Facing Fear Biblically Part 1 – Our Best Life Isn't Now

In the last post in this series, I mentioned that our goal in facing fear is to honor God. We might not be able to remove the feeling of fear, but we can grow in trusting God and obey him. In these next few posts, I plan to address how we can trust God when we face fear.

Today, we will think about the need to live as a people who know that our best life isn’t now. Rather, we must live in constant hope of our resurrection. Essentially, we must remember where we live in redemptive history.

Remember Where You Live in the Biblical Storyline.

We live in a fallen world – so we should not expect “our best life now.” 

Sin, sickness, and death all remain until the new Heavens and new Earth. So, we should be realistic about our expectations. We don’t live in a time and place free from danger and risk to our physical lives. In fact, your chances of death are 100% (unless the rapture happens first). I know this sounds gloomy, but it is where we live. Even as God’s people, we are not exempt from suffering (read the Psalms, Job, Daniel, Acts). The Bible doesn’t hide the hardships of life in this fallen world, but that’s not all it says.

We also must remember that we live after the first coming of Jesus – when he came to die in our place. 

He died to rescue us from the one truly irreversible calamity, namely the catastrophe of dying in our rebellion against God and facing his just wrath. Jesus died to redeem us from sin and the judgment we deserve, and he rose from the dead to guarantee our resurrection life. Thus, God has demonstrated his love for us by giving his own Son to redeem us (Romans 8:32).

Beyond that, we must remember that we live in anticipation of being resurrected. 

Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too will be raised to dwell with God in the new Heavens and new Earth forever (Rom. 8:11)! There will be no more sin, sickness, or death (Rev. 21).

Two Results of Remembering Where You Live

Two good fruits blossom in our lives when we remember that we live in a fallen world, after the first coming of Christ, and in the hope of our resurrection. First, we know that God loves us. We have no reason to doubt his love when we face temporal dangers because he has secured our eternal joy and salvation by sending his Son.

Second, it teaches us that all our afflictions, as severe as they can be, are “light and momentary” (2 Cor. 4:17).  That is what Paul said, and he faced beatings, natural disasters, and times of as he served God.  He wasn’t sadistic. He just saw the bigger picture. He knew even hard suffering worked ultimate good for him. After all, if God is for us, who or what can ultimately prevail against us (Rom. 8:31)? Not even death will have the last say in our lives because its sting has been removed by Jesus’s work (1 Cor. 15:55-56).

Live as Those Who Have Resurrection Life

So, the first way to fight against fear is to reflect on our dangers in light of the gospel’s unshakable hope. In other words, we must live as those who believe in a resurrection and who believe that our best life is not in this fallen world.

This doesn’t mean we fail to value life here and now (1 Tim. 4:4). It doesn’t mean we live recklessly (we are not to test the Lord). It just means we factor more into the equation than unbelievers. They focus only on what is seen – physical life and temporal comfort. We consider what is seen but give greater weight to the unseen and eternal. Therefore, we don’t count it as a net loss to obey God even if we might lose our physical comforts, possessions, or life.  

This way of calculating will enable us to make wise investments of our God-given lives. We are stewards of our lives for God’s glory. So, if gathering to worship God is a good investment of our lives (Heb. 10:24-25), then in a time of pestilence or persecution, we will seek to mitigate risk based on the information God allows us to have and move forward in trusting obedience.

Renewing Our Minds and Imaginations

Let me close by giving you a growth assignment to help reinforce this mindset (because it is not natural to you or me). It takes work to renew our minds. It only happens as we saturate our minds with the truth of God’s Word (Rom. 12:1-2). So, here is a suggestion for how to renew your mind in this area:

1. Pick a verse about heaven (Rev. 21), the resurrection (1 Cor. 15), the light and momentary nature of affliction when compared to eternity (2 Cor. 4:16-5:9), or the fact that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ (Rom. 8).
2. Write out 20 observations and implications of the passage on a sheet of paper (maybe do 5 a day until you get to 20).
3. Daily think over the glorious realities by reviewing a few things from your list of observations. This will help you retrain your imagination to conjure up your hope-filled future rather than all the anxious “what ifs” of short-sighted living.
4. Memorize a verse or two from the passage (write it on a notecard and carry it with you and review it regularly).
5. Pray to thank God for the truths you are seeing. Truth has not fully impacted our soul if we have not given God genuine thanks for it.