Choosing Faith over Fear

 

Philippians 4:6(NLT) tells us, “Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” Sometimes it feels as if the whole world is just one big ball of worry. Everyone seems to be anxious about something. Whether it’s a personal issue or one of the many upheavals that’s happening in the world, many people are so enthralled in worry that they’ve forgotten God’s direction in Philippians 4:6. There are some who even believe that God wants them to worry, and they spend their days conversing and thinking about all the problems. They are so accustomed to talking about problems and all the negativity going on that they become agitated if someone interjects optimism and hopefulness.

There’s a reason that God tells us not to worry, and part of it has to do with our believing the right information about Him, His power, and His willingness to help and bless us. Psalm 84:11(NLT) says, “For the LORD God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The LORD will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.” Everything that we could possibly need in life, God has already provided it! There isn’t anything that you and I desire that isn’t available in the earth already. Heavenly Father has seen to this. He is our everything and we can’t do anything without Him. It is important to God that we understand this, because if we don’t, we will not believe the truth about His love.

Many people have been taught and believe that God withholds His blessings, and that He does this as a way of punishing people. Nothing could be further from the truth. Psalm 84:11 tells us that He doesn’t withhold blessings from those who honor and trust in Him. Our God is the Creator of everything we see. Hebrews 11:3(NLT) says, “By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.” Our God spoke and things came into existence; they had no other choice. He is the truth, and He has shown us that when the truth is present, so is power.

Heavenly Father used faith to create, and He created everything in the universe to respond to and cooperate with faith in Him. When you and I are believing, acting, speaking, and thinking outside of faith in God through Jesus Christ, we are no longer cooperating with everything, instead, we are bringing ourselves in opposition to things. This is what fear is. It is opposition to the way in which God designed everything to work.

2Timothy 1:7(NLT) declares, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” God didn’t give us fear, it came from satan, and fear belongs to the devil’s kingdom of darkness. Worry, doubt, and anxiety are remnants of fear; they are all cut from the same cloth. This is one of the reasons that we should renew our minds to God’s Word, so that we can put Jesus Christ in the driver’s seat and stop allowing fear to rule our lives.

Fear runs in the opposite direction of faith, and the two never meet up. Anything that moves you and me in the opposite direction of faith is going to be a huge problem, why? It’s a huge problem because Hebrews 11:6(NLT) tells us, “And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” If God tells us that something is impossible, you’d best believe, it’s an impossibility and that is etched in stone; it ain’t never gonna happen! We cannot please God without faith!

It really boils down to what you and I believe in our hearts. Both faith and fear are fueled by what we choose to believe. Faith is the right way of believing, so it stands to reason that fear is a way of believing that is wrong. It is believing in the opposite direction of God’s truth. The kind of fear that we’re talking about here isn’t referring to our natural response to eminent danger, because this is a biological component that helps us survive. The kind of fear we’re talking about is when a person actually believes information that is contrary to what God says. They are believing it to the extent that they are continually expressing emotions and actions that support this wrong belief. Some of us are so caught up in the practices of worry, doubt, and anxiety, that these feelings have become habit patterns, and there’s not even a crack left for faith to get in. We need to change this.

Negative believing has an outcome, and it is an outcome that is the exact opposite of what most of us desire. Anxiety is not going to bring us closer to peace, unity, fulfillment, and contentment. Worry will not add one bit to our lives, but instead it will rob us of what we could have if we had trusted and obeyed God’s Word. So many people wonder why they’re not enjoying a better set of circumstances and conditions, but they’ve never taken the opportunity to examine their own thoughts, conversations, and confessions. They’ve been negative for so long that they’ve taken it on as a part of their personality. God has commanded us to break these detrimental habits and to let the love of Christ rule our hearts.

Breaking the habit of worry and doubt may not happen overnight, but we need to at least begin the process of observing ourselves and looking at how we respond to life every day. We can’t have faith and fear at the same time; we have to choose one or the other. Faith requires us to trust God! It requires us to believe what Jesus Christ said in Matthew 19:26 that all things are possible with God. We must come out of a negative mindset and renew our minds. Our prayers must be anchored in our desire to please God, and we must ask Him to help us change. Faith is the defining characteristic of God’s people, and we signal everything around us that we’re inviting Him in when we choose to have faith in His willingness and ability to bless us, no matter how things may appear. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Choosing Faith over Fear”,  written for Christian Encouragement and Inspiration© 2021. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.