Corporately this season has been a battle for many with fear. God’s good news, however, is that fear is an empty threat. I was reminded of two dreams about the spirit of fear that I’d had over the past several years.
In the first, I noticed an ominous-looking man who was looking for a way into our house. I felt intense fear radiating from him, and I noticed he was holding a gun. I hid in a back closet, terrified he would kill me. Suddenly I felt the Lord say, “He has no ammunition”. As I stepped out, sure enough, he could not shoot because he had no ammunition for the gun. Instead, he left.
In another dream, I was taken with about a dozen other people to what seemed like a large abandoned school. Though I have little engineering ability in the natural, in my dream we were talented engineers. We were held hostage while those keeping us told us we had to create gadgets and inventions for them. Though we felt strongly that if we tried to escape we would be killed, another engineer and I decided to make a run for it. We somehow got out of the front double doors and took off running. We went to the nearest house of someone we knew, asking if they would hide us. Just then, a car pulled up and our captors got out. Instead of recapturing us or killing us, they said, “Congratulations. You’re free to leave. You had always been free to go. You were part of an experiment to see if fear alone could hold people.” My joy quickly dissolved into sadness thinking of all the others back in the building. I asked what would happen to them and was told, “If they ever choose to try to leave, they will be free too”.
As I processed this second dream with the Lord, He reminded me the spirit of fear works this same way. We have the authority in Christ Jesus. All it has is an empty threat that craves the power of our belief.
I was shown a door through which fear has been trying to access members of the Body, and the door was called “Comparison”. The Lord revealed that every form of comparison has the same root question: “Do I lack?”. Its goal every time is to make us feel that somehow we are left without something from the Lord and that that lack is going to cause us pain. The truth, however, is:
“Jesus has the power of God. And his power has given us everything we need to live a life devoted to God. We have these things because we know him. Jesus chose us by his glory and goodness, 4 through which he also gave us the very great and rich gifts that he promised us. With these gifts you can share in being like God. And so you will escape the ruin that comes to people in the world because of the evil things they want.” 2 Peter 1:3-4
Comparison can look like gauging odds compared to medical statistics, evaluating our fruitfulness as compared with someone else’s, comparing negative scenarios on the news with our own life, and much more. The Bible speaks of comparison, so I felt led to look up what was originally meant by “compare” in the Word. The Greek word, sugkrinó, (used three times in the letters to the Corinthians regarding comparing themselves and comparing spiritual matters), means “means grasping truths combinatively as they are "fitly joined" into one entity, i.e. where each is understood in terms of the other “.
The danger in comparison is that it grasps God’s truth but then allows it to be joined or mixed with other false truths (ways of the world, false narratives, lies of the enemy, etc). They combine to make one entity that we call truth, but we’re really understanding things in a clouded way. Comparison lets a mixing of “terms” define what can be true for us. God doesn’t work in terms and conditions. He gives us pure truth that is unchanging.
Just like the dreams, fear would have us open the door by agreeing with our belief in its false threats. The truth is you’re free. The truth is fear has no ammunition. The truth is that the Lord is doing a new thing in you! And He has not left you lacking anything. The key to squashing the Spirit of fear is cutting off all comparison with the world and going straight to the source of truth; His Word. Living in peace and faith is as simple as believing His message.
Encounter Questions:
1. Holy Spirit, what lies would fear have me believe in my season right now?
2. Lord, could you reveal your truth to cut off these lies?
3. God, in what ways am I allowing comparison to inform what I believe about You, about myself, or about my future?
4. Lord, what truth are you speaking over me?