For God gave us a spirit, not a fear, but of power and love and self-control.
– 2 Timothy 1:7
As we prepare to pray according to this verse, I just want to ask you… Encourage you to examine your heart and your life, your mind, your way of life right now. And just ask the question. Are there any ways that a spirit of fear is operating in your life? Just ask the question. In what way or ways are your thoughts or your desires or your actions or your lack of actions, your perspective driven by fear? And what are you afraid of? Or where does a spirit of fear show up in your life?
2 Timothy 1:7 Encourages Us to Not to Be Driven by Fear
I’m kind of hesitant to list examples. I don’t want to limit where your mind and your heart might go and question. But just as a couple of examples to get you going. Just think about how fear relates to anxiety and worry. When we are anxious about something or worried about something, it’s usually tied to fear of what might happen. Fear of where this will go. Or fear of the unknown, or fear of lack of control that leads to anxiety and worry. Or maybe it’s fear of sharing the gospel, fear that you’ll say the wrong thing. Fear of what someone else might think about you.
And then I think we pray all the time on this podcast for unreached people in the world. Why is it that there are 3 billion unreached people in the world who don’t even have access to the gospel? Why have we not gotten the gospel to them? Is it because we’re afraid of what it would mean for us to be intentional about spreading the gospel in Afghanistan or Pakistan or Somalia or Yemen?
2 Timothy 1:7 Teaches Us We Have Been Given a Spirit of Power, Love & Self-Control
So just ask the question. Where does fear show up in your life? And hear God’s saying right now, he doesn’t give a spirit of fear. So that fear does not come from him. And here God’s saying, he wants to set you free from that spirit of fear. Listen to the language here. He wants to replace it with a Spirit of Power. Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world when you realize the Holy Spirit is in you, the Spirit God has given you. You have the Spirit of the one who rules the world in you. Oh, you don’t have anything to be afraid of, to be worried about, to be anxious over. You have a Spirit of Power and love. Oh, perfect love casts out fear.
Again, you don’t have to be anxious or worried when you know you’re in the hands of the one who loves you. And he’s put his spirit of love for you inside of you. And self-control. Oh, what a beautiful phrase. How fear can lead us to live in ways that are out of control, that are not controlled by the Spirit and the Word of God, and how God puts a Spirit of self-control in us to take away a spirit of fear.
This Verse Challenges Us to Strive to Be Free of Fear and its Consequences
I just want to pray this over all of us. God, help us to live according to the Spirit you have given us. Lord, we pray for your deliverance from a spirit of fear in us. God, we pray that in every way fear is affecting us, that you would free us by your Spirit in us, a Spirit of power that we would realize your power in us, your strength in us, your authority over all things, and your Holy Spirit dwelling in us.
So Lord, help us to live today with confidence, with faith and trust in you and the power you possess overall things and you share with us through your Spirit in us. God, help us to live according to spirit of love, the overflow of your love for us. Rest in your love. God, we pray that we would not be afraid because we’re resting in your love and we’re able to show your love, share your love with others out of the overflow of a Spirit of love.
God, we pray for self-control. We pray that we would not be controlled by the circumstances around us. That we would not be controlled by worry, anxiety, that we would not be controlled by fear. But that we would be controlled by your Spirit inside of us. And then as a result, we would walk today with a rest in you, with confidence in you, in the power and love and self-control that you make possible for us. And we would live out of the overflow of that God, that we would be bold in sharing the gospel today because we’re not afraid, because we’re driven by your power. We will receive power when your Holy Spirit comes upon us and we will be witnesses.
Prayer for the Baori People
God we pray, help us to be witnesses today to your love so that other people might come to know your love for them.
Lord, we pray for this among the nations. God, we pray for all the unreached people of the world. God, help us to boldly spread the gospel to them in the power of your spirit. Help us to live wherever we are today to make disciples who make disciples of the nations with not a spirit of fear, but a Spirit of power and love and self-control. Oh God, we pray for the Baori people of India, Northern India, almost half a million of them. No known followers of Jesus.
God, we pray, raise up Indian brothers and sisters near the Baori people to go and make disciples and multiply churches among them with boldness. God raise up people from outside India to go and to serve alongside them so that the gospel, the good news of Jesus’s life and death and resurrection, would reach the Bowery people of India through a Spirit-empowered witness. Oh God, we pray for freedom from any and every spirit of fear. And we pray to you, help us to live in your spirit that you have given us of power and love and self-control. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
