Overcoming Fear — Gisela Yohannan

On our way here, Sarah was asking me what I'm going to share, and I told her I will share a recipe. She wanted to know what recipe that is, and I can tell you what it is not. It's not chocolate chip cookies.

The Meaning and Different Forms of Fear

It will be something else. I want to start out with talking about things that we face as believers. My theme tonight, I actually have a title already. It is How to Overcome Fear. Now, there is a lot of different approaches how people try to overcome fear or confront their fears.

Last night I was flipping the channels to look for, I think I was looking at the news or something, and there was Fear Factor. Have you ever seen Fear Factor? You know, that's a program where they have this competition.

You know, whoever wins, and some people are afraid of doing something, so they cannot go through with it. So whoever is in the end left wins $50 ,000. Some of them, they have to eat spiders, and they dangle from helicopters.

Last night I had them hanging down from a 65-story building, having to do some stunts. Sometimes they lock them in some cage with a lot of muggets and worms and scorpions and stuff like that, and they are all covered, and they crawl all over them.

Whoever lasts the longest, that person gets $50 ,000. So they confront and overcome their fear for the lure of $50 ,000, which for some people is worth enough to eat and drink worms and stuff like that.

Of course, some people that have attacks of anxiety, like from small spaces, or they cannot fly on an airplane or something, some of them go for therapy, and they get all these counselings. And then in the end, for their graduation, they need to confront their fear, and so they will go on this plane ride.

I have seen some of these programs on TV before. The counselor is there, and some others, and all that are so anxious, they have now learned and got all the things in their head they were told, and now they have to confront that fear and do the things they were afraid of.

Now, when we look in the dictionary, fear, the definition there is anxiety caused by real or possible danger. Many of us are afraid of things that never will happen in their life at all. Have you ever noticed that?

You tremble, and you fear, and you have to run to the bathroom, and you are sick in your stomach about things that may never happen to you, but you are afraid of it may happen to you. And of course, the synonyms for this fear is fright, and terror, and horror, and panic, and dread, and worry, and despair, and a whole lot of other words are there.

And I was thinking, you know, with a group like this, I think each of us have tasted a little bit of some of these things in our life, and if you haven't, I'm sure it will come your way. As human beings, we often are in situations that we don't know what to do, and then fear is trying to enter us.

Now there is a healthy fear which protects us from physical harm. You know, we are afraid to run in front of a moving train, at least most of us, I think all of us, and we teach our children, don't do these things, don't touch the fire, it will burn you, and don't jump off this 65-story building without a robe on, and don't catch a crocodile by the tail, and don't climb into a cage with a gorilla or with a bear at the zoo.

We teach our children to have fear of dangers that would harm them, and this is a very healthy fear. Actually, I read in a newspaper while I was traveling, this guy was drunk, and so he climbed into the bear cage to have a fight with the bear there, but guess who won?

Reverence for God as the Beginning of Wisdom

And then there is the fear of God, and we all know some of the proverbs that talk about the fear of God, and the fear of God is a good thing, it is the best thing we can have because it causes us to obey Him.

Now fear of God is not the scary, panic, horror type of thing, you know, it is a reference for God, to be in awe of God, to revere Him, and because of that, if we have that fear, it will protect us from a lot of things, and it will help us in our life.

Psalm 111, verse 10 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And then Proverbs 19, verse 23 says, the fear of the Lord leads to life. So if we have this fear, it's like an upward spiral, it doesn't take us down, but it leads to life.

Fear as a Paralyzing Downward Spiral

But then, the fear we want to talk about is the fear in our hearts, the fear that controls us, that paralyzes us, and destroys us in the end. Now this fear may be caused by real circumstances or things we tread, and I want just to name a few.

Fear of men, fear of failure, fear of sickness, you know, my mother had cancer, so in my next, my sister had a stroke, you know, just a few months ago. What about me? I got the same genes, you know, we can start thinking like that.

Or fear of death, then there is fear of loneliness, fear of not being in control in our life. Things are happening to me and I cannot do anything. Then there is, for those that are married, fear for our children.

How they are going to grow up. Will they pass their exams? Will they walk with God? Will they make good decisions? What will happen to them when they go to college? And fear of the future. Then fear about decisions we have to make.

There are so many things that can really grip our hearts. And when we think about the fears that are in our hearts, it's like, like a spiral downward. Have you ever seen one of these wishing wells where you put a coin and it goes round and round and then it goes down and down and in the end the coin goes in a hole?

And that is exactly when this fear enters our life and gets a hold of us, gets a hold of our heart. It is like this wishing well, it goes downward and it controls us in the end. And we are down in this hole and don't know how to get out of it.

Why Unbelievers Fear and Why Believers Have Hope

Now, when we think about people that don't know the Lord, we can say it's justified. You know, they have a real reason to be fearful. Because after all, they are heading for hell. And the things in life are very scary.

They don't know what comes after this. And they have no defense against the powers of darkness. You know, in our updates and missionary stories and testimonies, we hear, we read so many times how people are controlled by the powers of darkness.

Some are possessed. And what always breaks my heart the most is when I read or hear testimonies of parents whose children and babies even were possessed by evil spirits. And they have no defense against it.

They cannot cast it out. They cannot do anything. And so, for people that don't know the Lord, they have reason to be fearful. And then they don't have the Holy Spirit within them. You know, we have the Holy Spirit to guide us, to lead us in the way we should go.

And these people walk around through life blind as a bat. They have nothing to guide them. No light. And then, of course, they have no hope. No wonder they are fearful in their hearts. But now, all of us here in this room, we are believers.

What about us? Do we have reason to fear? Or are we not supposed to? Are we not supposed to live in peace and not in fear? Of course, we are facing many of the same circumstances that unbelievers are facing.

We are faced with sickness. We are faced with difficulties at the workplace. We are faced with needs we have in our life and troubles. But there is a difference. I want to read Psalm 46, verse 1 and 2, what the Bible says about those that belong to the Lord.

I read that, I guess it was yesterday morning, and so I decided I will choose that theme. It talks about what we ought to be. I haven't reached there, but that is what the Bible talks about us. It says there, God, it's Psalm 46, verse 1 and 2, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change. And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea. And it goes on how these waves and the turmoil and all these things. Now, when I look at this verse here, it sounds like whoever wrote this is talking about the earthquake and the tsunami.

And it says, we will not fear. Now, the tsunami and the earthquake, maybe not the literal one we saw on TV a year or two ago, almost a year and a half ago, but it may be a tsunami and earthquake in our life.

The things go over our head, where everything that was that fast before is shaking and falling apart. And there the Bible says, we will not fear. Now, why does the Bible say that we have actually no reason to be in fear, even when all these things happen?

Well, as believers, we know things that, and we have experienced things that unbelievers don't know. The reason why we should not fear is God loves us. He's our father. I'm his daughter. He loves me more than his own life.

He even died for me. And then the Bible teaches us that God is in control. Jesus overcame everything there is to overcome, including death. And then the Bible tells me he cares for me. He's my provider.

And then I know God is greater than anything. We are secure in his hands. Nothing can take us out of his hands, Jesus said. And then we have God's promises. You know, each of us can quote many, many promises in the Bible.

And another reason why we don't need to fear, or why we don't actually have a reason to fear, is when we look at God's track record. How is it? He's able to do anything, far beyond our expectation even.

His track record is that he's faithful all the time. Not even one time he failed. His track record is that he never broke his word. And God's track record is that he's a good God all the time. Now, when we look at these reasons why we will not fear, or we should not fear, or have no reason to fear, even when things fall apart around us, then we ask ourselves, but why do we then experience fear?

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil's Weapon of Fear

I do. And I know if I do, then you do also. There are several reasons why we as believers also encounter fear in our life. The first reason is we are still living in a human body. We are not yet translated into our new body, and this body is subject to decay and death and sickness, and a lot of other things, to pain, you know.

I can pinch myself and it hurts. And then another reason why we experience fear is that the world around us influences us. You know, it rubs off. You know, we see on TV all these horrible things that are happening, and after you watch the news, you walk off with fear in your heart.

And then another reason why we as believers often experience fear is because our mind needs yet to be renewed by the Word of God. We talked about that in one of our meetings, that in every area of our life we need to think like the Lord Jesus thinks.

And that means when we come to the Lord, we need to renew our mind by the Word of God. And then the last thing and the most important thing, and that's the one we want to talk about tonight, is the reason why we as believers experience fear is because fear is one of the most powerful weapons the devil is using against us to keep us living in defeat and prevent us from experiencing what God has in store for us and to prevent us from experiencing God's promises.

The originator of fear is always the evil one. God is not scaring us. God says, peace be unto you. And Jesus, how many times he walked up to his disciples and they were trembling and he said, fear not.

The devil never says that. When he comes on the scene, he says, you fear, you tremble. So we know when fears come against us, it is not from the Lord. It is from the evil one. And he's often very effectively using this kind of weapons against us.

Now, how does the devil get this fear into our hearts? It must come from somewhere. He must have a tactic. I don't want to go into details, but the Bible tells us that our mind is the door through which he comes.

He injects thoughts into our mind, fearful thoughts. And the next thing that happens, we start entertaining these thoughts. The devil will maybe say to one of us, you know, your mother died when she was 40 and had a heart attack.

Do you know? You are now 39. Maybe you only have one year left. You start thinking about this. Oh, my word, it is true. My heart, is it beating all right or did it just skip a beat? And you entertain that thought, and you entertain it, and you entertain it, and you know what happens?

The thought travels down to your heart and lodges in your heart, and we believe it. See, we believe with our heart. We don't believe with our mind. We receive thoughts and things with our mind, and when we entertain it, it travels to our heart, and in the end, we believe it.

You know, what I found, and I'm sure when you think about it, so many thoughts that come in my mind, I think these are my thoughts, or we think these are facts, you know, but actually, it is the devil's thoughts that he put into my mind, making me think these are my own thoughts.

These are the facts that are true. Now, what kind of fears the devil harasses us with and tries to inject in our head, in our mind? You know, when we are in a difficult situation, when things are shaking in our life, when circumstances are difficult, you know, we say often to ourselves, but please believe me, these thoughts don't come from the Lord.

We say, no one faces the problems I face. I'm all alone. No one in this whole world and in the church and everywhere understands me. I'm different. You know, no one understands the troubles I'm going through.

Not even God. And then we say to ourselves, well, if I look at my life, my Christian life, I'm not strong. I'm not one of these heroes of faith. I'm not like Brother KP, or, you know, like Brother John and all these people that know what to do and God listens to them.

And then, you know, we start thinking these thoughts, they are not coming from the Lord. And then we start out with saying, what if God doesn't come through for me? I'm in this difficult situation. I have these needs.

What if God is not coming through for me? What if I'm not good enough for God to answer my prayers? I'm not spiritual enough, maybe. Maybe I'm not good enough. And then what if believing God's promises and all this praying and everything works for others, works for Heidi and Debbie, and it doesn't work for me?

What happens to me then? You realize by the time you are through entertaining these thoughts and having these thoughts in your heart, you will be full of fear. See, what the kind of fears the devil harasses us with are doubts about me as a believer, me as a child of God.

I'm not good enough. I'm not spiritual enough. God is not going to answer my prayer. All the promises are true for someone else, but not for me. And then it doubts God's goodness. Well, you blew it one time, maybe another time, and then it doubts God's faithfulness and it doubts the Word of God.

See, the Bible says that as believers we are overcomers, more than overcomers, more than conquerors, that God loves us regardless, unconditionally, that we are accepted in Jesus and all these things. These fears that the devil drops in our mind and harasses us with are doubts about me as a believer and doubts about God.

It's exactly the same thing that the devil did in the Garden of Eden. You know, he made Eve to doubt God's Word. He made Eve to doubt God's goodness for her. And she entertained that and it went in her heart and she believed it in the end.

Faith as the Only Alternative to Fear

She wasn't deceived. She believed it. Adam was deceived. No, she was deceived. But Adam, I think he knew better. You know, it says that she was deceived. She believed it in the end, what he told her. Now, we have talked about all this fear, but what options do we have to deal with the fear we experience from time to time or maybe all the time?

Well, there are only two options how to deal with our fear. One is we can die of fear. We can entertain this fear and keep it in our heart and it will paralyze us. It will defeat us and it will destroy us.

We can overcome fear. How? With faith and live. You know, there is no other alternative. The only way to overcome fear is with faith and I will read you a few Bible verses in a few minutes. If you think about it, there are many, many examples in the Bible.

When the people of Israel stood at the Red Sea and behind them the Egyptians are coming to take them back to slavery or to kill them and in front of them the water. So what do they do? What alternative do they have?

The only alternative is either to be killed or to believe God that he would do a miracle. When David stood in front of Goliath, you know, what alternative did he have? Goliath is so much stronger, he will make ground beef out of him or something.

Minced meat maybe, I should say. But what alternative did he have? He had to either run as fast as he could and retreat or to believe God that he would kill, be able to kill that Goliath by the help of God.

I want to read just a few verses. 1 John 5, verse 4, it says there, For whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Fear is part of the world, part of the world system, part of the enemy, and how do we overcome it?

By faith. Ephesians 6, verse 16, it talks about the armor and it says, Taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. Fear is a flaming missile of the evil one.

Four Practices for Overcoming Fear with Faith

Now, how can we overcome fear with faith? How do we do this? Here comes the recipe I was talking about, or we are almost at the recipe. I want to say that, and I really mean that, no one is born a hero of faith, not even Abraham.

You know, we are standing in awe of all these great men and women of God, and we look at them and we think, well, they are way up there and I'm way down there. I don't need even to attempt what they attempted, and we should learn from them and regard them.

And, I mean, Abraham is the father of faith, but he didn't start out with being father of faith. You know how they started? Each one of these heroes of faith, you read that in Hebrews 11, verse 34. It says there, From weakness they are made strong.

It talks about all these accomplishments they had. And then it says, From weakness they are made strong. And that is our starting point as well. From weakness they are made strong. Now, I got four main things that I want you to remember, how to overcome fear with faith.

These are the things that I practice in my own life, and many other people are practicing that. And if you learn that, I'm not saying it's a mantra or it is some kind of gimmick or claim it and name it, name it and claim it or something like that.

No, this is how God's Word works in our life and how we need to overcome the things that the evil one is bringing against us, especially fear. The first thing is, if things fall apart, if you are experiencing fear for any reason, take your Bible and find a promise in God's Word for your situation, and I guarantee you there is a promise in God's Word that deals with what you are going through.

Because God put it there. He didn't leave something out that you needed. There is a promise in God's Word. You know, Jesus did the same thing. When he faced temptations, he took a promise that was tailor-made for his situation.

He looked in God's Word, he knew it by heart, and he used it. So the first thing you need to do, find a promise in God's Word for your situation, and you will find God's promise that he makes to you is always greater than your problem.

Always. Whatever need you may have, and you go to God's Word, you find a promise that is greater than your problem. You know, when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, sin came, death came, sickness came.

They were cast out. But do you know they got from God a greater promise than their problem? The promise he gave to them was, one day the serpent will be crushed by the seed of the woman, which was Jesus.

He gave them a greater promise. He told them there is hope. And I just want to pick out a few things. If you have burdens, you know, you are carrying, and they are so very heavy. Jesus said in Matthew 11, verse 28, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

1 Peter 5, 7, casting all your anxiety upon him because he cares for you. You can go through all these different things, and you will always find the promise God has is greater than your problem is. Maybe you have needs in your life that are not met at this time.

There's a promise, Matthew 6, 33,. But seek you first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. All these things that you need shall be added unto you. You got a promise for your need.

So what you do is after you find the promise, you take this promise as yours. This is mine. This is my promise. And you cling to it, and you don't let it go. Surround yourself with this promise. You write it down or read it every few minutes or at least a few times a day.

You post it on your mirror or wherever you can see, the refrigerator. Whatever your need is, maybe your marriage, maybe you are overcome with fear about your children or you need wisdom or you have unsafe loved ones or different things in your life.

Find a promise, take it as yours, and surround yourself with that. I do that. If fear starts gripping my heart about something, I get a promise from God's Word. Even here in my Bible I have all kinds of notes to myself with the promise of God or with some promise.

Sometimes I put it on my night table, on different places. And sometimes I put it right beside my laptop and I type so when my mind goes to my fear or my problem or whatever I face, then I can just look there.

No, this is God's promise. Surround yourself. And then the second thing is, after you have your promise, then agree with what the Word of God says. You say to yourself, the promise God gave me, God's Word, what God's Word says is the truth.

My fears, my feelings, my thoughts are not the truth. Agree with God's Word, so often we disagree. We say, yes, but, you know. That is a nice word, but. No, no. The second thing you need to do is agree with the Word of God He gave you.

God's Word says the truth. My feelings, my thoughts, my fears are not the truth. Yes, you say, I agree God cares for me. Yes, I agree God is my provider. And then number three, after you agree with it, you need to believe it.

Believe the Word of God. Mark 9, 23, Jesus says, all things are possible to him who believes. You know what you need to do? There are five things that are important you need to do. When you come to that number three, believe the Word of God to help you believe.

First of all, you make a decision. I believe God's Word instead of my fears, my thoughts, my feelings. I will believe God's Word in spite of what I see with my eyes. I will believe God's Word regardless of what others tell me.

Whenever others tell you something that doesn't agree with the Word of God, you make a decision. I will believe. Now, can you believe? Sometimes we think, well, I can't believe it's not true. You know, you can believe.

The Word of God says that God put a measure of faith in every person alive. And that measure of faith was enough to get you saved. Think about it. It was enough faith to get you saved. And in the meantime, you got the Holy Spirit.

And God gives enough grace to believe. But we need to decide, I will believe. And then you believe God cannot fail. You believe God cannot fail. The second thing that you need to do under this belief, the Word of God, is you need to cast down imaginations.

This is extremely, extremely important for your faith to survive. 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5, says, talks about the weapons of our warfare. It says there, we are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.

And we take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Now, destroying means kill. And taking captives, captive means put in chains, not let it run loose. You know, that fear that's in my heart, that thoughts, that tells me all these wrong things.

Anything that disagrees with the Word of God, God's promise has been given to me. I believe it. Everything that disagrees with God's Word, I need to take captive. You need to watch over your mind like a hawk.

Immediately, when thoughts come, this will not work for me. God will not come through in all these things. When doubts come, or unbelief, or when my reason tells me something else, when there is anything that contradicts God's Word, you immediately have to stop your thoughts.

You have to tell yourself, no, I will not dwell on these thoughts. Instead, I will dwell on God's promise. Now, this takes discipline. You know, many, many times our problem is that we don't say no to our thoughts.

We just let them run, and run, and run, and run, and run. And they pull us deeper and deeper into the hole. You know, all day long we feel sorry for ourselves. All day long we weep and are fearful and have all these horrible things running through our head.

And we don't stop it. Here it says that we need to destroy and take captive every thought that is contradictory to the Word of God or to the Word of Christ. You need to actively do that. You know, I sometimes say it loud to myself, no, I refuse to think about this.

No, I refuse to dwell on these thoughts. I don't know, sometimes I have talked about it. I remember when the children were little, my husband had to travel a lot, there was hardly much communication, and things were not easy.

Many times I would lay at night in bed, and I would think, what if the plane crashes? What if the house is on fire? What if, what if, what if? And I remember times, especially there was a week, every night I would wake up at 2 o 'clock in the morning, and I would be terrified with horrible thoughts, you know, like this, just fearful thoughts.

Where do they come from? Surely from the enemy. I remember I would switch on my light and I would sit up in bed and I would say, no, I refuse to think about this. Then I would take my Bible and read, and then I would pray and go to sleep.

Next night I will wake up at 2 o 'clock again, the same thing happened, and I will say the same thing. No, I refuse to dwell on these things. There are many other times in my life I have to do this, to say no to the thoughts that are contradictory to the promise of God that he has given us.

And then the next thing you need to do under belief, the Word of God, you need to feed your faith instead of your fear. That is also very, very important. How do you feed your faith? Romans 10, verse 17.

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God, or Word of Christ. So what do I need to do to feed my faith, to increase my faith, to make it grow? I read God's Word, I listen to God's Word, I dwell on God's Word, I meditate on God's Word.

And then don't, there are things you should not do, don't listen to negative advice. You know, many good-meaning people, they will tell you all these negative things, don't listen to it. And don't listen to this music that pulls you down, oh, I'm so lonely, and all these different things, the blues, you know, don't do this.

Don't do that to yourself. Feed your faith with something that lifts you up, that lifts you in the presence of God, that increases your faith. And then another thing that you need to do to help you believe the Word of God is act on your faith.

How do you do this? Act on your faith. God has given you the promise. One way to do that is thank God ahead of time. For what he's going to do. And then praise him. And then you can make some preparations according to the promise you received, you know.

Noah, he built the ark by faith. So do something by faith. This is really important. And then, under number three still, don't quit believing until your faith has turned into sight. Don't quit believing.

God has given you his Word. He has given you his promise. You believe it. But don't quit believing until you have seen the fulfillment. Hebrews 6 verse 12 says that, be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

What does that mean? Some promises may be fulfilled earlier and some God may have his own time when it comes to pass. But don't quit believing. It will surely come to pass because God promised it. But it may be, you might need to have patience.

You know, I was thinking when I was writing that there are some promises God gave me. One of the promises is about four years old for something I was praying for. And then there is one that's yet to be fulfilled.

It's about 19 years ago I got that. I have yet to see it. But I will not let it go. And then there are other promises. Some are just a few months old or what else. But don't let it go because through faith and patience you inherit the promise.

So now, we first said, find a promise in God's Word for your situation. Then second was, agree with the Word of God. And then the third was, believe the Word of God. Now we come to number four, the last one, is confess the Word of God with your mouth instead of confessing negative things.

You know, if you start confessing, I'm discouraged, I can't anymore, I have no strength, I feel depressed, I'm so fearful, that's the wrong confession. You need to confess the promise God gave you. Confess, yes, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Yes, He's my provider. Then you can tell the Lord, Lord, I'm so glad you never failed. That's a positive confession. You can tell the Lord, praise God, I'm so glad today is a day closer to the fulfillment of my promise.

I'm so excited. That's a good, I do that sometimes deliberately. I say, I get up, I think about something that I'm praying for, I haven't seen anything, then I tell myself, wait, I'm one day closer to the fulfillment.

Wow, it could be today. It could be today that I see this thing answered. And to whom do you confess these things? People might think you are out of your mind, but you know what I found? For me, the most urgent need to hear that confession is myself.

I need for me to hear myself saying, I believe God's word. I'm glad that God never fails. I'm glad my promise is coming. And then, you know, sometimes we have coworkers or friends or parents or children or spouses that may want to try to discourage you.

You know, you got a hold of this Bible verse and they will say, well, you know, you have to be careful. You may go overboard with this or it will never happen. It can never happen. Look at the reality.

You know, it sounds good what you say, but look at the reality. You have to be sober-minded. No, Bible doesn't say I have to be looking at the reality in all these things. When God has given me a promise, then I need to look at this promise and don't let go.

I don't know. There is a secret in confessing something, I think. You know, I believe when you confess something, you might not want to confess this to people that have no clue about it, you know, like some unbelievers on the street or someone that...

But confess it at least to yourself every day. I think it establishes something in us, you know. When we read Romans 10, verse 9, it says there, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.