This post is the first in a series, “Faith over Fear,” where I write about my fears and what I am learning from God’s Word to overcome them. Read part one on my fear of failure here.
Faith or fear, a choice I must make,
for if one I bear, the other I break.
I am afraid of Cockroaches. I am not talking about the little ones common in the West. Where I come from in Africa, roaches are enormous and often fly. When I was a child, they terrified me so much I once slept in the hallway because a cockroach was lurking in my room. I am less frightened of them now, but I still need someone to kill them for me. And if they fly, I run.
I know it’s silly for an adult to fear Cockroaches; you might read this shaking your head or roaring in laughter. That’s okay because I am learning to conquer my fear of other’s opinions, or as the Bible calls it, fear of man.
Fear of man is being afraid people will disapprove of us or harm us. It expresses itself in several ways such as people-pleasing, peer pressure, need of other’s approval, fear of criticism, and more. It started showing in my life as early as my teen years. Since I struggled with loneliness, I desperately wanted my mates to approve of me so I developed an unhealthy preoccupation with what they thought of me. As a result, I compromised my values and did foolish things on several occasions.
For instance, I got drunk and smoked hookah twice to fit in with my college mates; I cheated on an exam because everyone in my study group was doing it. And even when I became a protestant Christian, I lied about it to my Roman Catholic family for fear of their reaction.
The Bible rightly says fear of man is a snare to us (Proverbs 29:25). It makes us elevate the opinion of others over God’s, and look to fellow creatures for validation instead of our creator. And when we let others have such control over us, it almost always leads us to sin.
Scripture features many examples of people who feared man and got trapped by it. The most prominent one is Saul, the first king of Israel.
The Bible gives two occasions when Saul disobeys God because of his fear of man. In the first event, Samuel sent Saul to Gilgal and told him to wait seven days until Samuel would come and offer sacrifices to God (1 Samuel 10:8). But when the appointed time came, and Samuel didn’t, Saul feared his men would desert him. So, he disobeyed God’s command and offered sacrifices himself (1 Samuel 13:8-10).
In the second event, God commanded Saul to strike the Amalekites and to “devote to destruction all that they have” (1 Samuel 15:3). Saul, however, spared the king and everything good (1 Samuel 15:9). When Samuel confronted him, Saul said, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice” (1 Samuel 15:24).
Another well-known example is Peter. Though he was one of Jesus’ closest friends and the first to confess He was the messiah, Peter denied knowing Jesus three times because he was afraid of what others would do to him.
John, the apostle, tells us the core reason we fear man. When describing Jewish leaders who believed in Jesus but didn’t confess it for fear of the Pharisees, John said of them, “for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God,” (John 12:43). In other words, we love the approval of man more than the approval of God (Galatians 1:10, John 5:44).
Desiring approval is natural and good; God created us for His pleasure (Colossians 1:16). Cain even experienced a murderous rage when God approved Abel’s sacrifice but rejected His own (Genesis 4:6-7). The problem isn’t that we need approval, but that we look to man to fulfill that need. And as with Cain, sin is also crouching at our door when we do that.
Thankfully, the name of Jesus has the power to break us free from the fear of man.
According to the Holy Scripture, we can conquer the fear of man with the fear of the Lord. Matthew 10:28 says, “And do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
It doesn’t mean we should be afraid that God will destroy us in hell if we don’t obey Him. If you are in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation (Romans 8:1). For believers, fearing God means revering Him and being in awe of His holiness (Psalm 33:8, Hebrews 12:29-29). It’s the beginning of wisdom, and Proverbs 14:27 says, “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.”
When we fear God, we trust Him to preserve and protect us from men (Proverbs 29:25). Like the Psalmists, we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Psalm 54:1-4; 118:6, Hebrews 13:6).
Fearing God also helps us conquer the fear of man because it helps us treasure God above all. And when we recognize God is the highest authority in our lives and the sole object of our worship, our natural response will be to please Him and obey Him over men (Acts 5:29).
When I started this blog and shared my thoughts and ideas for anyone to see, I feared others wouldn’t approve of my content. I was more concerned with their opinion of me than God’s. But I received a wise piece of advice that helped me repent. It was, write for an audience of One.
It was so liberating that I upgraded it to live for an audience of One. Reformed theologians call it Coram Deo—before the face of God. It means to “live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.”
As long as we live Coram Deo fear Yahweh more, we will fear man less.
