Jeremy Jernigan – Executive Pastor of Creative Arts

This weekend, we explored a passage that brings together two stories where people experience fear. In Luke 8:22-39, both Jesus’ disciples and a crowd encounter situations where they are confronted with the unknown and they respond with fear. As Paul explained, there are kinds of fear that are healthy, but the ones that are unhealthy keep us from experiencing peace in our lives and often cause us to miss out on God’s will for our lives.

Other passages and quotes included:

Matthew 28:20; Hebrews 11:1

“We don’t want to upset things or get radical. We want change…as long as it doesn’t change us.” John C. Maxwell

I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil. I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is gasping for breath–these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breathe freely–these are my native air. A John Hopkins University doctor says, “We do not know why it is that worriers die sooner than the non-worriers, but that is a fact.” But I, who am simple of mind, think I know; We are inwardly constructed in nerve and tissue, brain cell and soul, for faith and not for fear. God made us that way. To live by worry is to live against reality. – Dr. E. Stanley Jones

Ultimately, we must respond to difficult situations with faith rather than fear. There are so many ways to build up our faith—Paul mentioned prayer, community with other believers, and reflecting on what God has done in the past in our lives and in Scripture. What steps will you take this week to move from fear to faith?