Overcoming Fear and a Grasshopper Mentality
Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
Testimonies
Power, Love, and Sound Instruction
1 John 4:18 APNT:
There is no fear in love, but complete love throws out fear, because fear is dangerous. Now he who fears is not completed in love.
Fear causes a person to shrink back.
The Hebrew word for “fear” in the Old Testament is yare. It means to throw yourself under something. There can be two sides to that. What you throw yourself under could be awesome, or it could be awful. If you throw yourself under the circumstances, or under something that’s attacking you from the outside or the inside, then it’s awful.
The idea of fear includes “awe.” What are you awing?
We’ve all heard acronyms about fear, such as False Evidence Appearing Real, which is not accurate. Fear is often the result of something that is very real; it’s not false evidence. That phrase came from AA (Alcoholics Anonymous).
There are other acronyms, such as Face Everything And Recover. Another is Forever Escaping And Retreating. My favorite is “F*” Everything And Run, it captures the idea of “shrinking back.” The temptation of fear is to forget everything and not deal with it.
Numbers 13:1–2 ESV:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.”
God had already said He was giving them the land. The whole idea of sending the spies was to see how good the land was. The people wanted to know.
Numbers 13:3 ESV:
So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the people of Israel.
Numbers 13:6 ESV:
from the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh;
Numbers 13:8, 16 ESV:
8 from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea the son of Nun; … 16 These were the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua.
This is where Moses changes Joshua’s name from Hoshea (he is salvation) to Joshua (Ya is salvation). Joshua’s name was changed before he went to spy out the land.
Numbers 13:17–20 ESV:
17 Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, “Go up into the Negeb and go up into the hill country, 18 and see what the land is, and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, 19 and whether the land that they dwell in is good or bad, and whether the cities that they dwell in are camps or strongholds, 20 and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes.
They probably went in small groups, like pairs, because a large group of twelve men would have raised suspicion. They spent 40 days spying out the land.
Numbers 13:23 ESV:
23 And they came to the Valley of Eshcol and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them; they also brought some pomegranates and figs.
Numbers 13:25–28 ESV:
25 At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. 26 And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak [a giant] there.
There were certain places or cities where the descendants of the giants, the Anakim, descendants of the Rephaim, and Nephilim. They were genetically perverted humans.
Numbers 13:29–30 ESV:
The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.”
30 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.”
Caleb didn’t shrink back from fear.
Numbers 13:31–32 ESV:
31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” 32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height.
Was it true that all the people were of great height? No! The descendants of the Giants were only in certain places or cities.
Numbers 13:33 ESV:
And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
They compared themselves to the giants (and falsely claimed that the giants were everywhere) and saw themselves as grasshoppers. That’s what fear does. Fear magnifies what is feared.
Caleb and Joshua did not shrink back, but the people believed the bad report from the other spies and wanted to choose other leaders and go back to Egypt.
Joshua and Caleb were the only members of that generation (over 20 years old) who entered the promised land.
They spied out the land for 40 days, then wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.
Much later, when they were allotting the inheritance of the land, we read:
Joshua 14:7–12 ESV:
7 I [Caleb] was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. 8 But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the Lord my God. 9 And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’ 10 And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. 11 I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. 12 So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said.”
Caleb defeated the giants, and that land was allocated to his family. In the subsequent history of Israel, that particular land was never conquered by Israel’s enemies.
Joshua 14:15 ESV:
Now the name of Hebron formerly was Kiriath-arba. (Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim.) And the land had rest from war.
Joshua 15:13–17 ESV:
13 According to the commandment of the Lord to Joshua, he gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh a portion among the people of Judah, Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron (Arba was the father of Anak). 14 And Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak, Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the descendants of Anak. 15 And he went up from there against the inhabitants of Debir. Now the name of Debir formerly was Kiriath-sepher. 16 And Caleb said, “Whoever strikes Kiriath-sepher and captures it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter as wife.” 17 And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, captured it. And he gave him Achsah his daughter as wife.
Othniel, Caleb’s nephew, ends up being the first judge of Israel.
2 Timothy 1:7 APNT:
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but [a Spirit] of power and of love and of instruction.
Power. It may seem, at first reading, that it is something we must do. But those things—power, love, instruction/sound mind—are things that God has already provided for us in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 2:10 APNT:
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow that is in heaven and on earth and that is under the earth,
Fear. When there’s fear, the first thing to do is deal with it spiritually with the name of Jesus Christ and with God’s power. Every knee must bow to the name of Jesus Christ.
The phrase “fear not” is used more than 365 times in the Bible! One for every day of the year, and then some.
You can also refer to a teaching that looks at the Aramaic and Hebrew words for trust (Trust—Antidote to Stress). I call them “fence words” because it’s like there’s a fence. And the fence is really God’s love. Inside the fence, we are surrounded by a protective fence, surrounded by God’s love.
Instruction or sound mind. This particular word is only used once in both Greek and Aramaic. It has the elements of guidance or instruction. Again, this sounds like something we have to do. But God has given us the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:16 APNT:
For who knows the mind of the lord to teach him? But we have the mind of Christ.
We can face fears because we have not only the promises, but also the mind of Christ. We have the ability to overcome anything. The “mind of Christ” is more about guidance and instruction.
Psalm 23:4b KJV:
… thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
The rod is for protection, but the staff is what guides the sheep. The shepherd provides guidance with the staff.
To help overcome the grasshopper mentality, we use the name of Jesus Christ, walk into the fence of God’s love, and ask for guidance.
Romans 8:35 APNT:
What will separate me from the love of Christ? [Is it] trial or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?
Those are all “outside things,” things that come at us from outside.
Romans 8:15–16 APNT:
15 For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption by which we call, “Father, our Father.”
16 And the Spirit gives testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God.
That’s how we deal with “outside things,” outward fears. But what about “inside things” such as inward fear?
Romans 8:38–39 APNT:
38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor authorities nor powers nor those [things] present nor future
39 nor height nor depth, neither any other created [thing] will be able to separate me from the love of God that is in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Nothing that goes on in our hearts, no matter the source, is able to separate us from the love of Christ.
Romans 8:26–27 APNT:
26 So also, the Spirit aids our weakness, for we do not know what is right to pray for. But the Spirit prays on our behalf with groans that are not describable.
27 Now he who searches the hearts knows what is the thinking of the Spirit that prays on behalf of the holy [ones] according to the will of God.
The mind of Christ is energized by the Spirit, and it prays on our behalf.
Romans 8:31–39 APNT:
31 What then should we say about these [things]? If God [is] for us, who is against us?
32 And if he did not spare his Son, but delivered him up for all of us, how will he not give us everything with him?
33 Who can accuse the chosen [ones] of God? God justifies.
34 Who condemns? Christ died and rose and is at the right hand of God and makes petition on our behalf.
35 What will separate me from the love of Christ? [Is it] trial or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?
36 As it is written: Because of you every day we are dying and we are counted as lambs to slaughter.
37 On the contrary, in all these [things] we are victorious by way of him who loved us.
38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor authorities nor powers nor those [things] present nor future
39 nor height nor depth, neither any other created [thing] will be able to separate me from the love of God that is in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Scripture References
Scripture quotations marked (APNT) taken from the Aramaic Peshitta New Testament Translation: With explanatory footnotes marking variant readings, customs and figures of speech, Copyright © 2006 by Janet M. Magiera, Light of the Word Ministry, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. (www.lightofword.org)
Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Audio teaching also available on the Acts Now Fellowship website.
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