV