FAITH -VS- FEAR

Fear is actually Faith that something BAD is going to happen. Yes, even Christians can have fear or be afraid. Jesus often told his disciples to “Fear not or Be not afraid.” How is it that 12 of the most powerful men in the Bible could have fear? Simply because fear is the least common denominator of human weakness. We were born with the nature to fear. Fear in its good sense is a cautionary impulse. Fear can cause people to move with caution or at best with awareness. However, in most cases fear works for our bad or harm. Why? Because fear almost always takes on the negative perspective. Fear assumes the worse and believes the worse. Therefore the evil of fear is that one will automatically believe that bad will win over good. This is how Satan uses fear to work against the believer. Fear becomes the most dangerous human propensity in a Christians life. If a believer yields to fear, the believer will almost always fail in God’s purpose and plan for the believer’s life. Fear is your enemy, not your friend.
Faith is belief that something GOOD is going to happen. Faith is the opposite of fear. Because faith is the Spirit nature inside every human. If you yield to your faith tendencies you will always see the positive outcome of everything, no matter how difficult it may seem. Faith is the belief that good will prevail over bad. There is a silver lining behind every rough situation. Faith is the God vision that looks over or beyond the present issues of life that pull one down. Faith is confidence. Faith is assurance. Faith is optimism in its highest form. Faith never lives in the past, faith always lives for the now and the future. If faith looks back, it only does so to give testimony that something good will come tomorrow. Faith will only use yesterday to give evidence that God will make a way where there is no way.
Worry is the Motivation that Fear will win over faith. Worry is the inspiration for fear to take hold of every situation and make sure the negative will win. Hence worry is the sister to fear giving fear all the moment by moment support to assure fear wins. Worry is your enemy, not your friend. Worry is not caution, worry is confidence in fear. God over and over commands us not to worry: Phil 4:6 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Matt 6:25 Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.
Now that we have a good idea of Faith – Vs – Fear than let me offer a few suggestions on how to resist fear and cling to faith. First, fear is a feeling. Therefore as with all feelings, they are usually linked to previous associate conditioning. What does that mean? It means that somewhere in our past experiences we felt afraid during certain things we went through, such as falling, exploring the unknown, or going through something unexpected. Example: A child awakes in the middle of the night and looks over in the dark across the room and hears a noise, he becomes afraid. His mind begins to try and focus to find a reason for the noise in the dark and concludes it cannot be seen so therefore it is dangerous. The heart beats and the mind races to all sorts of bad conclusions, hence FEAR associated with a feeling. In order to overcome this, we must re-link the feelings of uncertainty to faith instead of fear. When you are afraid of the noise in the dark, turn the light on, look around and your mind will answer what it could not answer and conclude that there is nothing to be afraid of, hence a calm assurance – FAITH.

By Dr Tim McClure