Do Not Fear - Isaiah 41:10
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“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10
In today’s Biblical devotional for Christian women, we will ponder Isaiah 41:10 and its practical application in our daily lives as women who follow God and love Jesus.
In this Biblical devotional, I will share with you a very specific, unique, and breakthrough spiritual practice I perform regularly that causes many people to fear intensely, and in fact, there’s a record of people being unable to benefit from this spiritual practice that goes back to 1929. Frankly, this very profound spiritual practice caused me to fear for my life initially, but now I perform it several times a month, in faith, with peace.
I’ll share with you today HOW exactly I continue this uncommon and bold spiritual practice without giving in to my fears.
In this Biblical devotional for Christian women today, I’ll help you examine YOUR fears and show you how confronting them courageously allows God to not only work IN you but also THROUGH you spiritually.
The examples of fears and the antidote to fear, which I’ll share today, will be relevant to most of the Christian women listening to my Christian podcast The Anna Szabo Show and reading my Christian blog Onlinediscipleshipforwomen.com
This original and authentic Biblical devotional for Christian women will encourage and empower you with God’s truth as we apply it practically to real-life experiences of fear and anxiety we all go through as His disciples and daughters.
I am Anna Szabo from AnnaSzabo.com/devotionals, and you are listening to The Anna Szabo Show Christian podcast for women who love Jesus. I make content to help you create a joyful life by embracing God’s word. My passion in life is to help encourage and empower you by sharing testimonies of God’s amazing glory revealed through my own adverse yet faith-filled life story.
Subscribe to my podcast and tell other Christian women about it to help me do God’s work through this women’s ministry.
If you’d like to support my ministry, please donate at the link is in the notes below.
There are three things you can expect from this Biblical devotional for Christian women today:
- You’ll hear the scriptures-based devotional I prepared for you
- There will be an exercise for you to do in order to ponder Isaiah 41:10 as it relates to your own faith journey
- I’ll offer you a prayer to lift you up to God and ask for His peace, protection, provision, and promotion
Let’s get started!
PART 1. BIBLICAL DEVOTIONAL FOR CHRISTIAN WOMEN
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10
As I’m sharing this Biblical devotional for Christian women with you right now, I have been without any food and any water for 24 hours. This is incomprehensible to many people, and the fasting book from 1929 reveals a story of a man who began fasting but quit when he felt overcome by intense fear for his life. He broke his fast.
I practice fasting regularly and have been doing it since early 2018, for three years now. I’m 38 years old, and enjoy the best health of my life after being very sick for decades. My height is 5’10”, my weight is 116 lb, my size is zero, my weekly, monthly, and yearly spendings include zero dollars on medical bills or doctors or hospitals or pills or diets. I’m able to do 10000 steps every day, perform handstands, backbends, jump on the trampoline, run, swim, hike, hula hoop, squat on a BOSU ball, exercise with weights, do all my own chores, travel as I wish, and do all the necessary handy work at home by myself.
I’ll leave some links below for you to explore how I live my life free from illnesses, unwanted weight, and useless medical spending.
When I started fasting, I practiced water fasting: not eating and only drinking water for up to 5 days. Last year, in 2020, at 37 years old, I discovered dry fasting: no food, no water. I’ve been able to go fir 48 hours without eating and drinking anything, and this has been the most profound spiritual experience with God.
Dry fasting became my favorite way of fasting and prayer after I completed my first 24-hour dry fast in 2020. You can find out more about it at AnnaSzabo.com/dry-fasting where I share my diaries, insights, faith testimony, as well as breakthroughs.
Dry fasting is my preferred way to fast.
I’ve written thousands of words of helpful content to help other Christian women experience the profound spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical benefits of fasting. I’m going to link in the description box below my blog articles about the experience and the journey of fasting in the last 3 years.
As I’m sharing this Biblical devotional for Christian women with you right now, not only have I had no food and no water for 24 hours, but I’m getting ready to go to bed after this without eating or drinking.
Most people get scared when they hear or think about something like this. Yet, I’ve done it repeatedly because Jesus actually said in the Bible that He expected us to fast after His resurrection. If Jesus expects me to abstain from food and water, He will definitely help me through!
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10
Why I trust that fasting is good for me has to do with an enormous amount of science I’ve personally studied and even shared on my blog. But most importantly, when I began fasting and got scared, I continued because of what Jesus said.
Mark 2:19-20 reports the expectation for us to fast after His resurrection, which Jesus communicated clearly while He was a man on earth:
“Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.”
God’s word expresses God’s will. So, I began fasting three years ago and have been faithfully abstaining from food regularly for up to 5 days. I did it first because I heard God’s voice guiding me in this direction when I was depressed recovering from narcissistic abuse and a very dramatic divorce. I had gained weight, was sick, and I wasn’t able to function. God’s voice is always in alignment with God’s word, which reveals God’s will. So I followed God’s will, and He healed me, restored me, and blessed me!
But I was very scared initially...
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10
There’s no humans to comfort me when I am scared. I live alone, I’m single and celibate, and I rely fully on God for all the comfort I ever need. But even more importantly, I fast in secret, so no one ever knows when I am fasting. Why?
Matthew 6:16-18 explains:
“When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
Do I feel hungry? Yes, and those hunger pangs are what really scares people when attempting fasting. The hunger pangs and the side effects of hunger scared me initially. However, this is no surprise to Jesus because, being fully human, He Himself practiced fasting and felt hungry.
Luke 4:2 explains:
“For forty days, being tempted by the devil, Jesus ate nothing and He was hungry.”
Jesus expected me to fast, He Himself fasted and felt what I feel when fasting, and He called me to fast in secret to practice my faith and fellowship with God.
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10
Has God stayed true to His promise? Yes. I’ve been fasting for years, and not only has God been with me, not only did God strengthen me and help me, but also He upheld me with His righteous right hand and blessed me with many blessings.
As I’ve been surrendering my fears to God, He hasn’t just worked IN me (growing me, strengthening me, promoting me); He has also been working THROUGH me helping other Christian women.
READ:
- http://annaszabo.com/fasting
- http://annaszabo.com/dry-fasting
- http://annaszabo.com/water-fasting
- http://annaszabo.com/how-to-have-faith
What is it in your life that you fear? Let’s do an exercise to allow you to ponder Isaiah 41:10 in practical ways for yourself.
PART 2. ISAIAH 41:10 SPIRITUAL EXERCISE TO GROW YOUR FAITH
I want you to think right now about YOUR journey with God and what it is that you fear. It can be one thing or many. Think about what that is that makes you feel overwhelmed with anxiety, preventing you from God’s blessings and faith growth?
Once you identify what that is, go to AnnaSzabo.com/isaiah-4110 and let me know in the comments how you plan to courageously surrender your fears to God so that He can be with you, strengthen you, help you, and uphold you with His righteous right hand. Once you share it with me, I want to hold you accountable because your next step is this:
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10
For this exercise, I want you to think about a time you surrendered your fears to God and He worked in you and through you. An example of this is how I surrendered my fears, God upheld and strengthen me, He led me to share my experiences with other Christian women who benefited from God’s work in and through me, and now I’m sharing this Biblical devotional with you and you are benefiting from God’s work in and through me. Have YOU had a similar experience? Recalling and pondering it through introspection can help you witness how God has already helped you whenever you felt scared. These testimonies from your own past can fuel your future faith growth.
Before I offer you prayer in a moment, I want to invite you to support my ministry: make a donation and also shop my Christian apparel collection with encouraging and empowering Biblical affirmations to help you create a joyful life by embracing God’s word.
Let’s pray together!
PART 3: “DO NOT FEAR” BIBLICAL PRAYER
Father God, I am experiencing fear and anxiety in life. In my own power, I can do nothing but with Christ, all things are possible. God, I want to grow in my faith. You gave me a promise. Now, it’s up to me to deploy my faith and take action courageously, trusting your promise.
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10
Father in Heaven, I pray for courage to trust you and take actions courageously. Faith without works in dead. Help my faith survive and thrive through adversity. Help me take action in faith so that my faith can be tested, strengthened, and increased. God, bless me with your divine purpose, peace, provision, protection, and promotion throughout my spiritual journey. I am yours. I belong to you. My heart is focused on you. I want more of you. To experience you, God, I am committed to taking bold actions courageously in faith. Help me, God. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. Amen.
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