Throughout the Bible God repeats the instruction over and over and over: "Do not fear....Do not be afraid....Fear not." God tells us not to fear...circumstances, people, things. But we are told..."Fear the LORD your God, serve him only" (Deuteronomy 6:13). This fear is not "fright" in the sense that we would be afraid of God. The meaning of this kind of fear is reverence and awe for God. We are to...fear Him, be in awe of Him...because He is the one and only all-powerful God. He alone has the ability to change us from being fearful of others to being courageously obedient to Him.
"Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."
~Ecclesiastes 12:13
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Now, imagine trying to thresh wheat in a winepress...of all places! To thresh--to separate the chaff from the wheat--a gentle breeze in the outdoor air is needed to winnow the chaff. As all is thrown up into the air, both chaff and wheat, the wind blows away the lightweight chaff, and the heavier wheat falls to the ground. But...in a winepress the surrounding walls prevent the wind from from blowing in the center and threshing is not likely to be effective.
So here you are in hiding...fearing for your life...fighting an uphill battle...for a few grains of wheat. At this point, the angel of the Lord appears, saying, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."...He addresses you as...what? What's this...mighty warrior?
Who...you?
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Gideon's greatest weakness eventually becomes his greatest strength. He discovers that when he acknowledges he is weak and inadequate, God's strength and adequacy prevail in him. Imagine!...God has an encounter with a fear-filled Gideon and reveals truth to him both about the fearsome man of God he will become and the plan God has for him!...Then God supplies him with 32,000 men to accomplish the plan...but gradually reduces that number to only 300 men! Finally God send this band of 300 against the army of 135,000--with odds of 450 to 1--so that the victory would clearly be the Lord's and His alone! And though no one man could ever defeat 450 men (the ratio God arranged) in his own strength, Gideon goes forth with a whole heart!
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God gives Gideon an unimaginable directive: Those who are fearful can return home. Instantly, 22,000 men are eliminated! While these men had enough faith to fight, they did not have enough faith to fight fearlessly--something God required of Israel when going into battle. The fundamental principle? Ultimately, fear contaminates faith. (See Deuteronomy 20:1-4,8.)
Now only 10,000 remain in Gideon's ranks. Then God states what seems absurd: "still too many men" (Judges 7:4)!
(FEAR No Longer Afraid,
~June Hunt, HOPE for the Heart, Dallas, Tx)
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