Giants fall when fear is rightsized.

1 Sa 17:11 - When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.

1 Sa 17:24 - All the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were much afraid.

1 Sa 17:31-37 - When the words that David spoke were heard, they repeated them before Saul, and he sent for him. And David said to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth.” But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you!”

What a great contrast in their respective responses to fear. Where Saul and the men of Israel responded with fear, David responded with courage and faith in his fear of God. He was more concerned with the glory of God than he was with the fear of man. Though this story is very familiar, there are some great principles to be gleaned from this story. First, remembering is important. David remembered how God came through for him in killing lions and bears, but Saul the men of Israel seemed to forget all that God had done. When we remember the character of God and how he acted and acts on our behalf, it will change our response to difficult and fearful situations. God is both good and in control, He is all powerful and intimately sovereign. Second, it is does matter the size or age or skill to act courageously. God delights in bringing Himself glory and does it more often through weak vessels so there is no question who get the glory. Third, when we fear our heart fails. Fear destroys courage and joy and peace. Fear defeats a person before the thing we fear ever does. When we fight for the glory of God, whether things that directly oppose God or even as simple as doing everything as unto God, we can be confident and courageous in the fear of God.

How considering God leads to Godly fear

Do not Fear and Fear God

1 Sa 12:19-25 - And all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.”
And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself. Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you. But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.”

There are many passages that include both a command to not be afraid or fear not AND fear the Lord. This is one of them. After the Israelites wanted to be like all the other nations and have a king, they realized their sin. And Samuel, as the prophet and mediator, assures them that they have done evil, but they need not fear. God will not forsake his people. But, they are commanded to fear the Lord by considering the great things that he has done for them. This is a great description of how to fear the Lord. We fail in fearing God because we do not consider all that He has done for us. When we see His mercy towards us, His love, His holiness, His power, His sovereignty and His grace, when we see how good He has been to us, we grow in godly fear. Consider what the Lord has done for you today. Consider His faithfulness and grow in gratitude. As we consider the Lord, we serve Him.

Day 35 - God is worthy of Fear

1 Sa 4:5-8 - As soon as the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel gave a mighty shout, so that the earth resounded. And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shouting, they said, “What does this great shouting in the camp of the Hebrews mean?” And when they learned that the ark of the Lord had come to the camp, the Philistines were afraid, for they said, “A god has come into the camp.” And they said, “Woe to us! For nothing like this has happened before. Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness.

⁹ Take courage, and be men, O Philistines, lest you become slaves to the Hebrews as they have been to you; be men and fight.” ¹⁰ So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and they fled, every man to his home. And there was a very great slaughter, for there fell of Israel thirty thousand foot soldiers. ¹¹ And the ark of God was captured...

1 Sam 5:1-12

When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. ² Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. ³ And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. ⁴ But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him. ⁵ This is why the priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day. ⁶ The hand of the Lord was heavy against the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory. ⁷ And when the men of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is hard against us and against Dagon our god.” ⁸ So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” They answered, “Let the ark of the God of Israel be brought around to Gath.” So they brought the ark of the God of Israel there. ⁹ But after they had brought it around, the hand of the Lord was against the city, causing a very great panic, and he afflicted the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them. ¹⁰ So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. But as soon as the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “They have brought around to us the ark of the God of Israel to kill us and our people.” ¹¹ They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, “Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people.” For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city. The hand of God was very heavy there. ¹² The men who did not die were struck with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

1 Sa 6:20-21 - Then the men of Beth-shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? And to whom shall he go up away from us?” So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the Lord. Come down and take it up to you.”

I included this story as an example of the fear that the Philistines had for the Israelites God, but the fear wasn't complete until they saw that the God of the Israelites was more powerful than all their idols and greater than their health and their success. You can see the panic and the fear as they try desperately to get rid of this ark, as their cries are reaching Heaven, they end up sending it away by two cows who pull the ark toward the Israelites. This last line of this passage, "Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?" is a great question for us to ponder. May it leads us to fear God with reverence and awe and may it remove any fear of our own idols, our own worries and our own fears. It is a bit telling too, that the Philistines had more fear (at the beginning and deinfately at the end) then the Israelites. May the fear of God be greater than all is our hearts and may we know this God that is greater than all. A right fear will lead us to fearlessness.

Day 34 - Faith is the fuel for fearing God for fearless living

Do Not Fear
Jdg 7:9-14 - That same night the Lord said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand. But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant. And you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.” Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outposts of the armed men who were in the camp. And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the East lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number, as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance. When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.” And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp.”

I am not sure why God allows Gideon to hear what he does and gives him the grace that He shows here, but it is encouraging. We learn from the character of God that he is gracious, kind and gentle even in our humanly fears. Not that they are right or it is ever glorifying to God to fear, but in this case, he bends over backwards to fill Gideon with courage. Perhaps because God has twiddled the number down to 300, or to give him courage as a leader or just maybe because God has a sense of humor and delights in doing a miracle like this. Regardless, Gideon hears this and is filled with faith. Faith is fuel for fearless living. As Romans 10:17 says, "So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ." Faith leads to courage and courage leads to action.

Fear God
Le 25:35-36 - “ ‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you.

The fear of God should dictate how we treat the poor among us. God has given the command to not take interest among a poor countrymen and the reason you are to obey the command is because you fear God. Fear leads directly to obedience. This is true because we fear consequence and we know that God is just. Faith is also the fuel for fearing God. Faith leads to obedience and obedience leads to righteousness (rom 5:19), others praising God for your obedience (2 Cor 9:13) and our showing our love for God through our obedience(2 John 2.6). Fear is the end, but all of this starts with faith, and faith begins with the words of God.

Faith is the fuel for fearing God so you may live a fearless life. Allow the words of God to dwell richly in you so that you may hear and obey and rejoice.

Day 33 - Courage and Obedience

Do not Fear

Jdg 7:2-3 - The Lord said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’
Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead.’ ” Then 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained.

This is an amazing passage of scripture. In order to save the Israelites the sin of pride, God purposefully reduces the amount of people so that only God can get the glory. As the story goes, the number gets reduced to 300 people and they defeated an army of 120,000. Though the passage does not say "do no fear," it does provide a very clear warning and example of what happens when we do fear. We miss out on glorifying and bringing honor to God. We give glory to that which we fear and we miss out. What a story these 300 men had to tell because they feared the God of the heavens.

Fear God
Le 25:17 - Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God.

If we fear God, we will not take advantage of each other. Why? Because we fear God and his discipline. When we fear God, it changes how we act on earth. Just as a child does not do something for fear of punishment from his father, we restrain on doing evil because we fear our heavenly father. This is why I believe John says what he does: 1 John 3:6 - No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. If we truly live in Him, and we understand his power, his holiness, his justice and his love, we will not keep intentionally doing the same sin. Fear keeps us from sin.

Day 32 - Jdg 6:23

Do not Fear and Fear God

Jdg 6:23 - But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.”

Gideon has just seen an angel of the Lord and the words to Him are, "Do not fear, you shall not die." He would not have been commanded to not fear if their wasn't reason for fear. The angel of the Lord in all his holy array and beauty and glory just set fire to his offering and then disappeared. But the Lord still speaks these kind and gracious words to Gideon who in turn builds an altar before the Lord and names it, "The Lord is peace." What a great reminder that in the midst of fear, if we fear God only, we can have peace, a peace that passes all understanding. As Isaiah 8 attests that when we fear Him, he becomes a sanctuary. This vision of God emboldens Gideon to obey and follow the commands of God to the point where he destroys the altar to Baal that night. The verse belies his true motive by doing it at night: Jdg 6:27 - So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime." These honest words describe not only the condition of the Israelites spiritual state, but also that even seeing an angel of God, Gideon was still filled with fear. Whether it was a statement of his shrewdness, the reality of the present state of the the Israelites, or true cowardly fear, Gideon still gets the job done and it is an encouragement to us that God is gracious with fearful people like us.

Day 31 - Jos 11:3-6 & Le 22:31-33

Do not Fear
Jos 11:3-6 - to the Canaanites in the east and the west, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Jebusites in the hill country, and the Hivites under Hermon in the land of Mizpah.
And they came out with all their troops, a great horde, in number like the sand that is on the seashore, with very many horses and chariots. And all these kings joined their forces and came and encamped together at the waters of Merom to fight with Israel. And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this time I will give over all of them, slain, to Israel. You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.”

The imagery of troops joined together which number the sand of the sea is intimidating but the Lord once again gives Joshua confidence and says, "Do not be afraid of them." If there was a time to be afraid it was this one. The troops are tired, the numbers of enemies are growing and they are teaming up together. This is the last war before peace. You can imagine him wondering, "Will God come through for this last one?" God is faithful and commands us not to fear. We bank our hopes on his faithfulness and walk in faith, not fear.

Fear Not
Le 22:31-33 - “Keep my commands and follow them. I am the Lord. Do not profane my holy name. I must be acknowledged as holy by the Israelites. I am the Lord, who makes you holy
and who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord.”

Though this verse doesn't use the words fear, the Lord commands fear of his holiness. Keep my commands and follow them. Do not profane my holy name. I must be acknowledged as holy. Why must he be acknowledged as holy? We acknowledge him as holy because He is holy, Because it is for our own good that we set Him apart as holy and by His holiness, we can trust Him in his goodness and his wisdom and his love. We can fully obey because we know that nothing he commands is for our harm and nothing He will say will lead us to evil. We are to fear Him, to allow that fear to change what we do and how we think. And He is the one who makes us holy, He is our God and He is the Lord. We must continue to set him apart from anything we know and understand. He is the one we are to fear. He is worthy of that reverence and respect.