Game Changer Week 3: Devotional Day 1

Fighting Fear

DAY 1 – Monday

Daily devotional

Read

Mark 6: 45-52

Dig Deeper: Job 9:8, 11 Eph. 6:10-18, Ps. 23:4, Ps. 27:1, Matt. 6:25, Matt 10:31, Matt. 14:26, Luke 1:5

Ask

Take a moment for self reflection:

Do you consider yourself a fearful person?
What fears are you wrestling with now, in the past, or thinking and worrying about for the future?
What scripture do you go to in order to help you overcome your fears?
Have you memorized this scripture?

Reflect

On the start of our week’s reflections, let us take our first day to think about fear. I know that is not a fun thing to think about, but our week’s title is “Fighting Fear”. If you haven’t already, you will experience fear at some point in your life. We can’t compare our fears with each other, it can take us by surprise and we can feed it! Or we can recognize it when it manifests itself and deal with it. Fear is fear, and there is biblical, Christ centered hope in dealing with it. There is victory in Jesus!

The word “fear” occurs 400 times in 385 verses in the KJV translation of the Bible.[1] As often as fear is mentioned in the Word, the Lord must have known we all would have a difficult time dealing with it. Our study is an “offensive move” study. Recognizing fear and taking offensive action towards those fears; not letting fear be the aggressor and take hold of us. It is well to remember the adage “to be forewarned is to be forearmed”. As we see what fear is and how we can stand against it, the schemes of the devil will have less effect or affect in our lives, and we will be forewarned and forearmed and able deal with it. We will have tools to strengthen us in life’s journey.

Fear has been something I have had to deal with in my life. Possible breast cancer at 21 (it wasn’t), a sick son with encephalitis and then the seizures resulting from that illness, moving to the “big city” not knowing anyone, homeschooling—then putting our children into the public school system, multiple illnesses, breast cancer, an Ileostomy, a partial knee replacement, broken bones, consequences of the recession on our business, raising four sons and then releasing those four sons to college and adulthood—I didn’t use to think of myself as a fearful person, but I have been; I have had to deal with my fears and learn some tactics in my fight.

This week’s segment of scripture confronts us with the topic of fear; it also gives us some ways of fighting the battle. The scriptures listed above set the stage for our week. Read and reflect on them and journal some of the fears you need to bring and lay at Jesus’ feet.

Note Mark’s repetition of the word “immediately” in this passage. How does this word give us a picture of the context of this story, and the pace of events in this story? Consider how the placement of this passage after the account of the loaves and fishes helps build a clearer picture of Jesus’ power and identity.

[1] The difference between the words that exist in a language is a term called “lexicon”. The words used by an individual person some linguists describe as “vocabulary”. And there are 35 Bible Lexicon* entries that match the word fear; 25 in the Hebrew (Old Testament) and 10 in the Greek New Testament.