I Will Fear No Evil - Audio

Fear is one of the most common issues people deal with. It has been said that there are 365 commands in Scripture telling us not to be afraid. I haven't counted to confirm this, but if it's true that means there is a Biblical exhortation not to let fear control us for every day of the year. Scripture teaches that God has NOT given us a spirit of fear (2 Tim 1:7) so I can confidently say that living in fear is never part God's plan for our lives. Living in a constant state of fear is a miserable existence. A book I'm reading says that two of the words associated with fear in the N.T. carry with it the idea of choking or strangling. The conclusion he draws is that when we are controlled by fear it feels like we are being choked out or strangled. I think you can also say that fear can choke the joy out of our lives if we aren't careful. How do we overcome this? How do we keep from letting fear control us? That is what we are going to talk about today.