TEEN TREE 
OF LIFE
THE DOCTRINE OF FEAR
Part 2
May 28, 2017
BEFORE we begin, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, take a moment to name your sins to God the Father. This will allow you to be filled with the power of The Holy Spirit as you read this booklet (EPH 5:18 & 1JO 1:9). IF YOU HAVE never believed in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have that opportunity right now. Simply tell God the Father that you are believing on His Son Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you make that decision, you are now a believer and will always be a child of God! When you die, you will spend eternity with Him forever in heaven! (JOH 3:16 & ACT 16:31).
Let’s start part two of our study of Fear with a quote of Our Lord’s: “Do not worry [fear] then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” Our Father knows everything. We call this being Omniscient. His knowledge comes from His State of Being. He doesn’t have to acquire it. He always knew everything in eternity past and this will continue into eternity future. There is no limit to his knowledge. Every small detail is in His Mind at all times and has always been there. He is in complete control at all times. We actually studied this when we looked at Divine Essence (Teen Tree – April 23 – May 14, 2017). So, if God knows everything and is in complete control, what is there to worry about? God has already provided a perfect provision and a perfect solution for every problem you will ever face. It should be a great comfort to know that God has always known about you and all of your trials, troubles and tribulations and has provided answers for everything. We are safer in his hands than anywhere else in the world. Our Heavenly Father’s Concern never fails.
So, what’s the plan to set in place so that when fear comes knocking on your door, you’re ready? The simple answer lies in MAT 6:33: But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. Seeking demands determination and passion. Seeking requires that you NEVER GIVE UP the search! When we seek with all we have, we are surrendering our independence and trusting God to care for us. Seeking is a volitional issue, which means you have to make the choice to do it. Seek and you shall find. But what are we seeking? We’re seeking Him! And the only way we can find Him is to study His Word. That is why He supplied His Word. Seeking His Righteousness involves first being saved and then being filled with The Spirit which requires that you name your sins to God in His Son’s Holy Name.
Look at EPH 1:13-14: It’s in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. This signet from God is the first installment on what’s coming, a reminder that we’ll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life. (The Message Bible) This verse teaches us that hearing the truth and believing it means that you’ll get everything God Has Planned for you!
The worst thing you can do is sit around and worry about tomorrow. It’s pointless. A waste of time! We are actually commanded not to, in MAT 6:34: Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. The Christian life is meant to be lived one day at a time. Every day is a Grace Gift Given to you by God, as part of your allotted time. The fact that God gives you another day on the earth is a sign that He has a job for you to do. Never forget that!
Every day is a special day. If you live in the moment and only deal with each day as it happens, you will begin to master the Christian way of life. Life is fragile. Life is short. The children of God should not succumb to the perils of anxiety. We especially shouldn’t have anxiety over material necessities. Our Lord wants us to remember to Trust in Him! This is why your faith is so important. God will never desert you and will never forsake you! Never forget that!
From the very beginning, Satan has been trying to get us to go against the commandments of God. Along the way he has come up with all kinds of clever gimmicks. One of the primary ways Satan gets us to turn away from God is through fear. Now we know that there is a healthy kind of fear—the kind of fear that gets us to spring into action when we are in legitimate danger; but more often fear can also overtake us if we let our imagination get the best of us.
Being afraid doesn’t mean that you are a coward. Most people will agree that King David was a courageous man, but he seems to be in the panic mode when he prays for deliverance from his enemies in PSA 55:1-5: Give ear to my prayer, O God; And do not hide Thyself from my supplication. Give heed to me, and answer me; I am restless in my complaint and am surely distracted, Because of the voice of the enemy, Because of the pressure of the wicked; For they bring down trouble upon me, And in anger they bear a grudge against me. My heart is in anguish within me, And the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling come upon me; And horror has overwhelmed me. David’s fear could have been well founded, but from this passage we can guess that David was close to losing control. You can remain in control if you have faith in and trust God!
Fear of the unknown is an irrational fear that every one of us has to learn to deal with. It is one of Satan’s best weapons. It is easy to become convinced that all of the dangers, disasters, and losses that could happen, will probably happen! As a result, we let worry dominate our lives. We begin to believe all the bad things that TV news likes to play up. We begin to accept that this is the way the world is all the time, and there is nothing we can do about it except wait and worry. When Satan is successful, he will achieve his objective of getting us to lose our trust in God and then live unhappily in a state of self-induced misery, fearing all the things that are to happen.
Satan wants to plant an uncertainty in our mind about our relationship with God. Satan will work overtime with this one. He will get us to believe that we just don’t measure up in God’s eyes. There probably isn’t anyone who hasn’t wondered whether they were “good enough” to be accepted by God, because when we really look at our lives, we realize that far too often we let our sin nature get the best of us. Satan wants us to believe that we have to work our way to heaven and when we fail, he will pour the guilt on us, reminding us of just how unworthy we are. He will get us to think that maybe all this talk about salvation being a free Gift of God is just a fairy tale because that’s not how the world works. Satan will torment us into believing that God couldn’t possibly love sinners like us and get us to ignore the fact that God knew all about us and elected us in eternity past.
Another common fear we have is whether God hears us when we go to Him for help. Here is the truth according to the Bible. First off, the bad news is that if we have nothing but selfish requests and an attitude that we “deserve” His help, He will likely ignore us. But if we go to Him in humility, requesting that His Will be accomplished concerning what we are praying for, He will come through! He has promised us this in 1JO 5:14: This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
If we haven’t learned it already, we will soon find out that life is full of twists and turns that will sometimes leave us full of fear, and stressed, and wondering why things happen the way they do. But if you have faith in the Word of God, you will realize the truth of ROM 8:31: What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? Think about how Great God Is! Think about His Omniscience, His Grace, His Lovingkindess, His Faithfulness and then ask yourself how you can ever be afraid?