When the angel appeared to the shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus, he said,

Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people (Luke 2:10).

Since Adam’s first sin in the Garden of Eden, man’s response to God’s contact with him has always been fear. This is because the sin nature in man trains him to respond in “fight or flight” mode when God first makes contact. Therefore, even though the Lord can come to us with good tidings of great joy (it doesn’t get much better than that), we can often respond with “I want no part of that” in my life.

The good news is that after we receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we receive a new nature; God’s very life that replaces our sin nature. This new nature responds to God differently than our old sinful nature. When He appears with good tidings of great joy, we receive it, embrace it, believe it, and act on it for good fruit in our lives.

Sometimes, a good response to God’s announcement of good tidings of great joy requires some retraining in our emotions. This is because the old sin nature has trained our emotions to respond with “fight or flight” to the good tidings. Even though we have the new nature in Christ, our emotions respond like we have the old nature. That said, if our emotions can be trained into “fight or flight” with God, they can be trained out of it as well, through the practice of yielding to His voice and gentle wooing of His Spirit.

If you have experienced the “fight or flight” response to God’s voice of good tidings, take heart. Many have gone before you and experienced the same thing. Many have also overcome those emotions for consistent victory in Christ.