Faith Your Fears

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:1


One of my favorite all time pastors has to be Jon Courson from Applegate Fellowship in Oregon. How can you not love a man who loves God the way Jon does and who has a gift of communicating the Gospel guys like me can only dream about. And to top it all off, the guy loves peanut butter and mayonnaise and sour pickle sandwiches! He is a man amongst men! In the last year I have come to enjoy one of Jon’s son’s almost as much as I enjoy listening to and learning from him. Jon’s son Ben is a tremendously gifted and anointed teacher. I just recently purchased a book he has just written titled, “Optimisfits”, a must read for anyone who has ever felt defeated and in need of encouragement.

Listening to an excerpt of one of his most recent teachings Ben was encouraging the congregation gathered to “Faith Your Fears.” He quoted some of my favorite passages and in just a few moments of speaking he shared enough truth to cause your brain to swell for hours as you meditate on the principles he was sharing.

He was sharing from 1 John 4 and how faith and love are mutually exclusive and cancel each other out. He said, “Fear and faith are like matter and antimatter. Astrophysics teach us they cancel each other out.” He shared a couple of acrostics for the word “FEAR” that stuck with me and that I wanted to pass along to you. The first was, “False Evidence Appearing Real” is what fear is. That is so good! You need to ponder the thought today if you are anything like me. When the enemy of our soul come and spreads his lies to us and we buy into them it causes us to FEAR, and the second acrostic he shared was, “Forget Everything And Run”. I don’t know about you but I can relate to that. Remember this, faith and love are mutually exclusive and cancel each other out. God’s love is more powerful as His love casts out all fear. We have been not been given the spirit of fear but love. Our body is the temple of the Spirit and greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world!

Ben was sharing because they are mutually exclusive, it is impossible to have fear and love at the same time. We have a choice! We can choose love! Remember, “perfect love casts out fear.” I love the image in my minds eye. When I am living in fear I am believing a lie. Fear can’t live in me when I am walking in God’s love. So, instead of believing the lies of the enemy, immerse yourself in the truth of God’s word. As Ben so well said, “Faith Your Fear” and choose instead to live by the acrostic “Face Everything And Rise” as you look to God and walk in His love. We don’t have 5% fear and 95% courage in us. As a child of God you have 0% fear and 100% of God’s love, His unlimited powerful love that raised Jesus from the dead. Believe it and live it!


“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.”

1 John 4:18-19

I LOVE YOU!