This week's Junk to Jewels chapter deals with the fact that Satan has been defeated, and that even all the works that he and sin has brought into our lives and on this earth have been disarmed of all evil.

If that is true, that why does fear still plague us?

So many people today are plagued with fear. It is involuntary. It causes torment. It brings on depression and often anger. Fear keeps you from enjoying God and people. The emotion of fear is involuntary. Fear is a spirit. We cannot help if fear tempts us.

I believe that there are some elements in overcoming fear:

1       Know the facts. There is really no reason to fear if all evil has been disarmed. Hebrews 2:14-15 and Colossians 1:20 (expanded upon in our Chapter 5 of Junk to Jewels).

2.       Allow the presence of God to deal with your emotions.

         Psalm 76, especially in verses 1 and 2 indicates that in His presence, in His Tabernacle, is where the enemy's weapon is broken.

         Psalm 27 states very clearly that coming into God's presence is the antidote for fear. David knew this very well. It works, it is true, but far too many children of God do not take time to do as David said, "This one thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek, inquire for, and insistently require: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, in His presence, all the days of my life, to behold and gaze upon the beauty, the sweet attractiveness and the delightful loveliness of the Lord, and to meditate, consider and inquire in His temple" (Psalm 27:4 Amplified Bible). Only the very manifest presence of God can deal with your emotions, coupled of course with His Word.

3.       Face the fear and defeat it by refusing to be a "coward." Fear will come, but we need to do as Joshua was commanded to do by God.

         a. He had the promise; he knew the facts. He had no reason to fear if God, who saw the end from the beginning told him that his enemies were already defeated.

         b. He needed to meditate on God's Word day and night.

         c. He had to speak God's Word.

         d. He had to obey God's Word.

         Joshua Chapter 1.

Job had fear and what he feared came upon him. The suffering however led him right into the antidote because he did not give in nor give up on God. At the end of his 9-month suffering he said, "I have heard of you in the past, now my eyes have seen you." He became a person who could come into God's presence through his brokenness and knew that in His presence was safety and comfort. When Job "saw" God, his fear would flee.

You choose what and whom you will fear. If you continually fear God, then you cannot fear anything or anybody else.

Larry Chkoreff September 2005 &endash; Appended to Junk to Jewels Chapter 5