In the wake of America’s new administration—a new President with new policies—many people are afraid. Some are afraid of being deported. Some are afraid of being jailed. Many are afraid of the new President’s extremism: on immigration, on his supposed anti-environment beliefs, and his anti-woke beliefs, on all his Bidden reversals, and on what he will do to our country, The outgoing President is so afraid, that he has preemptively pardoned his entire family and many of his loyal supporters, like Mark Milley, Anthony Fauci, and Liz Cheney.
While I was asking myself how anyone can overcome fears, I came across a number of Scripture verses that will give us a clear answer.
Scriptures That Will Help Us Overcome Fear
In the following five verses we will find that the reason we fear is because we lack something; we lack a relationship with God—a relationship that will give us a lasting peace with God, a trust in Him, a saving faith, a loving Heavenly Father, and an enduring love from God. Let’s look at these verses.
John 14:27
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
We need not be afraid of anything in this world if we have the peace that God gives us.
Psalm 56:11
In God I have put my trust;
I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?
If you put your trust in God you need not be afraid of anything.
Psalm 27:1
The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?
If you will give your heart to Him to save you, you need not be afraid of anything. He will be your strength.
Romans 8:14-15
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”
If you will give your life to Him, if you will trust Him to save you (if you will ask Him to forgive your sins and cleanse you and give you a new life), you will be His adopted child and will no longer have that spirit of fear in you. He will be your Father in which you can cry out to Him whenever you fear anything or have any needs.
1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.
If you are saved and are one of His children, you will abide in His love and will have no fear.
Life in heaven will be glorious, that is, full of beauty, splendor, and magnificence. But that is just the outward sight of our heavenly home. We will at all times also feel incredibly happy, joyful, and full of love for God and all our friends. And we will no longer experience sickness, pain, sorrow, or anything negative; for we will be perfectly healthy and satisfied—with all our needs fulfilled. Indeed, we will have everything we ever needed or wanted. To put it in biblical terms, we will be joint-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17). That means, everything that Christ receives from His Father by His divine right, we will receive as well, do to our adoption into the family of God. Romans 8:16-17 tells us,
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
Our glorification it seems will be the final proof (or the indication) of our Christlikeness and of being joint-heirs with Him. For just as He is glorified, we also will be glorified—that is, having a new body of glory. And it will happen at the rapture when our dead body is resurrected (or when we are raptured alive) and when we see Him as He is (1 Jn. 3:2).
Our new body (our glorified body) will actually be our same earthly body glorified. But they will be a little different. We won’t have any wrinkles, or skin imperfections, or receding hairlines. We won’t have any health problems, or personality disorders, or depression, or bad attitudes, etc. And for that reason, a mortal person may not recognize us. (and that may be the case during the millennial kingdom). Oh yes, we will have supernatural abilities too—more than I can imagine.
These things (above) are the glory side of our heavenly life. But there will also be an honor side. Let me explain. All believers will be glorified and be joint-heirs with Christ. We will be perfectly satisfied and content and happy. And we will at all times drink of the water of life and eat of the tree of life freely. But there will also be honors given out according to each man’s earthly works—some more than others (read 1 Cor. 3:10-15). Daniel 12:3 says it well.
“Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
It seems from this text that those who are most rewarded (or honored) will be those who have a holy influence on others and those who “lead many to righteousness.” And it seems that their reward will be a greater capacity to reflect God’s glory. They will shine brighter as some stars shine and sparkle brighter than others.
I do think that this is true even now on earth. Those who have brought many to Christ and to the truth of the word do in fact shine brighter, at least in the eyes to true believers. However, God sees all; and even those who don’t have a large public ministry (they may have a ministry that is more concealed), God sees how they too have reached others. Hence, in the end, at the Bema seat, it will all come out; and all those who are worthy will be honored and will shine as the stars forever.
Yet we must not think that the honoring of some and the dishonoring of others will cause pride or bitterness. This will never happen. We will all be glad for each other and give glory to God for whatever happens. I see this illustrated well at the end of football games when certain deserving players receive a football to honor them for playing well at their position. I have never seen a player that didn’t get a football complain. Everyone is happy for all those who were honored.
There is no doubt that the bible is full of Scripture that illustrates this point: that heaven will be a life of abundance. We will start with Ephesians 2:7, where Paul declares “that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
This grace is illustrated for us in Revelation 22:1-2, as the writer (John) speaks of a river of life flowing from the throne of God in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21). But this grace of God is not just a symbolic illustration of His grace and kindness to us in the future. It is a vision as best John can describe of what he actually sees. We will start with verse one and the first part of verse two.
Revelation 22:1-2a
Then he [an angel] showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street.
So, John sees in his vision (as an angel points out to him) a river flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, “in the middle of its street.”First of all, I take this to mean that this river—the river of the water of life—will be flowing from the throne of God and winding around in the middle of all the streets of the heavenly city, New Jerusalem.
As for the streets of the city, they will not be like anything we know in our time. Our streets are mainly for transportation with gas-powered automobiles. But no such thing will be needed in heaven. We will be able to fly or go from place to place with just a thought. So, the mention here of “streets” is probably more like the public square—the place where neighbors will go to hang out, a place to fellowship. Oh, it will be a beautiful area where the streets are of pure gold (Rev. 21:21). These beautiful golden streets will be everywhere, in every neighborhood of the city. And in the middle of these places will be the flowing clear river of life with fruit trees all along its banks (v. 2). But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First, I want to talk more about the river.
Our text tells us that it is “a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God.” Hence, it is not like our H2O. It is of a divine substance and without any impurities; for its source is from God. It is no doubt the same water that Jesus spoke of to a woman from Samaria (in John 4:7-14). In this interaction Jesus asked her for a drink of water from a nearby well called Jacob’s well. And when she was surprised that He would ask her for water (since Jews had no dealings with Samaritans), Jesus boldly said to her,
“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 11 She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? 12 “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
So here, Jesus speaks of living water, and if we (or anyone) drink of it we will never thirst again. In fact, this water will become in us a well of water springing up to eternal life. Hence, I think we can say that when we were first saved we did in fact take and drink of this living water; and it has been our source of eternal life ever since. Yes, I am saying that every believer has this living water flowing in him; it is what makes him a Christian—one that walks by the Spirit of God.
In verse two John writes,
On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
I picture here beautiful gardens all throughout the New Jerusalem, where there will always be a sparkling, clear river nearby, and fruit trees on either side of the river, and golden streets to walk upon and pick the fruit. And though there is no mention of it, I think there will be beautiful flowers everywhere, and also vegetables of every kind to eat. And though we will have no needs of sustenance, everything in the garden and of the trees will have a beneficial effect on us when we eat of it—not for our health but for our pleasure and for the satisfaction in knowing that God continues to love us.
And for our variety we are told that each month for twelve months there will be a new crop of fruit. Thus, it seems that God is expecting us to eat all the fruit of the trees bare in one month. And then each month a new crop of fruit will appear. And I imagine that there will be many kinds of fruit: apples, pears, peaches, cherries, and many more.
And a side note of importance. I do undoubtedly believe that the river and the fruit trees are literal. But there is a deeper meaning here. The flowing of the river may represent the moving of God’s Spirit in me, continually living in me and empowering me. And the fruit on the trees no doubt represents the fruit of God’s Spirit always flowing in me. Hence, each time we see and hear the river and taste of the fruit, we will be reminded of what God is to us and is doing in us.
And now, what of the vegetables? Do we eat them raw or cook them? I don’t know. But we are told that the leaves of the fruit tree (or trees) will be for our healing. What does that imply? John MacArthur writes that since the Greek word for healing is translated therapia from which we get our English word therapeutic that the leaves “somehow enrich the heavenly life—if only through the pure joy of eating.”3
Yes, there is much to look forward to—endless pleasure and abundance. It is definitely true that we will enjoy Him forever.
3 John MacArthur, The Glory of Heaven (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1996), p. 115.
Stephen Nielsen 