Freed from the House of Fear Comments by Francesca Penty

This weeks preach title makes me think of old horror movies I’ve watched curled up with a box of chocolates, the kind of ones where you can spot a mile off who’s going to make it and who’s going to die. The main reason for if these films work or not is atmosphere. Fear kind of works on the same basis.

Anth talked tonight about fear not being a ‘thing’ you can touch or that suddenly happens to you out of the blue. Fear is something we choose to buy into. Why would we do such a daft thing? Sometimes holding onto the fear in our lives seems less frightening than letting go of it and seeing what happens next it even gives us the pretence of control over scary situations. It’s something we expect to be in our lives; I’ve often heard and even said ‘everyone’s afraid of something’. This justifies fear as being a normal part of existence.

One of my favourite passages from the bible is For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). We are not limited to living just in our human lives but have all the love, power, forgiveness and care that God has to offer. Jesus died to take away all of our fears, the fear of death being the greatest but to include the fear of poverty, loneliness, illness and even spiders! The atmosphere in the house tonight was fantastic because we all have fears we need to give up and because we all knew we have the answer just waiting to deliver us from them.

Listen to the message 'Freed From the House of Fear' here