What’s In Your Heart? (Part 2)

In the middle of the night not long ago, I had a vivid, realistic, and disturbing dream about someone close to me.  It woke me up and left me feeling that I must pray right then for them.  The longer I prayed, the more wound up in my flesh I became.  Finally, I realized that this “wound up” wasn’t from the Lord.  I was worried and fearful.  Simply put, I was praying in fear.  All it served to do was to make me more fearful, and it wasn’t helping the person for whom I was praying at all.   The answer was not to quit praying, but to get rid of the fear so I could pray effectively.

1 John 4:18 (AMP), “There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror!”

This love is none other than the love our Father has for us which He revealed by sending Christ Jesus to save us!  I needed a fresh revelation of His wonderful love for me right at that moment.  I needed to “feed” on His love for me by considering what the Word says about it.  Though there are many appropriate verses, the following is one of the most powerful for me.  As you read it, make it personal for yourself.  Also, speak it concerning the one for whom you pray.  God’s love is that all-encompassing and that all-powerful.

Romans 8:38 & 39 (AMP): “³⁸ For I am persuaded beyond doubt (am sure) that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ Nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord.”

A word picture to illustrate 1 John 4:18: I’m sitting here, tightly wrapped up with tangled cords of fear, having the life choked out of me.  But when I choose to look to the Lord (fix my eyes on Him) and declare what His Word says about His love for me, I “see” His love come upon me, completely enfolding me and breaking the hold those cords had on me.  At that moment, I get such a release from the heaviness of fear.  His love has expelled every trace of terror!  Now I can pray more freely!  Why?  Because fear has lost the hold it had over me that kept me from seeing things from God’s perspective.  Now I can come and ask Him simply, “How do You want me to pray about this?”  “What do You want me to do about this?”  God is not worried and fearful.  I must not be either.  God knows the answer, and He wants me to pray it into being.

What’s in your heart as you pray?  Is fear trying to take over?  Ask the Holy Spirit to help you recognize it at work; then, let the complete and perfect love of God turn that fear out of doors and expel every trace of terror.  Now watch God move through you in a mighty way as you pray!

© Copyright 2004 Kay V. Stocking