The Spirit of Fear

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

2 Timothy 1:7

Fear is not to be taken lightly.

On Thursday I shared a post I wrote on Halloween of 2013 titled The Perplexity of Halloween. In this post I shared how I didn't understand people's fascination with death and fear on this day. So many people seem to be fascinated with fear. They dress up in the scariest costumes, watch scary movies and even go to haunted houses hoping to be scared. But fear is not something to be trifled with.

Fear is a spirit.

Paul told Timothy that God did not give us a spirit of fear. This tells us two things, one that fear is a spirit, and two that fear is not from God. Any spirit that is not from God is a spirit of the enemy. Back in December I wrote a post about the importance Knowing Our Enemy. One main part of knowing our enemy is knowing our enemies tactics and methods. Fear is the main tactic of our enemy.

So why would we play around with fear?

I think one of the tactics the devil has put into play is trying to make light of fear. Fear holds us back from God's will more than anything else so the enemy wants us to let down our guard to this weapon. He makes us think it is fun and something to play around with. He makes us think we are cowards if we can't take the scariest movie out there. In the end we end up completely unaware of the fact that this fear is holding us back. 

So should we run and hide from Halloween?

This seems to be the response of many Christians. Shut your door, turn off your lights, and don't acknowledge anyone but in a sense this is just another way of giving in to fear. Paul doesn't stop in letting us know what fear is, he also lets us know how to fight it. He says that God gave us a different kind of spirit, He gave us a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. We need to allow ourselves to be taken over by these three things and it will allow us to fight this spirit of fear. 

By acting out in love and power we are truly combatting the enemy's strategies.