”For God will never give you the spirit of fear, but the Holy Spirit who gives you mighty power, love, and self-control. So never be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor be embarrassed over my imprisonment, but overcome every evil by the revelation of the power of God!“
In this passage, Paul was writing from prison to encourage his protege Timothy to not live in fear, but instead to live in the power of Holy Spirit inside of him. 1 John 4 tells us that perfect love -- casts out all fear. And we know that God is perfect love. So these two scriptures reinforce one another. Fear is not from God. But the overcoming power of God lives in us through Holy Spirit. And Paul gives Timothy this instruction which is a key for us today. He instructs him to overcome every evil by the revelation of the power of God. What’s the key here? It’s that we can’t overcome evil by focusing on how evil evil is. We overcome evil by asking the Lord for a revealing of the truth of His power to prevail over evil. If we believe that Jesus died, went to hell and took the keys of hell back from Satan and resurrected Himself on the third day -- we have a revelation of the power of God to triumph over evil. He has done it decisively and comprehensively already. So then what should we fear?
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