Does it seem to you that fear takes you out into the middle of nowhere and leaves you alone and helpless with only the company of your own condemning thoughts? Our Scripture passage today draws us away from this anxious isolation to a place of connection, warmth, and love in Christ.
“God did not give us a spirit that makes us afraid but a spirit of power and love and self-control. 8 So do not be ashamed to tell people about our Lord Jesus, and do not be ashamed of me, in prison for the Lord. But suffer with me for the Good News. God, who gives us the strength to do that, 9 saved us and made us his holy people. That was not because of anything we did ourselves but because of God’s purpose and grace. That grace was given to us through Christ Jesus before time began, 10 but it is now shown to us by the coming of our Savior Christ Jesus. He destroyed death, and through the Good News he showed us the way to have life that cannot be destroyed. 11 I was chosen to tell that Good News and to be an apostle and a teacher. 12 I am suffering now because I tell the Good News, but I am not ashamed, because I know Jesus, the One in whom I have believed. And I am sure he is able to protect what he has trusted me with until that day. 13 Follow the pattern of true teachings that you heard from me in faith and love, which are in Christ Jesus. 14 Protect the truth that you were given; protect it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” 2 Timothy 1:7-14 NCV
It has been said that this letter from apostle Paul to his dearly beloved son of the faith, Timothy, was like a last will and testament. It was one of Paul's final opportunities, by the written word, to mentor and encourage his young co-worker even as Paul was chained in a dungeon in Rome before his death (2 Timothy 4:6–8). In his suffering for proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ, Paul expressed in words of such clarity and beauty, the wondrous essence of the Christian faith, and how we should view the emotion of persistent and disabling fear. Let's carefully consider what Paul is earnestly teaching Timothy and, now, us.
“God did not give us a spirit that makes us afraid but a spirit of power and love and self-control.” 2 Timothy 1:7 NCV
In one of the most well-recited verses about fear in the Bible, Paul contrasts two spiritual states flowing from different sources with unique consequences. The first is a “spirit that makes us afraid.” It is sometimes described as timidity, living in dread, being fear-driven, being shy with God’s gifts, and shrinking or retreating from challenges. It is a state that we recognize in ourselves when fearfulness, anxiety, and worry habitually fill our hearts when the situation before us seems overpowering. At these times, fear floods us like a drink of cold water, numbing our thinking, stalling our action, locking our sight onto the fear, accelerating our heartbeat, moistening the palms of our hands, and a sickening weight seems to grow in the pit of our stomachs.
Paul makes it clear that this spirit of fear and crippling timidity is not given to us from God, “for the Spirit that God gave us does not make us timid” (2 Timothy 1:7 NIV). No, the spiritual source of fear and timidity is Satan, “the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” (Ephesians 2:2 NIV). The devil is an accuser (Revelation 12;10), a murderer with fearful lies as his mother language (John 8:34), and our “adversary [who] prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8; word in brackets added).
What (or more appropriately Who) is the Spirit that God gives to us? It is the Spirit of Grace, the third Person of the Trinity, given to indwell in us when we receive salvation: “his special mark of ownership on you by giving you the Holy Spirit that he had promised.” (Ephesians 1:13 NCV). He imparts power, love, and self-control (also translated as self-discipline, or having a sound mind) and other life-giving fruit such as love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness (Galatians 5:22-23).
When we set our minds on things of the Spirit, we experience His life and peace, which watches over and protects our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). Conversely, when we set our minds on things of the flesh, we are transfixed on sinful dread and anxiety and unable to rest in God’s sovereignty. Spiritual deadness and self-preoccupation are the results:
“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” Romans 8:5-6
We may read these verses and say to ourselves: "I will try very hard to do better because I desire to be holy, and I am desperate to be rid of this stronghold of fear in my life." Perhaps we may interpret these verses through Old Covenant thinking ("If I obey, then God will bless me."), believing we can remove our ungodliness through law-keeping. We may try to push ourselves through fear barriers with self-effort, or seek help through reading self-help books, or participate in a program based on man's wisdom to modify one's anxious thoughts or behaviors. And while these activities, powered by our own strength, may educate and motivate us for a time, we are left unchanged in our hearts where change is essential if we want to live in freedom. (Proverbs 4:23).
Spiritually, if it were not for the Son of God laying down His life for us, we would still be under the Law and Old Covenant rituals of earning our way to right standing with God through our works and failing to meet its impossible measures of perfection. "A person who follows all of God's law but fails to obey even one command is guilty of breaking all the commands in that law." (James 3:10 NCV).
The Law, which was engraved in letters on tablets of stone of the Ten Commandments, heightens our sense of sin (Romans 7: 7-12), threatens to kill us, and covers us with dread.
The gospel delivers us from the bondage of sin, guilt, condemnation, and death because the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (Galatians 3:13), and we receive genuine righteousness that comes from God by faith, not from ourselves (Philippians 3:9).
Friend, the three verses after 2 Timothy 1:7 teaches us the way to real and lasting heart transformation:
“God, who gives us the strength to do that, 9 saved us and made us his holy people. That was not because of anything we did ourselves but because of God’s purpose and grace. That grace was given to us through Christ Jesus before time began, 10 but it is now shown to us by the coming of our Savior Christ Jesus. He destroyed death, and through the Good News he showed us the way to have life that cannot be destroyed.” 2 Timothy 1:8-10 NCV
Jesus “showed us the way to a life that cannot be destroyed” (2 Timothy 1:10 NCV) because He destroyed death at the cross at Calvary so we could know perfect union in Christ. At Calvary, we can read 2 Timothy 1:7 through the blood of Jesus shed for us. In this way, we understand that instead of a spirit of fear, we received the resurrection power of Christ (Ephesians 1:19-20), the love of Christ because He first loved us (1 John 4:19), and the sound and stable mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). We do not give in to fear, for our mind is sound. We have the mind of Christ, and we are in perfect peace as our mind is fixed on Jesus and His finished work (Hebrews 3:1).
Attaining holiness is not trying to restore our hearts with repairs, refurbishment, and a sparkling polish to buff out the bumps as one would in the restoration of a second-hand car. We do not need to scrub ourselves clean of sin with packets of hand sanitizer because Jesus, Himself, is our "refiner's fire or a launderer's soap" (Malachi 3:2). We do not need to look elsewhere for a way to find freedom from the bondage of sin, for it has already been given through the baptism of the Holy Spirit when we came to know the saving grace of Jesus at the cross of Calvary.
Freedom comes through believing in the intimate connection and communion we have with God through the death and resurrection of Christ, that we are irreversibly intertwined with Christ for eternity. "On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you" (John 14:20).
We must see and believe that our old selves have died forever, and we have been given a brand-new self, not a restored self. When God sees us, He sees His perfect Son, and there is not one patched repair, not one faulty seam, or even a ray of light between Christ and us
God gave grace for us to be chosen in Christ: He “chose us in him before the creation of the world.” (Ephesians 1:3-4 NIV). God’s love has always been in place!
God gave grace for our death in Christ: “all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Romans 6:3 NIV). Our sins cannot put us to death because they put Jesus to death!
God gave grace for our resurrection in Christ: “be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5 NIV). We have been raised up into life - the old has gone, and the new has come!
God gave grace for our sanctification in Christ: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10 NASB). We are cleansed, purified, and forgiven!
God gave grace so for our glorification in Christ: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22). God’s love in Christ never ceases!