Fear of Failure
God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7, NLT).
Dear friends:
Living the Christian life and walking in the Spirit will take you out of your natural comfort zone, but put you into a supernatural comfort zone!
Jesus, and later the apostles, are our examples. Their message of the cross was radical and their opposition was great. But they did not fear failure and were at peace, because God and truth were on their side. Even martyrdom did not stop them.
Some Christians are so afraid of failure that they become reserved, overly cautions, and uninvolved in life. They follow a policy of guarded living, holding back time, talents, and treasure from God’s service. Their motto is: To keep from failing — don’t try! We must not be this way.
On the other hand, those who are willing to make mistakes and risk failure are the ones who ultimately achieve great things. Instead of being filled with fear, they go forward in faith. Problems are challenges. While they may not all be solved, these courageous people would rather live with that reality than have a clean record of no failures and no accomplishments.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all — doing nothing.”
Thomas Edison did not meet all his goals, but it is said that he saw every failure as a success. The story goes that he failed 10,000 times in his storage battery experiments. But Edison said, “Why, I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
What if, out of fear of failure, Edison had quit after the first few unsuccessful experiments? Perhaps someone else would have invented it, but maybe much later, and Edison would himself had failed his God-ordained calling.
Let us, as God’s people, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, full of faith and power, not fear anything, especially failure. We must be fearless. “If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” (Romans 8:31, NLT).
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7, NLT).
“The LORD who created you says: “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isaiah 43:1-3, NLT).
Fear is the opposite of faith.
Yours for helping to fulfill the Great Commission each year until our Lord returns,
Bill Bright
About the Author
The late Dr. Bill Bright was Founder and President/Chairman Emeritus of Campus Crusade for Christ, an organization which began as a campus ministry in 1951 and now has more than 27,000 full-time staff and up to 500,000 trained volunteer staff in 196 countries in areas representing 99.6 percent of the world’s population. In the past 50 years, Campus Crusade for Christ has seen approximately 6 billion exposures to the gospel worldwide. The film, “JESUS,” which Bright conceived and funded through Campus Crusade for Christ, is the most widely translated and viewed film of any type ever produced. Since its use began in 1980, the film has been translated into 839 languages and viewed or listened to by over 5.7 billion people in 228 countries. Dr. Bright was also the author of more than fifty books. Dr. Bright recently co-founded Global Pastors Network to “Touch, Teach and Train” a group of 5 million new house churches around the world 24/7/365 at http://www.globalpastorsnetwork.org.
Copyright (c) 2003, Bill Bright. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
