GOD IS AWESOME!
Most of us get the idea, we just don’t have a clue about the magnitude of His awesomeness. When we call something awesome these days, we mean “cool” or “wow” or “what an upgrade!” Awesome is our label for everything superlative.
The lid on the cookie jar slams, and I hear “Mom, these cookies are awesome.” Your coworker praises you, “Awesome job on that project!” A neighbor kid brags, “Check out my boom box—the subwoofers are awesome!”

Then we come to church and sing, “Our God is an awesome God,” and wonder why our worship falls flat.

We’ve ruined another word.

God is awesome indeed, but our flippant use of the term has made it as interesting as vanilla. At best, a cliché.
Only when we encounter the One who is truly awesome—only then are we speechless. We have no words left that belong to Him and Him alone.

But maybe speechless is the best way to approach God’s awesomeness. By far, I think this unique aspect of God’s character is His coolest. Everything that is God is awesome, and everything that is awesome is God. At my house, you’re not allowed to use “awesome” for anyone or anything except God. It’s the rule . . . because it’s the truth. To call anything else awesome is a joke. The real kind of awesome sends shivers up your spine.

At the risk of sounding simplistic, awesome means “producing awe.” Look it up; you won’t find any warm, soft synonyms for awe. They’re serious and threatening. Awe promotes fear and terror. Dread and fright. Awesome says, “Watch out!”
Hebrews 10:31 says it right: “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

But the flip side is that when you are gripped by God’s greatness, His awesomeness runs like a river of joy through the very center of your being. You know beyond any doubt that you were created for Him, for this moment. Isaiah knew all about God’s awesomeness. He proclaimed it without apology to an apathetic and aggressively wicked audience. Within the limitations of language the Holy Spirit gave Isaiah the greatest description of God’s awesomeness ever penned; his words are God’s words about Himself, and they are worthy of our careful study.

CLEAR THE WAY FOR GOD TO WORK

I’ve got to warn you. We each have obstacles in our lives that hinder us from hearing God’s Word. That’s why Isaiah begins chapter 40 with “Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God” (v. 3). When it comes to communicating with His people, God wants nothing to hinder His truth from reaching you. He wants every single obstacle out of the way. So what’s blocking His access to your life? Could it be you? Are you trying to work things out on your own, refusing to let God’s awesomeness shake you out of your self-defined comfort zone? Get out of His way! Perhaps other people are hindering His truth from reaching you. Or perhaps you’ve talked about your problems till you’re weary of your own voice—still, no answers.

I challenge you to stand still in the severity of the moment and let God’s awesome power transform your perspective.
In these beginning verses of chapter 40, Isaiah tells of another voice that says, “Call out.” And we would then ask, “‘What shall I call out?’” How could we possibly find words to describe an awesome God to our generation?
Isaiah felt the same way as he said, “The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever” (vv. 7–8).
He’s right. Our words are like grass—they dry up and blow away. But God’s Word endures forever. Let’s dive into what God says about Himself in the Bible.

WHICH GOD DO YOU KNOW?

Isaiah begins his description of God with what sounds like a contradiction. Most people know either the God of verse 10 or the God of verse 11. Which side of God’s nature are you most familiar with? But both are true. Both are powerful.
In his first description, Isaiah writes:

Behold, the Lord God will come with might, with His arm ruling for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense [justice] before Him. (v. 10)

Do you know the God who rolls up His sleeve, bears His powerful arm, slams it on the table, and says, “C’mon people—get it together! Live right.” Have you experienced that strong arm of God? Good! But if that’s all you know, then be gripped by His other arm described in verse 11:

Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, in His arm He will gather the lambs and carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.

In other words, God is a shepherd, scooping up His lambs and carrying them close to Him. God provides special treatment for special needs. At certain times your shepherd would say, “This one is hurting. Careful of his wound. We’re going to have to carry her for a while.” This tender arm of God reminds us of His unique and personal care for us.

God has two arms . . .
One arm is mighty and powerful, demanding holiness and righteousness.
One arm tenderly cares for the weak and wounded.
Almighty and tender . . . one awesome God. We’ll talk more about that later.

THE WHOLE EARTH IS YOUR CREATION . . .

GOD, YOU ARE AWESOME!

This may sound silly, but take a good look at your hand. Hold it out. Inspect your fingers and your palms. Pretty useful tools, aren’t they? Maybe that’s why Isaiah uses them to describe creation. He tells us that God is one “who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and marked off the heavens by the span” (v. 12).

“Measured the waters.” Cup your hand. Look at that little place down there in the middle. Think about all of the water in all the world—God measured the oceans from the hollow of His hand. To be a little more exact, that’s 912,500 cubic miles of water. That’s a mile by a mile by a mile, 912,500 times. And God’s like, “Got it right here in My palm.”

“And marked off the heavens by the span.” The span of your hand is the distance from the tip of your thumb to the tip of your baby finger. In biblical days, a hand’s span was a common measuring tool. I can almost get my span around an orange. You try it. You’ve seen Shaquille O’Neal on the basketball court, right? He could probably get his span around half a basketball. God, on the other hand, can palm the world. God says, “See the Earth? It’s 25,326 miles all the way around—got it right here in My palm!” And it’s only because of His mercy and patience that He doesn’t slam dunk us all. Doesn’t that blow you away?

Next Isaiah tells us that God “calculated the dust of the earth by the measure.” Ever try to move the dirt around in your backyard? Amazing to learn that in creation our awesome God laid down all the soil on the whole planet and said, “That’ll be about a cup, thank you.” And it’s done.

Notice also the agency of God in creation; He is calculating, measuring, spanning. Those who would say that somehow God began some evolutionary process and then withdrew haven’t understood Isaiah 40. Clearly, God spoke the world into existence. He was personally the agency and the instrumentality of its creation.

With all my heart, I believe that God did all this in six literal twenty-four-hour days. I’m not troubled by scientific skeptics who think they know more than what God’s Word says. The historians, geolo­gists, and evolutionary scientists of the world have often challenged the Bible, only to be proven wrong. It’s almost laughable to think of them trying to figure out God’s program. I’m going to stick with what God has said in the matters yet to be verified by science. I’m sure He’s not holding His breath, waiting to be validated. As if, “Whew, they’ve finally proven I’m real; what a breakthrough!” I don’t think so.
Notice God’s majesty in the next phrase. “And [He] weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales.” Picture the mountainscapes of the world. God said, “OK. Put the Rockies on this side of the scale. Bring them up into Canada. Now let’s make the Himalayas. How big do We want those? There . . . there, balance them out, and, yes, done!”
Now, friend, isn’t that awesome? Doesn’t that make you feel tiny?

Let’s jump down to verse 21. I love Isaiah’s attitude here.

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. (vv. 21–22)

You can almost hear him say, “Duh! Haven’t you heard? Where have you been?” If you feel small when you imagine God’s creation, it’s because you are! God says we’re like grasshoppers! Picture yourself on a hot summer night out on the deck with your family and friends having a barbecue. How much do the grasshoppers in your lawn affect your evening? A little background noise maybe? Hardly a distraction. That’s the entire human race before God and His awesome purposes.
Now look at verse 22. “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth.” Twenty-two hundred years before Christopher Columbus, God said our planet was circular and not flat. Here it was in God’s Word all along. Ditto on the science versus Scripture comment above. I’ll go with God’s explanation every time.

THE HEAVENS ARE YOUR HANDIWORK . . .
GOD, YOU ARE AWESOME!

But God “stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in” (v. 22). The word heavens describes all of God’s created universe. He said, “Now, let’s make the universe,” and poof . . . as easily as you put up an umbrella, it was all there.

Do you have any idea the immensity of the universe God spoke into existence? I’ve tried for many years to find a decent description. Try this on for size: We’re on planet Earth, and we are 93,000,000 miles from the sun. Imagine that distance as the thickness of a piece of paper. From the Earth to the sun, 93,000,000 miles equals a piece of paper.

With that in mind, the distance to the nearest star is a stack of paper seventy-one feet high, with every single piece of paper representing 93,000,000 miles. (Stay with me; this is getting outrageous.) The size of our galaxy is represented by a stack of paper 310 miles high (the distance from Chicago to St. Louis), with every single piece of paper in that stack representing 93,000,000 miles. That’s just our galaxy, and it’s one among millions. You say, “Oh, I understand that.” Well, think about this then.

The known universe is a stack of paper 31,000,000 miles high with every single piece of paper representing 93,000,000 miles! Now for those of you who like math, there are 10.4 million sheets of paper in a stack one mile high. Therefore, the known universe is 31,000,000 miles of paper, with each mile representing 10.4 million sheets of paper and each sheet of paper representing 93,000,000 miles. Are you getting a headache?

In every description we see of God’s reality, we are struck by the immense distance that exists between us and God—in power, in size, in ability, in majesty. The gap is too great to measure. This must be what the astronauts felt viewing the Earth from the moon’s surface. We are so small . . . so infinitesimally tiny. God, on the other hand, could inhale the universe in a single breath. The writer of Hebrews understood this. Check out Hebrews 1:10–11:

You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands; they will perish, but You remain; and they all will become like a garment, and like a mantle You will roll them up; like a garment they will also be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not come to an end.

In other words, God can roll up and toss away the universe as easy as rolling up an old shirt. The immensity of it all is really so much more than we can grasp. That’s why we reserve the word ___________ (fill it in yourself) just for Him.

THE NATIONS ARE YOUR INSTRUMENTS . . .
GOD, YOU ARE AWESOME!

A drop in the bucket—you’ve heard that expression. It means almost nothing, like $100 to the national economy. Bloop, “just a drop in the bucket.” That’s what God thinks about the nations who disregard His awesomeness. Of course there are a lot people who don’t give a rip about God’s Word or His invitation of grace. Did you ever wonder what God thinks about them? Verse 15 makes it pretty clear that the feeling is mutual. Isaiah says, “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket.” They are like a speck of dust on the scales, Isaiah goes on to say.

All the nations are as nothing before Him, they are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless. To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with Him? (vv. 17–18)

Isaiah is beginning to stutter as he tries to think of words to shatter man’s tiny perception of God. He’s not like this . . . and He’s so much bigger than that . . . and so far beyond—??? Then what can we compare Him to? How can we describe how awesome He truly is?

And to that question, we . . . we have no words.

If you have enjoyed this excerpt from Dr. James MacDonald’s book, Gripped by the Greatness of God, you can learn more or purchase the book.

I enjoyed athletics from my youngest days and played competitive basketball into my late thirties. Other than bumps, bruises, and sprains, I can’t remember health problems of any kind. In my forties, yearly visits to Mayo Clinic were simply routine. At the end of my regular checkup in the fall of 2008 the doctor added these words: “Your PSA (prostate-specific antigen) count has gone up again.”

A review of the past four years revealed a pattern that finally got someone’s attention. My count had gone from 1.3 to 1.8 to 2.2, then 2.7 and now was 3.1. Counts do fluctuate in men my age, but healthy men tend to have very low PSA counts. The regularity of this pattern had seemed significant to me, and I remember wishing the doctor had made a bigger deal about these counts earlier. But I also knew that PSA counts aren’t always related to cancer, but can indicate other, less ominous health issues like enlarged prostate. My doctor was now saying, “This is a problem, we’ve got to check it out further.”

That meant scheduling a prostate biopsy. The experience was somewhere between a punch in the face and dental work without Novocain. Having a robotic pincer shoot through the wall of the large intestine to collect dozens of tiny specimens of the prostate produces an experience of core-pain unlike any other. I kept hoping that the level of discomfort I was going through was an indication of the accuracy of the test.

When life is hard,
it is for a reason.
Do you know what trials are and
do you know God’s purpose for them?

Days later, I was taking a taxi home from the airport when I remembered I hadn’t called to get the results from my test. Just another matter on my to-do list, I thought as I called the urologist. I reached him by phone, and with few preliminaries he said, “You’ve got cancer.”

Such a small statement with such large effects—life-altering. In retrospect, I think many of us actually live expecting “the other shoe to fall” at some point. We realize at some level that we are not exempt from potential disaster, and we tend not to wonder if but when and how our number is going to come up. Those of us who know we are on the fallen world merry-go-round know that we won’t get through life without some turns in the difficulty spotlight. But when the switch is thrown and the blinding light of a diagnosis like cancer hits us, the next moments are surreal.
There I was, alone (the taxi driver didn’t need to hear my announcement), speechless (I immediately found myself thinking, Can this be happening to me?), and dumbfounded (What do I do now?).

When I arrived at home, I was still alone. The kids were away and Kathy was visiting family in Canada. The other realities in my life clamored for attention. I had to prepare a message and be ready to deliver it. I concentrated on that immediate task. But I don’t remember the topic of that sermon.

After church, I met with my kids who were in town and brought them up to date. It was hard to tell them, but I felt I needed to keep them informed. We prayed together, and I listened to my children trying to put their shock and trust into words before God. Kathy arrived shortly and I told her—I had not wanted to share news like that over the phone if I could help it. Then I got on Skype and talked to my daughter Abby, who was away at college, and let her know what was happening in her dad’s life. Those were difficult moments for both of us.

Once my immediate family had the information, the news began to ripple through the congregation. Suddenly, twelve thousand of my best friends were responding, calling, and praying. Their desire to care for me was both comforting and yet also an added burden.

I began to look at treatment options (mentioned in the introduction). I learned the cure rate with radiation treatments is almost the same as the cure rate with surgical intervention, without surgery’s significant risks. I looked into various kinds of radiation and eventually chose proton-radiation therapy. This is cutting-edge technology that is still not widely available (which explains our journey to California). By God’s grace our insurance covered this method of treatment and the next phase of dealing with this challenge began.

As a subtext (and perhaps a central lesson) in this episode, all these events happened in the weeks leading up to a planned trip to Israel. This was to be Kathy’s and my first time in the Holy Land. The medical people advised me that the treatments for cancer could certainly wait long enough to enjoy a true trip of a lifetime.

Our intimate group of 170 friends walked and worshiped together in the places where Jesus spent most of His time. I was reminded over and over that God’s plans were far greater than my immediate problems. That week in Israel allowed me to get in touch with Jesus’ power to heal and sense His presence in an intimate way that built my faith for the months to come.

I discovered I had cancer in October. By the end of December, arrangements had been made for treatments in California. The study and sermons that led to this book began to take shape and an opportunity opened for me to preach in Pastor Greg Laurie’s church near my treatment facility. If these lessons seem fresh, they are. I’m learning them and confirming them day by day in my own life.

Recognizing Trials

As we lay a foundation for our study, let’s establish some facts that you’ve just got to know about trials.
In the New Testament, the Greek word trial means to prove by testing; an event that demonstrates the genuineness of your faith in Christ and refines the quality of your spiritual life. So let’s agree on this definition: A trial is a painful circumstance allowed by God to change my conduct and my character.

My conduct—that’s what I do. And then to a deeper level, my character —that’s who I am. Trials are about what God is adjusting in the actions I choose, and what God is doing to the character that helps me choose those actions. Several biblical terms for trials are actually interchangeable: suffering, hardship, tribulation, chastising, and discipline. Trials are hard times!

These hard times vary both in intensity and duration. Tribulation can take you by storm, fast and furious. Or a trial can stretch over months or years or, in some instances, decades. It can be small and irritating or huge and shattering.
The one thing we know for sure about trials is that everyone experiences them.

In fact, if you’re one of God’s children, you’re going through a trial right now. Some size. Some shape. It is the most difficult aspect of your life: Is it physical? Is it relational? Is it economic? Is it emotional? Is it circumstantial?

A Father’s Discipline

Hebrews 12 is a great place to start answering our question “What are trials?” Read our Scripture passage on the first page of this chapter—better yet, open to this passage in your own copy of God’s Word and track the flow of thought. Later you can write what you’re learning in the margin of your Bible or write in the margins or the appropriate lessons in “Go for the Gold” (chapter 6) so you can return to these life lessons again and again.

Pick it up at verse 5b: “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves. . . . It is for discipline that you have to endure. . . . For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” (vv. 5b–7, italics added).

Sometimes when you’re studying a passage, you think to yourself, I’m not sure what it’s about. No room for doubt here. The subject is discipline, a term that describes God’s involvement in the hardest part of your life.

What Is the Discipline of the Lord?

The word used for discipline in Hebrews 12 is translated teaching in Titus 2:11, 12a, where it says, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us” (NKJV). When our eyes are opened to the glorious truth that is found in Jesus, it is to teach us some stuff.  Discipline is training. It’s instructing, like what parents do with their children.

Does God Spank His Children?

A couple years ago a TV network news program did a five-night feature on evangelicals. I just had to watch and find out what they think about me and my friends. Well, as you might guess, they totally didn’t get us. On Thursday night, they did a feature on “the role of corporal punishment in childrearing.” Right—spanking. So they got this “expert” on childrearing that said, “Nothing good could ever come from causing a child pain.”

Now I’m aware and sensitive to the horrors of child abuse, but step away from the excess and the evil and consider that statement in its rawest form: “Nothing good could ever come from pain.” Really? Nothing? Like the birth of a child, or the renewal of a forest after a fire, or the signal that something is badly wrong in my health and needs to be attended to? No good from pain? What about the salvation of mankind?

Fact: Pain is often a central part of God’s purpose in this world. God allows and even causes pain in our lives. It’s one of the tools He uses regularly to get stubborn sheep to greener pasture.

I’m fond of saying that “God’s love is not a pampering love; God’s love is a perfecting love.” God doesn’t say, “Here, Billy. Have some more cupcakes. Take the one with the extra icing.” That’s not God. Your grandma, maybe, but not God. Are you saying that God spanks His children? Ah, yes, He does. The “expert” on the news program back-pedaled and said God only disciplined His children in the Old Testament. Well, welcome to Hebrews 12—“whom the Lord loves He disciplines” (v. 6 NASB). For real! God spanks His children. He lifts the paddle and applies it with force in the hopes that the pain will bring us to an awareness of His deeper purposes. When He saved us, He started the process that He will continue till the day we die. Salvation is just the beginning. The only reason you’re still here is because God is working on you. When His work’s done, it’s heaven for you, baby.

If you have enjoyed this excerpt from Dr. James MacDonald’s book, When Life is Hard, you can learn more or purchase the book.

Before we can fully rejoice in a cure for a disease, we must feel the pain and recognize the outcome of that ailment if no cure is applied. Like­wise, before we can fully embrace the delight of God’s promises, we must first suffer the desperateness of our need. We can only grasp how exceed­ingly great and precious God’s promises are when we realize how much we need them.

The Bible recognizes that one of our greatest problems is fear. You can disguise fear with all kinds of costumes, or drive it undercover. But it is never very far away for any of us. Some folks are afraid of their shadow, and some recognize that their fears are their shadow.

The many faces of fear

For just a moment, let’s talk about what we fear. One word says it all; we fear the future. No one’s afraid of the past. The past creates other prob­lems—like regrets and consequences. And no one is exactly afraid of the present. We might be upset about the present, but we don’t fear it because we know it. We fear now what will happen next. “Something’s up ahead and I don’t want it.” Fear is about as accurate and reliable as the local weather forecast, but both seem to specialize in creating a frenzy among people.  (Read more)  (Go to landing page)

Loss, pain, and lots more!

When we think about the future, we fear loss and pain. We’re afraid of losing people. Will my husband always love me? Will this treasured friendship last? Will my kids walk with the Lord or go their own way?

We’re afraid of losing possessions. I’m barely able to make ends meet; will I be able to keep my house? Will I have enough? Will there be money for my kids to go to college?

We’re afraid of losing our position. I’ve worked hard; I have an opportunity. Will I always have it, or will I lose it? I’m in over my head; will they find out? We fear physical pain; the doctor’s pokes and prods; the suffering of chronic pain due to illness that doesn’t heal. Even more, we fear emotional pain. My friend has found another, my kids just don’t care, my spouse is drifting away.

We fear personal pain. I’m not happy with myself. I could have, I should have, I would have, I didn’t, I’m not. I failed. Fear is always about something up ahead that I dread.

If you want some lively bedtime reading, look up fear on the Internet. You will find thousands of documented phobias, the ancient term we use to classify what keeps people from facing specific situations. A quick search gives us these:

Acrophobia—the fear of heights

Agoraphobia—the fear of open or public places

Anthropophobia—the fear of people

Aquaphobia—the fear of water

Astraphobia—the fear of thunder and lightning

Apparently, take any Greek word, add phobia to it and you’ve named a new fear! And that’s just in the A’s; let’s take a quick survey of the rest of the alphabet:

Bathmophobia—the fear of stairs or steep slopes Claustrophobia—the fear of closed spaces Nictophobia—the fear of darkness Numerophobia—the fear of numbers Pyrophobia—the fear of fire Zoophobia—the fear of animals I’m getting bored—are you? People are afraid of a lot of stuff and it’s

funny until we get to the one that causes churning in our stomachs.

Let’s agree that fear is a universal problem. It hits us like a wave, threatening to swallow us in its undertow. Scripture identifies the over­whelming emotion of fear almost a thousand times. The word fear is used 441 times; afraid, 167 times; tremble, 101 times; and terror or terrified, 121 times. The words dread, frighten, and faint are also repeatedly used throughout Scripture.

Let’s take a look at some of these Scripture passages:

• Abraham was fearful about his lack of a male heir. God told him in Genesis 15:1, “Fear not. . . . I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

• Hagar was afraid she would have to watch Ishmael die. God told her in Genesis 21:17, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.”

• The Israelites were terrified as the murderous Egyptians bore down on them from behind as they faced the barrier of the Red Sea. There was no way out. Right in the middle of that seemingly hopeless situation, Moses said to them, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today” (Exodus 14:13).

• David was afraid for his life on many occasions, but he penned these words in Psalm 23:4: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”

• Solomon seriously doubted his ability to follow in his dad’s footsteps in leading the nation, but David told him, “Be strong and courageous and do it. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed, for the Lord God, even my God, is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you, until all the work for the service of the house of the Lord is finished” (1 Chronicles 28:20).

• Jeremiah was afraid to tell people something they didn’t want to hear. God said to him in Jeremiah 1:8, “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you.” Many of the Bible people we regard as heroes shared the same fears that are so familiar to us.

Fear is a universal problem

We can all relate to fear in one form or another. It’s a primal emotion, in­stinctive to our human nature just like grief or anger. You don’t ever say to yourself, “Well, I think I need to get afraid.” You don’t have to plan it; it just happens to you.

Of course the problem isn’t when fear stops by for a visit. The problem is when you open the front door and invite it in. Fear! Welcome back! I’ve been waiting for you. Your room is ready down the hall! No, I insist—take the master bedroom! Mi casa es su casa! When you receive fear into your mind, heart, and life and nourish it like a friend, that’s a problem. While you can’t keep fear from visiting, you can slam the door in its face. With God’s prom­ise in your hand, that’s exactly what you are able to do.

Fear among emotions

Some emotional responses have their place. Take anger. You could be angry about injustice or unrighteousness. That kind of righteous anger is a good thing. It drives positive action. This is exactly the kind of anger that filled Jesus as He strode through the temple courts, overturning the counters of the moneychangers and cleaning up His Father’s house (see Matthew 21:12–13).

Grief is also acceptable for a season. When a loved one dies or you go through any profound loss, you need time to work through it. There is a healthy and necessary adjustment to the sudden absence of someone or something important. But grief can stay too long and eventually needs to

be kicked out. Still, grief has a purpose; fear never does. Even doubt has a place. It’s not wrong or harmful to doubt sometimes. You can doubt a deci­sion or an opinion. You can doubt a path you’ve gone down. It’s not always wrong to doubt, but it’s always wrong to fear.

Some sins grab and imprison you. Fear will do that. Dread chains you in a small, dark room and sinks its clammy claws into your spirit. Terror is tough to shake. Once you’ve given it a place in your heart, it becomes an ad­dictive drug you can’t live without.

Why fear is not okay

Fear expresses the opposite of all that Christianity is to be. Fear is the con­tradiction of faith. Faith says, “Whatever it is, it’ll be okay because of God.” Fear says, It’s not going to be okay, and doesn’t think much about God at all.

Fear is the complete state of anti-God. God seldom seems further from you than when your heart is filled with fear. Fear is relying completely on your own resources and realizing suddenly that they aren’t nearly enough to sustain you. Fear has no place in the life of a Christian. A fearful re­sponse, as in an anxious, frightened reaction, is never good and never from God. Romans 8:15 tells us, “You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,” and 2 Timothy 1:7 says, “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

I think you get it. Fear doesn’t belong in your life.

Out with fear and in with faith.

First Promise: God is Always with Me.

The antidote for fear is the promise of God’s presence. God is with you. “For He has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can con­fidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’” (Hebrews 13:5–6, emphasis added). God is with me wherever I go. How could I be afraid?

Let the calm, strong assurance of our first great and precious promise settle down in your soul: God is always with me. Therefore, I will not fear.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Dr. James MacDonald’s book, Always True, you can learn more or purchase the book >