Basically, there are two types of fear. The first one is the healthy fear, which is a natural fear that protects us from danger. This is the fear that makes you keep off from a moving vehicle or anything that poses danger to you. The second is unhealthy fear. This one holds you back from living God’s purpose for your life.

Understand that there is a difference between reverence and this type of fear. Reverence for God means holding God in high esteem with feelings of respect. This is the fear of God. God introduced healthy fear to man, while unhealthy fear belongs to the Devil. God wants to keep us away from every fear stirred up the Devil, hence He gave us 365 “Fear Nots” in the scripture to match our every day fear of a year.

The devil will always want to bring storms our way, as we see in Matt. 8:23-26, but Jesus said we should have faith and keep calm. Whenever you exercise fear over a situation, the boat of your destiny begins to sink, but with faith, it rises. Fear has its operational base or source in the life of every individual.

The first source is from the devil. In 2 Tim. 1:7, God gave us three things to conquer fear. They are power, love and a sound mind. The spirit of power gives you boldness and the spirit of love casts out fear. If you love God, you will trust Him, believe His word and use it to counter and silence every negative voice of the Devil. See what the Psalmist says in Psa. 27. With the spirit of a sound mind you can overcome the devices of the Devil.

The second operational base of fear is in our mind or imagination. The devil uses fear to manipulate our imagination by showing us pictures. He understands that what we imagine will come to pass and that is the law of thoughts, as we see in Prov. 23:7. What a man fears and thinks about will happen to him, so, the Devil uses this spirit to manipulate, control and truncate the destinies of men. Fear has its characteristics or mode of operation. The first of them is that it has a magnetic property in the spirit realm.

It has the ability to attract to you what you are afraid of. In Job 3:25, Job was afraid of so many things like losing his family, his business, health and so on and they all eventually happened to him. You must be careful what you entertain in your thoughts and learn to cast out every voice of fear that speaks to you.

Secondly, fear needs your body to partner with it. Immediately you accept it, the spirit enters you and attracts what you are afraid of. James 2:26 says, as the body without the spirit is dead, so, is faith without works dead. Just as faith operates through your spirit, fear operates through your soul, which is your mind. If the spirit of fear has no body to operate in, it cannot exist, so, it needs you to agree before it can come into your body.

The spirit of fear is not normal; in fact, it is more deadly than marine or witchcraft spirit because of its subtle nature. A lot of people, even believers, are daily being destroyed by this evil spirit called fear.

Fear has a lot of effects in the life of a man; it affects your connection with God. Heb. 11:6 says, a fearful person cannot please God. Faith is trusting God, while fear is trusting the Devil. Fear robs you of your joy and it can prevent you from fulfilling your life long ambitions or destiny. It manifests as fear of failure, fear of taking a venture and even fear of the unknown. Again, fear is a limiter; it can limit you from going far in life or prevent you from becoming great. Fear can cause panic attack resulting in anxiety, high blood pressure and other related complications. May the Holy Spirit arrest the spirit of fear in every area of your life today in Jesus’ name. Amen!

• Rev. John Okene, Divine Touch Int’l Ministries, Warri, Delta State. [email protected]. Prayer line: +2348135952623.