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by Bill Perkins
What an exciting time to be alive! Believers have been watching and preparing for something like this, and now it's here! So much is coming to light. So don't be fearful, God's in control. He wants us to be bold!
For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. 2Tim. 1:7
In his last letter before he was martyred, Paul penned the above verse in his second letter to Timothy, who was a pastor in Ephesus.
The word "timidity" is used only here in the entire New Testament. It means a timid, cowardly, shameful fear brought on by a selfishly weak character. Applying it to today, it's a fear of the future that comes directly from Satan.
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Phil. 3:14
When we get our eyes off the prize, when we worry about things we can't control, Satan is pleased.
So Paul then counters this fear with the fact that God's already given us power, love and discipline, and therefore no need to be fearful.
While we watch the world change before our very eyes, always remember that we have the tools to be used by Him for eternal purposes. We have power in the form of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The word "power" here conveys the sense of a "great force or energy." It's from the same Greek word from which we get our English word "dynamite."
Notice that Paul didn't pray for Believers to be given power, but rather they would recognize the power they already had within them. When we properly appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit within us, we can be used powerfully by God in the lives of those around us.
We also have the power of God's perfect agape love indwelling us.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, 1John 4:18
When we allow God's power to work through us, we have to be encased in His love. Otherwise we're hypocrites.
Let love be without hypocrisy. Rom. 12:9
The third balance to fear is discipline. It literally means in the Greek to have a "secure and sound mind." The same word is used here:
I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. Rom. 12:3
We have sound judgment when we respond to all of life's challenges using a Biblical basis.
We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, 2Cor. 10:5
Therefore, we're not to be fearful of all that's going on in the world, but rather to know God has us here for a reason. He's given us great power to be used by Him in love within His scriptural guidelines. It's time to boldly defend what we believe whenever God opens a door of opportunity.
...praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, Col. 4:3
Use us, Lord!
BP
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Phil. 4:6
