I am increasingly aware of how easy it is to empower fear. Fear is a nasty, life-sucking, counterfeit to love. Scripture tells us that God’s perfect love casts out fear. That sounds easy. Just ask God to cast out any fear that you have and voila! No, it does not work that way. God is able to cast out fear, but the blocks we have to God’s love get in the way. And you ask: “Isn’t God’s love big enough, powerful enough and strong enough to remove the blocks in our heart?” Yes He is able, however we must make choices to allow Him to move in our hearts. God created us to be in relationship with Him. He didn’t want robots to simply obey Him. He wanted His people, made in His image, to deeply love Him, and authentic love requires surrender.

Back to fear. We empower fear when we surrender to fear. God empowers us to stand against fear when we surrender to His love.

In the story in Luke 8, the disciples were on a boat and the storm threatened to overturn the boat and drown them. Jesus calmed the storm, and then asked them: “Where is your faith?”

One day Jesus said to His disciples, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” So they got into a boat and set out. As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke him saying: “Master, we are going to drown!” He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. Where is your faith? He asked the disciples. (Luke 8)

Jesus was trying to tell them that fear had paralyzed them and it was faith that would empower them. Sometimes we ask Jesus to do things that we are supposed to do.The greatest deterrent to faith is not doubt but fear. Fear keeps us from asking. Fear keeps us from being empowered with boldness to speak to the storms in our life.

I once heard:

We can only have power over the storm when we can be in the storm and yet still have peace. Our peace is a catalyst for the storm busting. Peace is grown over time as we trust in Jesus. Peace empowers us to stand fear down.

How many storms have you experienced where your soul is at rest- peaceful amidst the danger, anxiety and stress? Once we are able to allow God’s peace to go deep into our soul, we then have power over fear.

Fear paralyzes. Love empowers. It’s time to yield to the power of Christ’s love that grabs fear by the neck and casts him out. It’s time that we recognize when we are empowering fear. And it is time to recognize that we can only have power over the storms in which we have peace.

What storms are you experiencing today? Surrender to the empowering love of Christ. Yield your fears to Him and speak to the storm— ” Be still”.

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