God says in His Word that He didn’t give us a spirit of fear. So why do so many Christians live in fear? Did you know that every action comes from an emotion? And every emotion stems from a thought?

We often make the mistake of thinking that our circumstances are the reason for our fear, but that’s not true. We can stop fear in its tracks by changing our thoughts. That’s what we’re going to take about in today’s video.

Resources Mentioned:

Thrive Bible Study Vault: https://ashleyvarner.com/thrive
Walking in Confidence Bible Study: https://ashleyvarner.com/confidence

Highlights From the Episode:

God says in his word that he didn’t give us a spirit of fear. So why do so many of us Christians live in fear every day? Did you know that every action comes from an emotion and every emotion stems from a thought?

That’s what we’re gonna talk about today because I think that we often make the mistake of thinking that our circumstances are the reason for the way that we feel, for the fear that we’re experiencing. But that’s not true, we can stop fear in its tracks by changing our thinking. Our emotion of fear stems from a thought. And we’re gonna talk about how to take those thoughts captive today. Let’s get started.

Two Different Emotions

2 Timothy 1:7 says, “God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love and sound mind.” In life, we act out of two basic emotions and those can definitely be spread out. But I really want to talk about two particular emotions today and those are love and fear.

Whether you’re cleaning your house or exercising or spending money, you are doing it for a particular reason. So let’s talk a little bit about that and unpack this.

I wanna start by really explaining that your emotions do not come from a circumstance. So often we think that it’s our circumstances that automatically determine our emotions, and that’s just not true. Right, there’s a buffer in there, there’s a piece in there that we’re missing. I want you to see that this piece in between is our thoughts.

So the circumstance that you have in your life, and your thoughts about them are what determine your emotions. Your emotions are not just determined immediately. And it is really important for us to start to take our thoughts captive because so many of us are just running on our emotions. We’re letting our emotions dictate everything else that happens in our lives. We think that those emotions are not something that we have control over, but that’s not true.

Clean House Example

So let’s talk about a couple of examples. I want you to see how you can get the end result, but the way that you get there matters. So let’s just use a simple example of a clean house. We all know what happens when we get that unexpected call from a family member or a friend saying, “Hey, we’re in the area and I need to stop by. We have something for the kids and we wanna stop by. We’ll be there in like five minutes.”

We all know the chaos that ensues after that, right? We start running around like a mad woman cleaning up and we’re throwing things in closets and we’re yelling at the kids to put their toys away. We’re trying to like put dirty dishes in the dishwasher really quick. And ultimately that comes from a place of fear, right, we’re concerned about what other people are gonna think of us. We don’t want to have that negative example of like a sloppy person. We don’t want that opinion from someone about us.

So now I want you to contrast that image with this one. I want you to imagine that you clean your home each week out of love. You know, I’m not perfect, but I do work really hard to make my home a launching pad for my family to impact their worlds. I want it to be a safe haven for them whenever they come home, and I want it to be a place where they feel invigorated and inspired. And so I do try to keep a tidy house.

Now, does that mean that my home is always tidy? No. But I really want to be able to open my home at a moment’s notice to my friends and family. Now, because of that, I work really hard to have routines in my life that I consistently pray over to say, “Lord, give me love as I’m doing this.”

Whenever I’m folding my family’s laundry, I try to pray for the person who’s gonna wear that piece. Whatever they’re doing that day. So as I’m hanging up one of my kids’ shirts. I’m praying that when they wear this shirt they are able to show love to their classmates. That they are able to focus in their classroom, all those things. As I’m putting the little socks together. I’m praying that the Lord would really show them and teach them where to go and how to direct their path.

The house gets clean either way, but instead of coming from a place of fear, it comes from a place of love, right? It gets clean from love.

So end result is the same but the way that you get there matters. And we can start to look at the things that we do and see the motivation behind it. See the emotion behind it. And then decide if that emotion is a positive one or a negative one? Am I doing this out of love? Am I doing this out of enjoyment? Or am I doing this out of fear of what people are gonna think of me? Or out of guilt, or out of obligation?

Example of Exercise

Another example might be exercise. So I remember times when I worked out because I hated the way I looked. I would weigh myself multiple times a day. I would really be, I just wanted to be perfect and I would mark my workouts off every day.

Now, I’ve come to a place where I exercise because I want to honor God with the body that he’s entrusted to me. So whenever I’m doing my stretching or all these different things that I do, I do them with the goal of wanting to connect with the Lord through me moving my body and strengthening it. Because I never want my body to be the reason that I say no to something that I feel like God wants me to do.

Now, there are going to be cases, and please don’t take this as a form of judgment or anything like that. Because I know that people are in different seasons of their lives where they’re in different health situations or they have a different health crisis or something like that. But I want you to see the difference between exercising because you hate your body and exercising because you care about your body and you wanna be a good steward of it. Now, I exercise because I wanna be capable and I wanna be strong to do the things that God wants me to do.

Examine Your Reasons Why

So this was shorter, but I want to give you some homework. I really pray that you will take this to heart and really examine the reasons why you do the things that you do. Because your motivation behind it is what is going to help decide whether or not you stick with it, or whether or not you are enjoying it or feeling fulfilled by it.

So just the example of the clean house, whenever you clean your house out of love or you’re folding laundry thinking of the people in your life and how they wear it, it changes your attitude about it. Whenever I do laundry, I don’t feel an obligation.

A couple of episodes back, I talked about how after a vacation I delegated my laundry and I didn’t feel bad about that. So every day as I do the things that I do. I really try to remind myself that I don’t do anything that I don’t wanna do. Even things like paying my taxes, I may not want to do them. But I do want to pay my taxes because I don’t wanna go to jail, right? I may not want to exercise or feel like exercising, but I want to be strong and capable to do the things that God wants me to do. Ultimately, I exercise because I want to.

I want you to think about whether are there things in your life that right now you aren’t seeing the choice that you have to do those things? What is the reason behind what you do? And then really ask the Lord if there’s an attitude shift that needs to change in your life. If you’re struggling with doing things outta fear.

Another Example

Another example might be like stocking up your pantry. If you are stocking your pantry because you are afraid. If you’re stocking it up because of the increased prices or whatever and you’re really scared about not having food. That’s gonna give you a different motivation than saying, “You know, I want to be prepared. I wanna be a good steward. I wanna make sure that my family is taken care of while still trusting the Lord.”

That’s a different attitude, even though it’s the same end result, it’s a different way to get there. And so I want you to decide. If the reasons behind what you’re doing if you actually like those reasons, right? Things like the way that you handle conflict or how you spend your money. The reason why you’re eating that bag of chips or even the reason why you’re eating that cucumber, right?

What is The Reason Behind it?

I want you to think about the reason behind it and then determine, am I living from this, am I okay with the emotion, and the reason behind why I’m doing all these things? So I just want you to like your reason. I want your reason to line up with what God’s word says. And so if that is living with the spirit of power, love, and a sound mind, you’re good to go. If that reason is a spirit of fear, then I really want you to pray and seek the Lord and ask him to take that fear and change it into something that is more in line with his character.

All right, that is all that I have for you guys this week. I hope that you enjoyed it. As always, if you have questions, feel free to comment. I would love to chat with you and help you further.

Walking in Confidence Bible Study: https://ashleyvarner.com/confidence

And you can also check out the Thrive Bible Study Vaults. It is 12 months’ worth of audio Bible studies to really get you in-depth of what God’s word says. And there are Bible studies on priorities. There are Bible studies on grief. There are all kinds of a plethora of Bible study topics for you and you get access to all of them.

Thrive Bible Study Vault: https://ashleyvarner.com/thrive

And if you need more one-on-one help, then I would definitely recommend you check out Renew 180. You can get coaching with me and really get in-depth teaching on transforming your life by renewing your mind.

Renew180 Christian Coaching: 180Confidence

All right, I will see you guys next time, have a great week.