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I will readily admit that fear has always been a huge battle for me.

It is an area that I’m finally starting to see some real breakthrough in, but I’ve been waging this war for many, many years.

It is also an area that I come back to regularly, because it is an area where the enemy continually attacks me. And I’m learning how to defeat fear every time.

I remember the first time I ever felt paralyzing fear. I was about 10 or 11 years old. Barely in double-digits.

I had experienced my first real-life encounter with death and it terrified me.

When I say terrify, I mean that for months on end I couldn’t get to sleep for hours – sometimes I’d lay there in bed over half the night terrified at the tricks my mind was playing with me.

I would lay there stiff, terrified to move even a muscle, as I tried so hard to turn off my over-active imagination.

I would go through seasons where I would be okay, and then one small word or picture would send me spiraling back down the hole of terrorizing fear.

This went on for years.

I was in my 20’s before I began to see lasting victory over the torment in my mind. And while I no longer fear death, I am still waging the war over fear and anxiety.

But I’m learning to use these principles from Psalm 46-50 in defeating fear in my life.

7 Ways to Defeat Fear Every Time

This is a battle we must engage in.

We must not allow fear to rule over our lives, because fear is the denial of God’s sovereignty – which is His character. It is the essence of who He is.

When we fail to acknowledge His supreme power over every detail of our lives, we deny He is God.

So while the initial feeling of fear in our hearts is not sin, our failure to rule over it and defeat it is most certainly sin. The Word of God commands us time and again:

Do not fear
Be bold
Be courageous
Do not be anxious

And these are commands, they are not just good ideas for a healthy, Christian life. God has commanded us to renew our mind, take every thought captive, and to live with a sound mind as God’s children.

1. Check your heart

I want to start at Psalm 50, before we even engage in the battle against fear, and here’s why:

Before we can engage in a war, we must understand our battlefield and the strategy of our enemy. We must first answer the question: why and what?

Why am I anxious and afraid? What am I afraid of?

If we want to conquer our fear, we must go to the root of it, and the root of it is always our failure to comprehend the omniscience, omnipresence, supreme power, and sovereignty of God.

We have a lack of the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom and wisdom births in our heart a boldness and courage to face every circumstance with assurance that no matter what, God will deliver us.

Just like the three young men in Daniel 3.

They were able to say, “But if [God does] not [deliver us], let it be know to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”

Their faith in God was so unshakable, that even if God hadn’t delivered them from the fire, they would still stand firm in their faith that He is God.

So, we must first examine our hearts to find the area where we have failed to allow God to be sovereign.

2. Make a choice

Defeating fear is a choice.

It is not imparted by the laying on of hands. This I have learned by my many, many trips to the altar for prayer as a child and teen.

I just wanted to sleep peacefully, with no night terrors and no horrifying scenarios that my over-active imagination came up with to terrorize me.

But, the one thing I didn’t understand was that God had already set me free!

He set me free 2,000 years ago when He died on the cross. Now, it was up to me to make a choice to fight for that freedom.

David in Psalm 46:2 says, “Therefore we will not fear:

Even though the earth be removed
Though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea
Though its waters roar and be troubled
Though the mountains shake with its swelling

In other words, my whole world can come crashing down around my ears and I’m worse off than Job, scraping his boils with a piece of broken pottery.

Even still, I will not fear!

This verse is very similar to: “Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls—Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer’s feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills.” Habakkuk 3:17-19

These are verses that build our faith and encourage us to make the choice to stand firm, even when our legs are shaking and our knees are knocking together.

Eventually, we will begin to feel supernatural strength surge through us as we boldly declare in a strong voice, “Therefore I will not fear.”

3. Quiet your heart

“There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God.” Psalm 46:4
“He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.” Psalm 23:2

I love the imagery in these verses.

First of all, they are places: river, streams, pastures, still waters.

God wants to lead us to a peaceful place. But we have to be willing to go. We have to be willing to leave behind the drama, the noise of social media, turn off the devices, and willingly go to a place where our heart will be quieted.

I won’t lie – this can be very intimidating.

One of the most intimidating things for someone who battles anxiety is silence. Pure silence. Silence so quiet that it’s almost deafening.

Because in the silence, our fears suddenly become behemoth in stature.

But ignoring our fears with drama and noise won’t make them go away. When we get alone in silence, we will face our fears and get to a place of quiet.

And quiet it far more than silence….it is an unflappable peace.

4. Remind yourself of God’s greatness

“Come, behold the works of the LORD, who has made desolations in the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariot in the fire.” Psalm 46:8-9

One of the many reasons why it is vital for us to read the Bible daily is because it builds our faith. It reminds us of the amazing and supernatural things God has done.

Sometimes we are so blinded by our present circumstance that we even lose sight of our own testimony, but the Bible reminds us of the way God intervened in impossible ways.

Sometimes, we have to take hold of our cheeks, look ourselves in the eye, and say, “Come! Behold the works of the Lord, who has done these impossible things. And if He did them then, He can do them now!”

5. Rejoice in the victory you already have

“Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph! God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.” Psalm 47:1,5

This isn’t just a Psalm calling people to praise God, it is a Psalm of victory.

I love the Hebrew word for “clap” in verse one. It is: taqa, and it means more than just to clap your hands together. It also means to strike a blow.

The same Hebrew word was used in Judges 4 when the woman Jael won the victory over Canaan by driving a tent peg through Sisera’s temple and killing him.

The word for “drove” is the same Hebrew word – taqa.

Clapping our hands is more than just keeping time to a song, it is an act of warfare against the enemy! Each time we clap our hands, we drive him back! We drive him back!

We issue a death blow of victory!

Because Christ has already won the victory, we just need to rejoice in that and remind the enemy that’s he’s already defeated!

6. Worship

Worship is such a powerful weapon at driving back the enemy.

And Psalm 48 is such a beautiful reminder of what worship really is – an exaltation of God, a rehearsal of His attributes, an elevation of Him in our hearts.

“Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised In the city of our God, in His holy mountain. We have thought, O God, on Your lovingkindness, in the midst of Your temple. For this is God, our God forever and ever; He will be our guide even to death.” Psalm 48:1, 9, 14

As we begin to hearse in our heart who God is, what He has done, and how great and powerful He is faith begins to grow in our heart as we become more conscious of just how mighty He truly is!

7. Meditate on God’s truth

Psalm 49 is a reminder of God’s truth: we don’t have to live in fear in this generation of evil. We shouldn’t put our hope and trust in anything other than God – because wealth and power will not save us.

In my own personal life, I have found meditating on the truths of God’s Word to be a powerful tool in refocusing my mind and emotions on God.

As I meditate on Scripture, my mind is renewed and my emotions are calmed down, and peace has room to fill my heart.

In my post How Eastern Meditation Differs From Biblical Meditation, I explain what biblical meditation is.

We’re commanded to meditate on Scripture in Joshua 1:8, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

As we take time to examine our hearts, make a choice to stand in faith, quiet our hearts, rejoice in the victory Christ has already won, worship God for who He is, and meditate on His Word, we will drive out fear.

The more consistent we are in doing this, we’ll see fear grow weaker as our faith grows stronger.