Success! Who doesn’t like hearing that word? People love winners, even when it is not your favorite sport or team. Everybody needs to feel it from time-to-time. If you never felt success you would never take that next risk in life, but this post isn’t not having success and overcoming failure, it’s about having too much success and not being afraid.
Fear, a very powerful emotion. It can make you do things that you do not want to do or even prevent you from doing things that you should do. There is a phrase written in scripture 365 times. “Fear not!” I think that it is important not all all coincidental that it is in the Bible 365 times. I observe from those around me and in my life, that this is something we should hear every single day. This is so powerful because it is true. We shouldn’t fear. With Him we have nothing to fear.
So where does success and fear play in here? There is one type of fear that is considered a “good” fear to have based on scripture, and that is fearing the Lord your God.
Fear the Lord your God, serve Him only and take your oaths in His name.
Deut 6:13
Why should we have this fear? He commands us to and blesses guys for doing so. The fruits of not fearing God are foolish. Fearing God keeps you honest with Him.
Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to Him.
Psalms 128:1
So where is success in all of this? Success is the enemy of fear. The more you encounter success in your life, the more prone you are to not have fear, even the “good” type of fear. The more success you have to more you need the fear of God and the fear of the consequences of sin in your life. More success = More freedom and choice. You and I cannot handle the freedom and choice that success brings with out having that “good” fear in our lives on a constant basis. Fully knowing that it is all His to begin with and at any moment He may chose to take it back. If you think you can handle this freedom without fully embracing the “good fear”, let me remind you about the story of David. You may go quickly to the story of how the slayed the giant, but there is so much more to his story beyond that. That fear started to dwindle in his life even after being called a man after God’s own heart.
But here is the good news. With daily prayer and focus on Him we get the opportunity to embrace that “good fear” each day of our Lord and “Fear not!” of everything else.