God said “Do not fear”  365 times in the Bible – that’s a “do not fear” for every day of the year. If He said it that many times, He was obviously trying to bring across a very important message!
From a medical perspective, fear is a lethal poison: in fact fear, anxiety and stress is the foundation of over 100 major incurable illnesses, including many cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure. We were warned about this in Luke 21:26 which says, “In the last days men’s hearts will fail them because of fear.” Medical research confirms this is true – many diseases of the heart are listed as stress related conditions which according to the WHO is the number one cause of deaths world-wide today.
James 1:22 says that we must be doers of the Word and not just listeners only. High blood pressure can develop as a complication of other diseases, for example kidney problems. However the primary disease called Hypertension specifically follows a profile of people who fail to be a doer of the Word in the following Scripture where Jesus said “Do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own” Matt 6:24. Often the fear of the future that causes high blood pressure is related to finances.

Disease begins in the spiritual realm
Where did those toxic disease-making thoughts of fear come from? Who taught you to be anxious and to worry about what could go wrong tomorrow? These thoughts were not originally your own, they came from the spiritual realm described in Ephesians 6:12: “For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood but against principalities, powers of darkness and spiritual forces of wickedness in the Heavenly (supernatural) sphere.”
In this Scripture, Paul described an invisible kingdom that answers to satan known as principalities, powers of darkness and spiritual forces of wickedness…or we could say ‘evil spirits’, one of which is mentioned in 2 Timothy 1:7: “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.” What the Word of God is showing us here, is that fear is not primarily a thought or an emotion, it is a spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 also explains that as humans we consist of three parts: spirit, soul and body.
That spirit of fear wants to put disease on you because the devil’s nature is to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). However Proverbs 26:2 says that the curse without a cause cannot come. The devil knows that he is not able to put a disease on you, unless he can persuade you to disobey God’s Word. So all he needs to do is to train you in another way of thinking which is opposite to the Word of God, so that you follow a different Gospel which is what Paul called the law of sin in Romans 7.

Thoughts come in the first person
How the devil tempts us to sin is by lying to us and deceiving our thoughts. The enemy always speaks to you in the first person so as to deceive you into thinking that it was your thought, and you don’t even realise that it is the invisible kingdom speaking lies to you.
For example a spirit of fear is not going to put thoughts in your mind which say: “Hello, this is the spirit of fear speaking to you. I come from the devil and he told me to tell you to worry about whether or not you are going to make it financially this month.” If it was that blatant, you would never listen to his lies. Therefore he wants to deceive you: to tempt you to worry and get you to speculate about what could go wrong in the future, he gives you those thoughts in the first person, for example, “I am so stressed because I don’t think that I am going to have enough money at the end of the month! I’m so worried because I don’t know how I am going to pay the rent etc.”
Because those thoughts came in the first person, you think that they are your thoughts and feelings. And so you follow that way of thinking as if it were you and you become fearful, anxious, worried and stressed. All along, the enemy is training your thought life to be afraid and to worry, all just to violate that one Scripture in Matthew 6:34 where Jesus said to give no thought for tomorrow.
Fear is a sin
When the Bible says not to worry or have anxiety about tomorrow, was that a suggestion or a commandment? We think that sin is only the big, obvious issues such as murder or adultery, but what about the more subtle, socially acceptable sins in our heart and thought life – like worrying? Sin is disobedience to the Word of God.
When tourists come to Africa they are warned about the ‘big five’. But there are far more people dying of malaria than attacks by elephants, lions etc. In the same way,  ‘mosquito sins’ like fear are taking us out! Most of us don’t really take the Bible that seriously when it says not to worry and to be anxious for nothing (Phil 4:6) and so you fall under the power of satan’s lies.

Do you have toxic mind-set of fear?
As you continue to listen to those fear-filled thoughts and to meditate on them, you begin to develop a toxic mindset of fear. Notice we have moved from the level of the spirit to the level of the soul (which consists of your mind, will and emotions).
As you spend time worrying, you are building a long term memory of fear in your brain. So that fear is now a part of you physically, and you have become one with the spirit of fear in spirit, soul and body, which by its fallen nature wants you to think that God can’t take care of you and therefore you need to worry about tomorrow.

You develop a disease as fear becomes a part of you physically
That long term memory of fear stimulates a stress reaction in your body, during which there is an imbalance between two nervous systems called the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system becomes overactive and it over stimulates the blood vessels causing them to constrict and become too narrow. So now you have the same volume of blood that has to flow through a narrower space and that increases your blood pressure so that it becomes too high.

Defeat high blood pressure!
This knowledge is not just for those with high blood pressure, but for the rest of us because the same principles you have to apply to bring healing, are the same principles that if you learn them now and apply them to your life now, will prevent disease.
You can defeat high blood pressure and even better you can prevent it, if you understand how satan’s kingdom and the spirit of fear speaks to you…and if you can understand the pathway of disease and how it develops through the spirit-soul-body connection. I will continue on this topic in the next issue.  
 
By: Michelle Strydom
Dr. Michelle Strydom founded Eagles’ Wings Ministries. Enquiries for her materials (Books and DVDs), or to book her for a conference, please contact Charmaine: 082 920 7826 / cj.eagleswings@gmail.com. See www.eagleswings.co.zw for free resources and articles.
REFERENCES:
 

Cardiovascular Psychiatry and Neurology; Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego. Cardiovascular Disease and Psychiatric Comorbidity: The Potential Role of Perseverative Cognition. Britta A. Larsen and Nicholas J. S. Christenfeld. Volume 2009 (2009), Article ID 791017, 8 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2009/791017
Psychotherapy in Australia; Mind, Body and Heart: Psychotherapy and the Relationship Between Mental and Physical Health; Matthew Bambling; Volume 12, No 2, February 2006; http://www.psychotherapy.com.au/fileadmin/site_files/pdfs/ebambling.pdf
Cardiac Diseases and Anxiety Disorders; Cicek Hocaoglu, Cagdas H.Yeloglu and Selim Polat Rize; University Turkey; http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/18338.pdf
Source: Stress | University of Maryland Medical Center. http://umm.edu/health/medical/reports/articles/stress#ixzz3hD0GTeA3. Last Reviewed on 01/30/2013. Reviewed by: Harvey Simon, MD, Editor-in-Chief, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Physician, Massachusetts General Hospital. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc. (This site references a further 19 medical journals showing the relationship between stress and heart disease)
American Heart Association: ”Stress and Heart Health.” Office of Women’s Health: “Other Possible Heart Disease Risk Factors.” Reviewed by James Beckerman, MD, FACC; October 08, 2014 WebMD, LLC. http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/anxiety_and_physical_illness; July 1 2008