Delivered From Every Fear

Watch as Ray David opens Psalm 34:4.

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The Scripture

“I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.” Psalm 34:4

Your Constant Resource

When fear begins to rise up in your heart, when you are gripped by anxiety, you have a resource – you can turn to the Lord. Your hope is not a placation or distraction, your resource is the fact that the Lord God of the Universe hears you, answers you and takes action to deliver you. 

In the face of his fears, King David sought the Lord. He wrote this psalm in a place of despair. Yet he said, “I will bless the Lord at all times.” (Psa 34:1) 

Magnified

One of the ways fears and anxieties overtake us is when the fear or problem becomes magnified. Our lives go from being broad to zeroed-in and focused on our one problem. This one problem becomes magnified and bigger than anything else.

That’s why King David, in Psalm 34:3, says ‘O magnify the Lord with me.’ It’s not that we make the Lord bigger, it’s just by drawing closer to him we realize how big and great He truly is. As we realize how big God really is, our problems, once so huge and intimidating, will shrink away.

One of the remedies to fear and anxieties is corporate worship. When we come together and worship the Lord, we catch a glimpse of His majesty, glory and magnitude, and all of the other issues in our lives fall into their proper place. 

The Answer

When in our despair, sadness and fear we seek the Lord and He will answer us and deliver us from all of our fears. Sometimes the answer doesn’t come in the time that we want or sometimes it isn’t even the thing that we want, but what we find is that it is the thing that we actually need. 

Identify the Untrue Story

For the Christian person, all fear is rooted in untruth. Everything that makes you fearful is rooted in some untrue story. And the way that you fight against that fear is through sustained, relentless, and merciless combat through the word of God.  Take your fear and worry and preach the Gospel to it. Identify the untrue story that you’re living out of and replace it with the true story of the Gospel. God is for you, who can be against you? (Rom 8:31) He who did not spare His own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also give you all things? (Rom 8:32) The truth of God’s word displaces the untruth that’s behind your fear.

For His Glory

God did not immediately deliver King David from his problem, but in this moment King David is able to say that God delivered him from his fear. David’s situation didn’t change, but his heart did. He was no longer fearful. This invites a different way of seeing our struggles. The purpose of God delivering us from our fears is not primarily about our comfort, instead, it is about His glory. When He delivers us from our fears we can stand boldly in the face of our loss and hardships, not because we’re strong, but because of the Almighty God who has already delivered us from our fears. He is glorified through this kind of humble trust.

God wants us to know that His power is made perfect in weakness and His grace is sufficient for us. God doesn’t always deliver us from our situation, but He always delivers us from our fears. 

Taste and See

You will taste and see the Lord’s goodness most clearly in times where you need refuge. He will seem to be great and His taste will be sweet in the moments of greatest need. We spend most of our lives avoiding hardship, but actually the hardships in our lives serve a purpose. Because in times of hardship, those are the moments where you find that God is your refuge and where you truly taste and see that He is good. If you need refuge today, taste and see that the Lord is good. Seek the Lord and He will deliver you from your fears. 

He Sought You First

As you seek after God, you will find that He was the one seeking after you all along. The only reason you can seek after Him is because He sought after you first. The only reason that we are safe is because God is seeking after us. Our safety and security lies in the fact that He has sought and found us. 

When you come close to God in Jesus, you will find that His perfect love cast out all fear. He is the God who humbled Himself and died for you, in your place, to remove your greatest fear, so that the grave no longer has any sting for you. So draw near to him. Seek Him. Taste and see that He is good.