Faith vs Fear

I have had conversations with friends in the past about fear. I had one person tell me they were convinced that fear was one of the most powerful tools that Satan uses against us. I have heard that there are those that believe we cannot have faith and fear at the same time, that having one cancels out the other one. That makes me pause and think for a minute and I would like for you to think about it as well today.

Our faith is in God, the Father, that He will sustain us through all difficulties. Our faith is not that He will give us what we want, but that He will give us what we need. Our faith is that He has won the war even though it may seem as if we have lost a battle. Our faith is that He will work through us to accomplish His will. We need not fear.

However, we all experience fear from time to time. Sometimes it seems so close and vivid to my life. We have a tendency to try to do things without God’s help. We tend to worry over things instead of giving them to God. We tend to do things impulsively, without praying about them first. I don’t like to think about how many times I’ve decided I could take care of things myself, or how many times I ended up “fearing” the consequences of those decisions.

Interestingly enough, I looked on the Internet on a site and asked how many times "fear not" or "do not be afraid" was found in the Bible. According to the internet site that was returned, it said that these phrases were actually found 366 times. Let's see......there are 365 days in a year, except when there is leap year, then there are 366 days in a year. I wondered then, if there was any connection between "fear not" and the number of days in a year. Perhaps, what I need to take from this is that each day, I should not be afraid as I know I am in my Father's hands. Then I looked at faith and the word faith or the concept of faith is mentioned a total of 528 times. What's the message there? We are to have faith instead of fear.

The point isn’t really that we will have no fear. No matter how hard we try, Satan will make sure that we do. The point is that we recognize what fear is, where it comes from, and know that all we have to do is take it to God and lay it at His feet.

This is where the real faith comes in.

Have a "faith filled" week....