Fear vs Faith: The Real Fight

What are you convinced of?

"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death, nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow - not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love" Romans 8:38

I have heard fear described as "False Evidence Appearing Real"; a very accurate description.Since the beginning, our enemy has presented experiences, boundaries and pain as "evidence" against God's complete goodness.

In the third chapter of Genesis, the snake points to the limitation of a single tree as "proof" that God was a withholder, with a dark motive. Here, the spirit of fear was planted; twisting Eve's sense of perception. God had generously surrounded them with lush, beautiful, vegetation. The forbidden tree, in the middle of that garden was an opportunity to choose obedience, each time they passed it. To love God is to obey Him. The boundary cultivated a right relationship with the God who created, provided for and loved them. Fear is the lie against God's goodness. When Eve was convinced of the lie, sin made sense to her and in self-preservation mode (a natural byproduct of fear) she ate.

Fear is the lie against God's goodness.

This is exactly how the spirit of fear works today. Our enemy, the Father of Lies, tries to convince us that the presence of pain equals the absence of a good God. Throughout scripture, we are told that suffering would be a part of everyone's existence, this side of heaven (John 16:33, 1Peter 5:10, Job 5:7). Satan tries to rob our faith in God's complete goodness, with faulty information. He accuses, then uses the fear spirit to shift our focus to a limited, incomplete view of truth. If we are not fully convinced of God's total, sovereign goodness, we will be easily distracted and influenced. Once we begin to operate out of the spirit of fear, we lose power, love and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). We feel powerless over sin, unloved by God and begin to make poor decisions. The fight between fear and faith begins with a single shift of focus.

Fear: Focusing Evil Awaiting Repeat

If the enemy can convince us that God is not completely, constantly good; he will then draw our attention to his false evidence against Him. He will send thoughts, memories, pictures, amplified emotions - anything to get us to hone in on this manipulated view. Like putting on a pair of binoculars, we will magnify this limited perspective and begin to anticipate more of the same. We activate and enforce the spirit of fear by Focusing Evil Awaiting Repeat. Fear is the opposite of faith. It is backwards and only believes what it has already seen. Eve's shifted focus from obedience caused her to gaze at the restricted fruit (Genesis 3:6) and she became convinced that disobedience would benefit her. Fear is based on a lie. Faith is the full, clear view of reality. Faith is based on truth.

Faith is facing, accepting, initiating thoughts of hope.

Fighting the spirit of fear is putting down the binoculars. It is the act of refusing to magnify the modified, manipulated aspect of a situation and taking in the full outlook; believing and recounting God's mercies.

When we are Facing, Accepting, Initiating Thoughts of Hope, we are activating our faith.

Facing: Faith is seeing the whole picture. It is becoming intentionally aware that both evil and blessings have come to us. Therefore, even though we know pain will continue to be a part of our existence, so will goodness.

Accepting: When we accept that pain is a part of life, we can choose to lose the fear of it and walk in the truth that God is merciful, faithful and will be with us to help and give us strength to overcome anything we face.

Initiating: When we put down the binoculars of fear, we take authority over our senses. We take our power back.

Thoughts: Because we have the mind of Christ, we have the ability to choose which thoughts to dwell on, or to dismiss. We can choose to make an account of blessings; our own evidence log of God's goodness. These thoughts help us to stay focused on the truth; that we are loved faithfully, and consistently by the God who loved us first.

Hope: Gratitude, along with our full view of reality; builds our hope in God. It changes us from being mesmerized by despair to recounting God's faithful provision throughout the seasons of our lives. This fuels our faith because God does not change. He was is and will always be, a good God. Hope is belief with expectancy.

Fight for focus.

May you become focused and fight the good fight of faith, believing in God's constant, thorough, unchangeable goodness, in Jesus' Name.

All rights reserved Veronica Jimenez, Sound Mind Awareness ©2014