Mistake: Fear
I have heard many people teach that fear is the opposite of faith. I see why people could say that, but I think it’s technically better to say that fear is MISPLACED faith.
A person who is in FEAR believes in an outcome that has not yet been seen. For example, you can believe that you will die from the same illness that killed your father. You have no proof that it has to happen, but that is what you see in your mind’s eye. If you dwell on that long enough, you can end up SURE of something that you can’t prove right now through any natural means. That is really what FAITH is (Hebrews 11:1). The problem with fear is that it believes something that is the opposite of what God says (in this case, that He will satisfy you with long life and take sickness away from you – Psalm 91:16, Deuteronomy 7:15).
The more you dwell on something, the more you will believe it. That works both for you and against you. If you dwell on God’s Word more, you will believe it and act on it more. If you dwell on a bad doctor’s report more, you will believe it and act on it more.
Many people who get into fear think, “I just can’t help it! If you just heard what I just heard, you’d be afraid too!” But that can’t be true. The Bible is full of exhortations to “fear not.” That means that YOU control whether you get into fear and stay in fear. All of us have opportunities to fear. Not all of us use those opportunities. The Bible tells you to think about POSITIVE things (Philippians 4:8). If you’ll do that, it will be downright hard to struggle with depression.
I believe that one reason Jesus said “Have faith IN GOD” (Mark 11:22) is that He realized that it is possible to have faith in something else, to your detriment. You have faith – the only question is how you will use it.
To avoid repeating a fairly long discussion, please click on the first link below to see how you can beat fear!
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