Call Me Crazy

...but, every morning that I read this passage it takes on more meaning.

This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
free to worship him without fear,
holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.

-See Lk 1: 68-79

I could be totally wrong, and theologians out there, correct me please, but I feel that we are free now because God sent the Holy Spirit, not because he destroyed all possibility of fear. Let me explain a little better. When God swore the oath to Abraham people were used to physical threats- land being taken, people being captured and made into slaves, etc. But because the Bible is true for all men for all time I kept thinking how does that apply now? We are physically secure on a day to say basis and I don't know if I've ever heard of someone's house being marched on and seized, at least not in my neighborhood. How we are not secure is spiritual attacks. God's remedy to that is more of His Holy Spirit. It's not that we won't face fear (one of Satan's greatest weapons, incidentally) it's that when His Spirit is with us and we rely on Him the lie of fear falls away. I know at least for me the greatest fear that got (gets) in the way of worshiping God more fully was the idea that people were judging me (yes, my own vanity.) However, these are my conclusions after much thought and observation: 1. People don't usually have the time, energy or will to judge you. 2. Vanity is a dumb reason to go to hell. 3. God has already sworn an oath that I'll be able to worship Him without fear, I can see that manifested in people around me, all I have to do is trust in that, then maybe the last part of Zechariah's canticle will come true:

In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high will break upon us
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death
and to guide our feet into a way of peace.