Tuesday, August 31, 2010

"True Faith Delivers from Fear"

I was doing my morning devotions and came across a passage from Tozer that really spoke to me. I wish I could claim the though as original to me. Since it helped me I thought it might help some of the other guys. So, if you want to post it on the blog that would be fine.


This is an excerpt from A.W. Tozer's book Warfare of the Spirit, pages 52-53.


"No matter what the circumstances, We Christians should keep our heads. God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, of love and of a sound mind. It is a dismal thing to see a son of heaven cringe in terror before the sons of the earth. We are taught by the Holy Spirit in scriptures of truth that fear is a kind of prison for the mind and that by it we may spend a lifetime in bondage.

To recoil from the approach of mental or physical pain is natural, but to allow our minds to become terrorized is quite another thing. The first is a reflex action; the latter is a result of sin and is a work of the devil to bring us into bondage. Terror is or should be foreign to the redeemed mind.

True faith delivers from fear by consciously interposing God between it and the object that would make it afraid. The soul that lives in God is surrounded by the divine Presence so that no enemy can approach it without first disposing of God, a palpable impossibility."


So many times in my life I have been paralyzed by fear. If I chose to embrace that fear, I would either do nothing (passivity) or try to take matters into my own hands and "take care of it my way". Both approaches placed me in bondage. I am trying to learn now that when fear, or a circumstance in my life that I don't think is fair or understand, the response that brings me the most freedom is to ask God, "What are you doing in this situation and what is my response supposed to be?"

If I can live with the faith that God has my best interest at heart, whatever is happening now has a purpose that is from Him for my good. I'm not always successful in this but I am learning. Like anything else it takes practice. The more often I do this, the more automatic it gets. I have yet to experience an incident where God has NOT taken care of me. He is ALWAYS faithful.

Thanks for allowing me to share my heart.

Lonnie

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