Hope and Fear aren't opposites.

They are joined at the hip.  When a teenager 'fears' failing an exam, it's because they have set their 'hope' on a career or pleasing their parents.

It's that 'hope' that produces the 'fear' of failure.  If they didn't have that hope they wouldn't care about failing an exam.

But 'fear' isn't happy alone - it seeks out 'security'.  The teenager doesn't want to live in a state of fear and despair so they revise, they get extra grinds or figure out a way to cheat - whatever they do to find security.

 Hope produces Fear.  Fear seeks out Security.

So there are 2 ways to deal with FEAR:

1. Find Security...

If our set our hope on things in this world... if this world is what we ultimately live for, we will fear the people who can take it away.

Because we fear them, we will seek security - we will avoid making trouble, we will keep our heads down and keep our distance.  We will appease them so that our fears do not come true.

2. Change our Hope

The other way to deal with fear is to CHANGE our fear by changing our hope.  When our hope is in Christ and eternity with him, we have a whole new set of fears.  We fear our friends and our family not hearing about Jesus.  We fear things that matter on an eternal scale and we find our Security in God's faithful promises.  The others fears just don't seem to matter as much.

When we set our hope on Christ, we will take more risks, speak more about Jesus... not because we don't have fears - but because we have different fears.

 Check out the podcast below...