The Elimination of Spiritual Fear
Your Kingdom Come; Your Will Be Done!
Greetings and good morning, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years, the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them with you. Brothers and sisters, in today’’s broadcast we share insight into how we eliminate spiritual fear of God
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Elimination of Spiritual Fear
"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear has torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”” "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." 1 John, Chapter 4, Verse 18; Matthew, Chapter 5, Verse 48
So many of us still have quite a bit of spiritual fear when it comes to relating to the heavenly Father. This fear is the remnant of ancestral animal fear. Once, this was the only way to develop a consciousness of God. The spirits of worship and wisdom made this consciousness possible. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom Now having developed this consciousness of God through fear, fear is now being replaced with love——love of God.
Though many still fear God, it is being gradually changed into reverential fear. And this will continue to change until the concept of God is love shines brightly in our minds and souls. God is love, and the spirit of God lives within our mind and souls. And this spirit works to create a consciousness of divine love in our souls and minds.
A little more than 2,000 years ago, the Son of God, Jesus, took on the form of a human being and revealed this love of God to man. Man was conscious of God, but he did not know the Father’’s moral and spiritual character. Jesus revealed to man that God was his spiritual Father, and that man should relate himself to God as his father. Having done that, he is in a better position to grasp the truth that man is a son of the heavenly Father. And though this has happened and the Spirit of Truth, the spirit of Jesus, lives within our minds and souls, many still don’’t relate to God as a Father. They continue to attempt to relate to God as God. This practice guarantees that they will never realize a personal relationship with the Father, for the relationship to God as God is different than the relationship of God as Father. This distinction is similar to an earthly father who happens to be a judge. The child does not relate to his father as judge but relates to him as father. We see right away that by doing this the relationship between the child and his father is made clear. And just as we would not attempt to relate to our father in our personal relationships by their profession, neither should we try to relate to God as God.
The concept of relating to God as Father is the framework upon which spiritual fear is banished from our minds and souls. When we view God as God, because of his amazing attributes, we become fearful of him. But when we view God as Father, we increasingly love him as we recognize all the good and fatherly things that he does for us. We recognize his guidance and direction, his encouragement; his willingness to listen to our sometimes childish petitions. But he never becomes angry or impatient with us. He is always with us. He is faithful and trustworthy. We can depend on him. Long before we are cognizant of him, he is there supplying all of our spiritual needs. Even as the earthly Father provides for his children long before they are able to recognize his hand of love, "We love the Father because he first loved us."
We must exercise faith in the Father’’s love and goodness. He is invisible to our material minds, the eyes of the body cannot see him, but the eyes of our souls can comprehend him. He reveals the values of his love for us to our souls and their meanings to our minds. Without faith, we cannot receive these assurances of the Father’’s love. Without faith we will not establish a relationship with him, and without continuing faith, we will not maintain relationships with him. It is this faith that allows us to increasingly recognize his presence in our souls. It is this faith that allows us to experience a relationship with him
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He gives us spiritual encouragement and spiritual peace. He gives us hope in the face of material despair. He constantly showers us with his love and mercy. He delights in us, and we are precious in his sight. And though he does not deliver us from our material struggles, he does go through each one of them with and as us. As we go through them, he reveals more and more of himself to us. But most importantly he gives us life, eternal life. And this eternal life is the result of this relationship.
And as we continue to communicate with him, through faith, we begin to trust him more and more as the relationship with him becomes self-validating. Even as mortal children, when we mature, we come to appreciate our earthly Father’’s guidance, his sometime restraint of our immature wills. How much so with the heavenly Father? Because we are time and space creatures, the Father’’s love is not recognized or appreciated all at once. It is a gradual unfolding that comes as a result of reflecting on our relationship with him. When we mature and look back, look at the guidance and direction that he has given us and how he has steered up away from the swamps of evil and directed our path to the solid ground of goodness; as we contemplate the revelations of truth he has unfolded in our lives, we become thankful that the pursuit of this truth has set our souls free so that we no longer are bound servants of evil. This truth has led us into a successful life, a life founded on true relationships with our brothers and sisters, and we bask in the joy this has brought us.
When re-examine the wisdom of the decisions he has caused us to make when we have sought him in prayer, and when we examine the results of those decisions we are indeed thankful, for the wisdom of those decision have propelled us forward along the road of life. At times the wisdom he imparted to us and that we incorporated into our decisions seemed foolish to us, when compared to our immature desires. But now we see the fruits of this wisdom and are so happy that we used it.
As we have traversed the gauntlet of trials and tribulations, it is he who has bound up our wounds and applied the balms of mercy. It is he who has encouraged us to pick ourselves up and keep going. It is he who has said there is light at the end of the tunnel. It won’’t be this way always. And so many times when we have entered his presence in prayer and worship with our troubled souls, and overwhelmed by the trials and tribulations of this life, we have always found him there, sympathetic and empathetic. It is he who said you can do this. In his spiritual embrace of souls, he reminds us that he is always with us, going through the trials and tribulations with us, as us, and through us. When our vision becomes cloudy and we can’’t see the way, he says, fear not, I am with you, leading you.
Whether we travel in the valley of sorrow or stand on the mountain tops of joy, he is there sharing with us the sorrow or the joy. He rejoices when we rejoice and sorrows when we sorrow. And though the meanings of trials and tribulations may be delayed due to the shock experienced by the mind, in due time the meanings come forward to gladden our minds and souls. It is he who instructs us that while we are in the arms of trials and tribulations, we are experiencing our greatest spiritual victories. It is because of his great love for us that he feels what we feel, experiences what we experience. Without him, there would be no bottom to our sorrow and no fullness to our joy. And because of his presence and his great love for us, we receive inspiration that says no matter how you feel about what you are experiencing, how inadequate or weak you seem, you will not fail. Just trust me.
Trust is very important in our relationship with the Father, for as we have indicated there are many times in this life when we can’’t see where the Father is leading us. We become bewildered at the forecast our material minds make as they struggle in the grip of adversity. But the Father speaks deeply within us saying, ““this is the only way you can get there from here." This is the way of perfection, "Follow me." This trust that empowers us to follow him in the form of hope. Hope empowers us to keep going, to continue to follow the Father as he unfolds the potentials of our souls. Hope literally pulls us through trials and tribulations, continually reminding us that there is an eternal tomorrow that awaits us if we just hold out to the end and don’’t give up our desire to be perfect even as the heavenly Father is perfect. He says, ““I am able to complete the work that I started in you. One day you will be spiritually perfect, even as I am perfect.””
Finally from our more mature perspective, now that we understand that the path of growth and development lies in trials and tribulations, we come to more fully appreciate his love in all of his spiritual acts of mercy and grace. When we look at what he has done for our souls, we are moved to rejoice for evermore. Not only is all spiritual fear of the heavenly Father pushed out of our minds and souls, but our minds and souls are filled with his great love for us, so filled that this glorious affections runs over the cups of our souls and bathes others. We love our brothers and the sisters as Jesus loves us.
This concludes today's message on understanding how we eliminate spiritual fear. We hope you find something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time, this is Dr. James Perry.
Inspirational Messages of Light
By Dr. James Perry
The Elimination of Spiritual Fear
