To narrowly define fear as the physiological reaction you have when you barely miss a car wreck is a definition that is too narrow. To add to the definition, the intangible and hypothetical worries you experience is still a definition that doesn’t encompass fear’s reaches. If fear is the absence of God, then all you do in response to God’s absence constitutes fear.

Your self-confidence, quest for competency, determination to be a wise manager of your finances, your effort to do the right thing, and your care for those around you can all be encompassed in fear. If these efforts—no matter how praise-worthy—have been crafted to control your environment, gain acceptance for yourself, maintain your lifestyle, and please others then they are fear and flesh because God is not your source.

Depending upon your Heavenly Father is living in perfect love, and perfect love casts out fear.

In other words, either you place God in control or you live in fear. There are only two choices before you: You can live in fear or you can live in perfect love. You can walk after the flesh or you can walk in the Spirit. You can live legalistically or find your resource in grace. I have said the same thing several different ways, but fundamentally, these are our only two choices.

So when I ask how you are doing at managing your fears, I’m asking you how you are doing at walking in the Spirit; how you are doing living in perfect love; how you are doing thriving in grace; how you are doing residing in Christ’s sufficiency.

Next thoughts: If these perspectives are in keeping with our walk in the Spirit, then perhaps we should not  fear.