Heart Tracks - Faith Or Fear?

"These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." John 16:33......'Fear and faith are opposing forces and you have to turn your back on one to behold the other." Susan Larson

John 16:33 is like "Bible 101" for believers. It's likely one of the first ten or so Scriptures we're encouraged to memorize when we first begin to read His Word. Yet, how many of us really live in its truth? Jesus speaks two truths here. He says that in Him we have peace, and in the world we have tribulation. Life has certainly taught us the truth of the second. To what extent do we know the truth of the first? Which more describes our day to day living; victims of the world's tribulation, or dwellers in His peace?

I love the quote from Susan Larson used above. There may be no more powerful force of darkness than fear. It can and does paralyze us, and multitudes live captive to its power. Many, very many of them are believers, and isn't that an oxymoron? Believers in He who is Almighty, living in fear of things that are powerless before He who is Almighty. Yet so many of us do just that. I saw it once put that the great failure of the Pharisees in their inability to recognize Jesus for who He was, the Messiah, was that they did not believe the God they said they believed in. How like them we can be. He has spoken to us all that His Word calls, "His great and precious promises," yet we who say we believe in Him, give proof by our lives that we don't believe what He says. As I heard a football coach once put it, "We live in our fears." Where, and to what degree are we doing the same?

So back to Larson's quote. The force of fear wars against the force of faith constantly in our lives. As she says, for one to prevail, we have to turn our backs upon the other. Which do we turn our backs on? Which do you turn your back on? There is only one way to prevail over fear, and that is to choose, by His grace, to believe Him. Whether you have any understanding of why you are walking where you are, or what is going on while you walk, you choose to believe Him. All of us, if we truly are walking with and pursuing Him will come to the same place that Paul did in Acts, when God told him that the ship he was sailing on would sink, but that He would get Paul and every other passenger safely to shore. In the midst of a terrible, days long hurricane, Paul said, "And I believe it will happen just as He told me." Do we believe that the force of faith in His promise and life will overwhelm the force of the fear we face....every time? What will we turn our back upon, and what will we behold? Who will we behold?

Two forces are before us; fear and faith. Which do we turn away from and which do we embrace? The first never sees Him. The latter always will. Are you living in your fears, or in Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O