This week our youth leader, Amanda Mackie, shared a sermon from the Scriptures and her own experience with God. We believe that you will find comforting truth in this message that will free you from the shame of feeling like a failure and from the paralyzing nature of being gripped by fear.
“The most repeated command in the Bible is “fear not” we see it appear 21 times throughout Scripture. To give you some perspective on how seriously Jesus takes our fears, the second most repeated command, to love God and our neighbors, only occurs 8 times. Fear; even the word itself can make my heart beat faster sometimes. It is one of the biggest obstacles I have faced and continue to face; whether it is a childhood fear of thunderstorms or something bigger like the fear of not measuring up. Fear tries to consume us and control how we think and what we do or maybe it is what we do not do. We live in a world that seems to be surrounded by fear whether it is layoffs at work, terrorism, government issues, or disease; it seems that each new day brings fresh reasons for fear. Imagine if our lives were not touched by fear. What if faith, not fear, was our default reaction?”