Psalm 118:6 The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?

This is a very important verse, actually, but it bears a lot of thought and calls for a lot of faith. The thing is, people can do a lot of unpleasant things to us, but if our focus is properly on God, those will fade to unimportance. Jesus spoke directly to this issue, rather bluntly in fact, when He said, “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.” (Luke 12:4) In other words, anything people can do to us, up to and including killing us, is of relatively minor importance on the eternal scale! We get tied in knots over all sorts of things, when in the long run none of it really matters. We can grasp that only when we understand just what God has done for us in Christ. Apart from Christ, we are headed for eternal destruction, period. Frankly, we hate to acknowledge and think about that, even after we are saved, because it means that all of our friends and relatives who are not in Christ are headed for that same destruction. We don’t acknowledge the Gospel for the Good News it really is until we acknowledge our state without it. It is the ultimate expression of God being with us, Emmanuel. (Matthew 1:23) The better we grasp this, the less fear we will have of anything, because we will be able to see everything from the eternal perspective.

This is of course what I try to communicate to people, but I do so with varying success. We all tend to have our “bogeymen,” our pet fears. They may be essentially immaterial, but they feel real to us! I am not to put people down for their fears, but rather keep pointing them to Jesus. For myself, perhaps my biggest fear is of my wife being called to heaven before I am, but unless the Lord returns first, it is close to a certainty that one of us will go first, and why should she be burdened with having to lose me? Still, her medical issues are a real test of my faith. I do have assurance that Jeremiah 29:11 and Romans 8:28 are valid and dependable, but I deal constantly with people who don’t have that assurance. My life and my words are to draw them to focus on Christ, rather than on themselves and their circumstances. Only then can they be liberated from their fears.

Father, You know the specific individuals that came to mind as I wrote that. I do pray for them, that they would have the courage to lift their eyes to Jesus and receive the faith You have for them. Thank You that Emmanuel is really all we need to know, that Your grace is indeed sufficient for us. Praise God!