Moving Beyond Fear

Written by ebaerg

Ev Roth 2009 Once more I heard the question, “How many of you talked to someone about your faith in Jesus Christ recently?”

As far as I could remember, I had only tried that a couple of times in my life. I hardly ever heard of others doing it either – at least not the average Christian I rubbed shoulders with.

I was a young mom and had other things that concerned me more. I was your classic “non-confronter”, so it shocked me to realize that my little children could push me to the point where I would yell at them. I wasn’t familiar with the strong, negative emotions that sometimes rose up in me, but I also knew I wasn’t that different from others.

I learned that comparing myself with those around me was one of the barriers to my really experiencing the power to live above my fears

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– about sharing my faith, about my inability to be the mother I wanted to be. I was like a slowly sinking ship on the ocean travelling in a convoy of sinking ships. I knew I had sprung a leak, but each day as I looked across to the others I would notice that we were the same distance above the water so I must be okay.

I was, and still am, a life-long learner. When the opportunity came to attend a seminar to learn how to change through God’s power rather than will-power, my husband and I took the course. It was taught by Campus Crusade for Christ staff members.

We were told we would learn skills to help us share our faith more effectively, but first we needed to be sure we were Christians and had no unconfessed sin in our lives.

I was sure of my relationship with God. I had accepted Jesus Christ as my Saviour years earlier and knew He lived within me. But I hadn’t understood that my daily walk with Him depended on His power, not my own.

I heard that I needed to let God’s Holy Spirit fill and control me moment by moment. Since His filling was incompatible with any sin in my life, I was supposed to confess to Him whatever He showed me. Then I could ask – by faith – that He would fill me with His Holy Spirit.

But one thing stood in my way. I knew in my heart that I would fail Him again, so how could this work?

Two things changed all that. First I learned that being filled isn’t a once and for all transaction. And then I learned that God says in His word that once we confess a sin to Him, He “remembers it no more”. This gave me tremendous hope because I realized that whenever I came to Him to confess a new transgression, He would not hold any previous things against me or remind me how often I had already confessed in that area. As often as I was willing to admit my failures to Him, He was willing to forgive. But the greatest part was that He was also willing to fill me with His Spirit. He empowered me to do His will more often and to fail less.

With my new freedom, I came to Him often, both to confess my failures and receive His fullness. And since I had also learned how to share my faith at the seminar, I began to see people respond when I talked to them about the Lord.

A few months later I was finishing up a project that had already taken quite a few hours of my time. My two year old daughter was close at hand and decided to help me. Her “help” destroyed my project. Negative emotions immediately rose to the surface, but I knew God was in control when I left the room instead of yelling. I then realized I was fighting tears instead of anger. My little daughter followed me and climbed up beside me to console me and say she was sorry. What a warm time we had.

I’m a grandmother now, and I’ve had some successes and some failures. I’m still learning. Life always brings changes and requires that from us. But I now know how to rely on the Holy Spirit and He never changes. He’s always there. God is always ready to cleanse and fill.

In my relationship with God, the main difference between my having a good day or a bad day is if I got up the last time I fell down. Getting up is always the same – agreeing with God that what I did was wrong, accepting His forgiveness, asking Him to take control again, and then trusting Him as I go on.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, God has given you His Holy Spirit to help you live life according to His perfect plan. Why not pray this simple prayer and by faith invite Him to fill you with His Spirit:

Dear Father, I need you. I acknowledge that I have sinned against you by directing my own life. I thank You that You have forgiven my sins through Christ’s death on the cross for me. I now invite Christ to again take His place on the throne of my life. Fill me with the Holy Spirit as You commanded me to be filled, and as You promised in Your Word that You would do if I asked in faith. I pray this in the name of Jesus. As an expression of my faith, I thank You for directing my life and for filling me with the Holy Spirit. Amen.