Living Courageously

You Can Face Anything, Just Do It Afraid

Joyce Meyer

• Publisher: Hodder Faith
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781444785715
• eBook ISBN: 9781444785708
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

Everyone who has ever lived has known the torment of fear. Fear will try to push you back and is always ready to attack you through your thoughts. But you can live free from it!God's promise is that you will be able to overcome this powerful emotion. In this book, Joyce Meyer shows that even though fear will surely challenge you, the Holy Spirit can still help you walk in faith. Find out: - How to keep fear from controlling your life
- How to move forward in spite of your fears
- How God stays faithful regardless of what you're feeling
- The one basic fear underneath all fears.You can act on God's Word and defeat this enemy. Now is the time to seize victory, by stepping out to do it afraid!

PART 1

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I have divided the teaching in this book into two parts. In Part 1, I want to give you an understanding of what fear is, where it comes from, what your attitude toward it should be, and how you can overcome it.

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CHAPTER 1

Say Good-Bye to Fear

The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?

Psalm 118:6

Dear Fear,

I only refer to you as “dear” because of our long-term, intimate relationship, and certainly not because you are dear to me in any way. In fact, you have been a tormenting influence from start to finish. You have told me lies and prevented me from doing the things I wanted to do and should have done. You are indeed a miserable, wretched companion and one that I no longer am willing to be involved with.

I am writing you this letter to let you know that from this point forward, I will not fear! Although I may feel your presence, I will not bow down to your demands. I have a friend whose name is Jesus, and He has promised to never leave me nor forsake me, but to be with me always. He is indeed a powerful friend, and although you do have some power, His is by far much greater than yours. You can come against me, but Jesus lives in me, and the power of the one who is in me is greater than you are (see 1 John 4:4).

Although I cannot prevent you from coming to visit, I do want to give you notice that you will be ignored. I am far too busy now fellowshipping with my friend Jesus and developing an intimate relationship with Him to give you any of my time. The more time I spend with Jesus the more courageous I become. He is teaching me a new way to live, one that is exciting and adventurous—one that is fearless.

I also want to inform you that since I have so much experience with you and know how self-defeating it is to listen to you, I now intend to tell as many people as I can what a thief and a liar you are. The years I have wasted with you will be redeemed and I will bear much good fruit. Thank you for driving me to Jesus. You see, you made me so miserable that I sought a way to be free from you, and Jesus met me where I was and set me free.

Should you decide to waste your time and try to visit me even after my letter, I am letting you know ahead of time that you will be met by faith in God and a determination that I will not fear!!

Sincerely and determined,

(place your name here)

I Will Not Fear

Before we can really begin dealing with specific types of fear and how to overcome them, I believe each reader needs to make a decision, and that decision is “I will not fear.” It is necessary to have your mind set that you are done with fear. If you have been married to fear, it is time for a divorce! Time to cut off all ties and put yourself in a position where you are free to live the life you truly desire. One of obedience to God that will produce joy and promote growth and progress.

As you go through this book, you will learn about the nature and source of fear, the types of fear that people deal with, and how to resist it in the power of God, but first you need to make a firm decision that you are done with it. Your decision won’t prevent fear from visiting you, but you are determining ahead of time that when it does, you will not give in to it. You only have one gear now, and that is forward! Fear holds us back, reversing us, but that gear is being stripped from our lives and all systems are now go!

The Word of God teaches us that we are to set our minds and keep them set on things above, not on things of the earth (see Colossians 3:2). When applying this verse to the subject of fear, we might say to set your mind and keep it set on faith in God’s direction for your life, and not on fear that drives you backward or keeps you frozen in place, unable to make progress of any kind.

What I call “holy determination” is a good thing. It is not a determination of man’s will only—which is not strong enough to finish the task—but a determination in and with God that you will not give up until you experience victory. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. Not even the strongest willpower will bring lasting success without Him. But with, in, and through Him, we can face anything and do anything that is His will for us.

The psalmist David often said, “I will not fear.” I believe he said that as an answer to fear when it came knocking on the door of his mind and emotions. He was declaring his position in God and letting it be known that he intended to stand firm and not give in to the torment, lies, and threats of fear. He even went so far as to say that even if he walked through the valley of death, that he would fear no evil, for God was with him (see Psalm 23:4). David was setting his mind and keeping it set.

It would have been nice if fear did not exist, but God arranges things in such a way that we must always make a choice. He doesn’t want robots that serve Him because they have no other choice; He desires that we freely choose Him and His ways. God has given us free will. That is a privilege and a responsibility. Every day we make lots of choices, and those choices determine the quality of life we will have. God shows us the best way to choose, but He will never coerce us to make the ones He desires us to make. Satan uses tactics of force and manipulation, but God gives us wisdom and the opportunity to choose right or wrong. In a way, we might say that God has made us the master of our own destiny. He wants us to use our will to choose His will, and when we do, the destiny He has in mind for us will come to pass.

However, should a person choose to use his own will to not follow God’s will, God won’t force him to do right. It is the person’s choice.

I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live …

Deuteronomy 30:19

It is easy to see from this Scripture that although we are confronted with good and evil (faith and fear), God wants us to choose faith in Him. Fear always brings death and curses, while faith brings life and blessings. I would venture to say that every decision we face in life fits into this Scripture in some way or another. Every decision we make provides life or death, blessings or curses. Even if a person decides to not get enough sleep and to have a diet of junk food, they are choosing death and curses instead of life and blessings. Ultimately a person is the culmination of the choices he has made in life.

Some decisions have more serious consequences than others do, but they all produce some level of consequence. God puts it very simply when He says that “we reap what we sow” (see Galatians 6:7). The result of bad choices can be overturned by making good choices, and so we see that man is never in a position where he cannot see positive change if he truly wants it. If you are tired of fear and its consequences, you can turn your life around by listening to what God is trying to say to you right now.

The decision is yours to make. Will you say good-bye to fear and not look back? Will you face life boldly knowing that God is always with you? Will you stop living by feelings and start living by the truth of God’s Word? I believe that you will!

Deciding in advance that you will not live in fear helps you be prepared to meet it head-on when it comes.

Don’t Run

When God told any of His servants to “fear not,” He was in essence telling them that fear was going to attack them, and when it did, they were to remain steadfast and not run. Fear pressures us to run, hide, and watch life pass us by. Even in the Garden of Eden, as soon as Adam and Eve knew they had disobeyed God, their first instinct was to run away and hide from Him. God had intended them to live boldly, to rule and reign, but they were hiding.

After God created Adam and Eve, He blessed them and told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. He said they were to subdue it and have dominion over it and everything else He had created (see Genesis 1:28). That certainly doesn’t sound like cowardice and timidity was His will for the man and woman He created. However, when they disobeyed God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, bringing sin into Earth’s atmosphere, fear came with it. They could no longer stand boldly and comfortably in God’s presence because they knew their actions were wrong, so they hid in fear. Sadly, mankind has been hiding in fear ever since.

Eventually, God sent His Son Jesus to set us free from sin and the fear it brings with it, but multitudes still reject God’s beautiful answer found in Christ and continue to live defeated lives, hiding and running and being tormented by fears of all kinds. Make a decision that you will face issues squarely with God by your side. I have been saying for a long time that “the only way out is through.” We cannot conquer anything by running away from it or trying to avoid it—we must go through it, and once we are safely on the other side, we have a victory that cannot be taken from us.

I tried for years to avoid my problems and the things from my past that were haunting me, but I finally decided to face them. It wasn’t easy, but now that I am on the other side of them, I can certainly say that it was worth it.

I had to face the truth that my parents did not—and never could—truly love me because they didn’t know what real love was. I had to squarely face that my father sexually, mentally, and verbally abused me, and my mother abandoned me in the situation by living in fear and refusing to confront my father. My childhood had been stolen and I could never get it back, but I could trust God to redeem it.

My mother’s fear opened a door for many years of misery for me, and it eventually destroyed her mental health and left her with only regrets for memories. Fear is NEVER a good choice. It has negative consequences that are life altering. I had to face these sad facts and trust God to work good out of them rather than allowing them to destroy me. But the first step toward victory was setting aside the fear of them and facing my life as it was, not as I wished it had been. I confronted it! I embraced it and went through to victory, and you can do the same thing no matter what your circumstances have been so far in life. Don’t run from the truth and live in pretense, but instead choose to be honest, open, and not afraid of your past or your current reality.

There are several good examples in the Bible of men and women of God who ran from their circumstances or the will of God, and without fail, they all ended up back at the place they had run from. It is evidence that we never really get away from things by running from them. The truth is that they continue chasing us, and the only way to be free is to stop running, turn and face them boldly, and go all the way through to victory with God’s help.

Jonah, a mighty prophet of God, did not want to do what God was asking him to do, so he ran and went the exact opposite direction from the one that God had instructed him to go in. He ended up in very bad circumstances and eventually prayed to God for help. As a result, God sent Jonah back to the place he ran from with the same instruction God gave him before he disobeyed and invited bad circumstances and misery into his life. The simple truth is that God is wiser than we are, and doing things His way is always the best policy. We can ignore that truth and go our own way, but we all eventually must come face-to-face with the result of our choices. Thank God that it is never too late to begin again! Jonah did repent and was able to begin again, and so can we.

Giving in to fear alters God’s best plan for your life. Instead of being fearful, be obedient and do what He wants you to do, even if you have to do it afraid! The rewards are great.

Elisabeth Elliot, whose husband was killed along with four other missionaries in Ecuador, says that her life was completely controlled by fear. Every time she started to step out to minister, fear stopped her. Then a friend told her something that set her free. Her friend said, “Why don’t you do it afraid?”

Do you see the power in that sentence? Her friend didn’t say, “Maybe you should give up because you feel afraid” or “You’re a weak Christian because you’re dealing with fear.” Her friend suggested that she trust God and press through the fear that she was feeling.

Elisabeth listened and took that advice, and alongside Rachel Saint, the sister of one of the murdered missionaries, they went on to evangelize the Indian tribes of Ecuador, including the very people who had killed their loved ones.

What an amazing story. I can only imagine the fear that Elisabeth felt each time she tried to go back to the place where her husband had been murdered. I am sure the images that Satan presented to her imagination were frightening, and the thoughts that he presented to her mind could have been disabling had she not decided that she was going to do the will of God even if she had to do it while she felt afraid.

She could have easily run, but she would have missed the amazing opportunity that God gave her to turn her husband’s sacrifice into something good and beautiful. Courage will always defeat fear if we will let it guide us.

If you want to run, don’t run away from things, run toward them. That is exactly what David did when he faced the giant, Goliath. God’s Word states that David ran quickly toward the battle line. He did run, but he ran in the right direction. As we know from Scripture, David, against all sane and reasonable odds, did defeat Goliath and go on to become the king, champion, and hero of Israel. David was the least likely of all in the land at that time to be chosen for this task, but God doesn’t see as man sees. God looks on the heart, and He saw that the little shepherd boy, David, had courage in his heart. David was untrained and uneducated in the ways of war, but an uneducated, untrained man with courage and faith in God is more valuable to Him than a highly educated, well-trained coward.

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If you want to run, don’t run away from things, run toward them.

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I have been privileged by God to lead a ministry that reaches a majority of the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I would have been the least likely candidate. I did not have the right education, experience, or personality for the job, but I was willing to step out and try as long as God stayed with me. I know there were many others more naturally qualified than I was, and perhaps God gave them the opportunity even before He gave it to me, but they were afraid to believe or too afraid of failure to even try. I don’t know why God chose me, but I do know that it certainly wasn’t because I was qualified b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Scriptures to Help You Overcome Fear
• Scriptures About the Power of Faith
• Notes
• About the Author
• Joyce Meyer Ministries U.S. & Foreign Office Addresses
• Other Books by Joyce Meyer