Open Letter to Max Lucado #1.013 – Fearless: Imagine Your Life without Fear
(Click here to download the first chapter of Max Lucado’s Fearless.)
Chapter 1: Why are We Afraid?
Page 13
+ / ? “If we medicate fear with angry outbursts, drinking binges, sullen withdrawals, self-starvation, or viselike control, we exclude God from the solution and exacerbate the problem. We subject ourselves to a position of fear, allowing anxiety to dominate and define our lives. Joy-sapping worries. Day-numbing dread. Repeated bouts of insecurity that petrify and paralyze us. Hysteria is not from God. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear” (2 Tim. 1:7).”
Two things and I’ll move on.
First, I agree with your conclusions regarding the typical results of long-lasting fear and insecurity. If we allow it to define our lives, we’ve allowed ourselves to be defeated.
Second, though, I must assume from your use of 2 Timothy 1:7 that you are writing to those of us who believe in Jesus Christ for salvation. Why has this been so terribly unclear (regarding the identity of your reading audience) for all of the preceding pages?
I know I sound like I’m beating the same drum here, but this is more important than you realize. A non-believer who believes themselves to be open-minded will most likely agree with everything you’ve written up to this point. Then, when they come across your 2 Timothy reference, they will (most likely) read the word “us” and think, “me.”
This is probably the single greatest error you could make (aside from adding to Scripture itself): writing in so general a fashion that an unsaved person could agree with everything you write, even when the biblical passages you use for support are clearly intended to apply to Christian believers only.
Please, please, consider some additional clarification in your first chapter (or in a new introduction) for your next edition, as you are not doing non-believers who read your work any favors by leaving this as vague as you do.
+ / - “Fear may fill our world, but it doesn’t have to fill our hearts. It will always knock on the door. Just don’t invite it in for dinner, and for heaven’s sake don’t offer it a bed for the night. Let’s embolden our hearts with a select number of Jesus’ “do not fear” statements. The promise of Christ and the contention of this book are simple: we can fear less tomorrow than we do today.”
You are absolutely right that, while we will always be tempted to fear, fear doesn’t have to fill the hearts of believers. (I won’t cite any passages here for support since you’ve already done an adequate job doing just that.)
You are not absolutely wrong when you write that emboldening “our hearts with a select number of Jesus’ ‘do not fear’ statements” will cause us to “fear less tomorrow than we do today,” but you have missed a crucial step in the biblical process.
1 John 1:9 states, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (NASB)
We know from your earlier passages that Jesus told His disciples not to fear. Other apostles give us the same instruction in different New Testament passages.
If we fear when God has told us not to fear, we are sinning. The Bible is clear that we are to first confess our sins to God. Grabbing on to some particular passage is not sufficient at this point, unless we use it to pray:
“Dear Father, I know that your Word says I am to fear not, and that I should trust you for all things and in all things. I confess that I spent valuable time yesterday worrying about…”
Max, repentance and confession are non-negotiable for the Christian, you know this, yet you jumped right over steps 1 and 2 in God’s process for the restoration of the believer.
How come?!
I’ll have a final grade for Fearless by Max Lucado on Friday. For past responses to Fearless, click on the following posts: Title & Table of Contents, Testimonials, Pages 3-5, 6a, 6b, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.
One more thing. I’ve compiled my earlier analyses of Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile by Rob Bell and Don Golden. Simply click on my title, Clear as a Bell, and download for your own instruction.
