The angel said to them, "Don't be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be to all the people.
The very thing which God desires for His elect ones is that they may become like little children. It is this which His Spirit works in His chosen ones; it is to this that we must come if we are to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints. Cringing fear is so opposed to the childlike spirit that it is just like the poison of a cobra to it. Dread and fear brings out everything in us that is of the “man” rather than of the “child,” for it stirs us up to resist the object of our fear. An assured confidence in the goodness of God casts out fear and brings forth everything that is childlike in us. A child easily and naturally trusts in a good and generous father, and if I, a poor, weak, feeble child, conscious that I am such, knowing that I am all foolishness and weakness, can just believe in my good, great God, through Jesus Christ and come and trust myself with Him, and leave Him to do as He likes with me, believing that He will not be unkind, and cannot be unwise; If I can wholly rest in His love and be obedient to His will, only then will I have reached the highest point that the creature can reach; the Holy Spirit will then have brought about His finished work in me, and I will be fit for heaven. Beloved, it is because fear opposes this, and prevents this, that I would say with the angel, “Do not be afraid” 