The following are excerpts from "EXTREME FAITH" in the series, "Extreme," written by Mark Batterson.
God's Goals
"...until they recognized Jesus’ voice inflections and heard him say, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
That phrase—“don’t be afraid”—is the most repeated phrase in Scripture. The significance of that is this: one of God’s primary goals is to help us overcome our fears!
I love the way John Ortberg says it. “God has an inextinguishable habit of asking people to do things that are scary to them.”
Fear Makes Us Feel Alive
It’s tough to describe, but there’s something about fear that makes us feel alive. I like the way David Whyte said it. “The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears.” I think another way of saying that is this: the alternative to fear is boredom.
Following Christ is anything but boring! John Ortberg says, “The choice to follow Jesus is the choice for the constant recurrence of fear.”
Unlearning
Let me give you a definition of faith. Faith is the process of unlearning your fears. If you look in a medical reference book you’ll find about 2,000 classified fears or phobias. There is even phobiaphobia— the fear of phobias. Here’s what’s interesting. According to psychologists, we’re only born with two fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. That means that every other fear is learned. And that means that every other fear can be unlearned.
And that’s where God enters the equation. God is in the business of bringing us face-to-face with our fears so that we can unlearn them. I John 4:18 says, “Perfect love casts out all fear.” In other words, as we grow in our love relationship with God, we unlearn those fears that paralyze us emotionally and relationally and spiritually. And we learn to live by faith.
Matthew 14:29 says, “Peter got out of the boat, walked on water and came toward Jesus.”
