No More Fear, Only Faith
Matt 14:30 – “But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord save me!’”
April and I were scheduled to minister at a Breaking Free Ministries event in Marion, Kentucky a couple of weeks ago. As the service grew nearer that evening so did the storms. April and my husband, Scott, began to say that we had better be careful because it looked like it was going to get rough. I’m not much of a weather watcher, so I usually depend on them to keep me informed. The one thing that did concern me was that we hit almost 80 degrees weather that day and then by night it was going to drop down in the 40s. In the back of my mind was February 8, 2008 - when a category four tornado took the lives of two of my family members and left a total of six others in ICU. It also leveled three houses completely down to the foundation.
My whole life, I had lived in fear. I was scared of everything from the dark to getting hurt. For the most part, fear kept me from a lot of danger, but it also kept me from doing a lot of things I wanted to do. It was almost like fear had control of me - it determined what I did and where I would go.
JESUS tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:12 (EHV) that He does not want us controlled by anything other than His Spirit.
When I became a Christian, God set me free from fear and I began to do things I had only dreamed of such as driving somewhere besides my hometown, that only had one red light at the time. I began to walk in faith instead of the counterfeit of faith - fear.
Fear is the counterfeit of faith.
The Bible states, “Do not fear,” 365 times. That is one for every day of the year, and yet, most of us walk around in fear. Why? Because Satan is doing his job with putting a counterfeit out there for faith, but we must stand on the Word and not take the bait. Satan is only producing what is in him.
In John 8:44, it tells us that Satan has no truth in him, but is full of lies. It says that he is the father of lies - so all he will produce is lies, which is the opposite of what Jesus will produce.
John 14:6 shows us that Jesus the way the truth and the life. Jesus is the exact expression of who His Father is, so all He can produce is truth. Satan created a counterfeit of the truth and called it a lie. He has done the same thing with faith.
In Hebrew 11:3, it shows us that our Father was full of faith because at His command, the whole universe was made. The very definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 is that faith is the confidence that what we hope for it will actually happen.
Satan is full of fear and that is what he will produce - fear. He will always try and get you to walk after him in fear instead of walking after Jesus in faith. In fact, the exact opposite of faith is fear.
So as I finish where I began, we actually drove straight into the storm as we traveled to Marion, Kentucky. As we traveled, God began to give April and I a message about driving into the storm. He said that on the other side of the storm is where the miracles signs and wonders takes place. We arrived safely, even though it rained so hard that we couldn’t even see at times.
The service opened and April and I were tag-teaming to preach. While April was preaching, the phones began to go off. The host assured everyone that there was a basement if it got very bad. I was still pretty calm at this point and had already made the statement that we had the authority to say peace be still in the name of Jesus. I was at the mic and the sirens began to go off. At that time, all of my faith left and fear came knocking at my door.
My mind was racing between trusting in the name of Jesus or trusting in the man-made basement to keep me safe. I was stuck between two Scriptures – ‘Don’t tempt the Lord thy God’ and ‘Peace Be Still.’ I was leaning real hard toward the first when a gentleman stood up and called all of us to our feet. He said, “Sue you just said it!” He said, “Now everyone say with me, ‘peace be still in JESUS name!’”
I wanted to crawl under a table with humiliation because my faith had left but instead I went to the door with three others and began to rebuke the wind in faith. With the sirens still blaring in my ears, I went back in. shut the door and told April to keep preaching. Within 10 minutes, we began to get news reports that something shifted and the storm was over.
Faith TRIUMPHED over fear.
We may have to do some things afraid, but as long as we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, fear has no control over us.
Faith will win every time.
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