"Fear not" - Jesus most oft-spoken command

[NickHolt]

At least 20 times in the New Testament, Jesus told those he encounterd, "Fear not!," or "Do not be afraid."

 

His second most fequent command - and the one He identified as the "greatest" command - is to love God and neighbors (short version) - shows up about 8 times.

 

In these troubled times, I sometimes find myself getting anxious about the future, but then I just bow my head and repeat the one command Jesus made more than any other - "Fear not." And if I'm still fretting over stuff, I read what Jesus himself said in Matthew 6:25-34:

 

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ...