using against me—it makes me mad. I start feeling a holy
indignation rolling up over my shoulders and picking me up
from behind. Because if he’s working that hard to keep me from
moving forward, there must be some blessing or beauty from
heaven he’s trying to divert me from. And I’m just not having
it, not anymore, not from him. I hope you’re not either.
The fact is this: fear is one of Satan’s primary schemes for
crippling God’s people. I’m not talking about legitimate
concern. I’m not talking about the protective warnings of
wisdom and godly counsel. I’m talking about fear. Incessant
worry. Up-all-night anxiety. Worst-case scenarios becoming the
only probabilities you can think about. Fears like these, instead
of simply raising our blood pressure, ought to set off some fire
alarms. Why am I feeling so paralyzed like this?
We clearly know from Scripture that “God has not given us
a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind”
(2 Tim. 1:7 NKJV). So whenever you sense a “spirit of fear”
invading any particular area of your life, you can know by
process of elimination that it’s not coming from God... which
only leaves one other spiritual place it could be originating
from... which ought to make you wonder why it’s there.