Fear thou not; for I am with thee

Do you have the address for this quote without doing a bible search? Book, chapter and verse?

I would be surprised if 1 in 100 could point to the exact address. Would it surprise you that it is used only once in all of scripture? It is used only once as quoted in all of scripture using the KJV.

How about the speaker? Who said it? Is your instinct to say Jesus? It wasn’t. If your instinct was to say Jesus, you are not alone.

Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

Jesus said “It is I, be not afraid.”

So what is the big deal? What does it matter? Isn’t Jesus saying the same thing in a different way? Taken out of context it matters because that is exactly how Satan deceives. Satan plays on our fallibility. He did it to Eve in an obvious manner to those who have read and know the Word. Now that we are knowledgeable of who Jesus Christ is, and the Holy Spirit is given, Satan has to be just a little more subtle. And subtle he is, crafty with words, for he too knows the scriptures.

Do I expect you to know every line of scripture chapter and verse? No, I do not and few do. The issue is not that we can pull up the address of any particular verse, it is that our trust is in Him and not ourselves. When it comes to important issues, we need backup, something more reliable than our human memory.

Our electronic bibles are great for getting us to the correct address via a simple search. Once there, we still need to appropriate the Word in context and apply it correctly to combat Satan’s attack.

Ephesians 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

That weapon is meant to combat Satan and you must be trained up in its use.