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living by fear or by faith

2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

 

When the gas light comes on in the car, do you think that you can go another 2 or 3 days?  Some of you don't.  It comes on, and you are fighting for a gas station.  You need to know me.  I've been there and done some stupid things.  More than once I have thought I had enough gas only to … run out.  That ain't fun.

 

This past Sunday I shared about confronting the fear of not having enough.  The fear of coming up short.  The fear of not having what you need.

 

In 1 Samuel 14&15 we see two different people.  One is Saul, and the other is his son Jonathan.  They responded differently to their situations.  Saul most likely lived his life in a mindset of scarcity or thinking he was about to run out of everything.  Jonathan wasn't like that.  Jonathan believed what he needed would be provided.

 

When you think you will never had enough, fear drives you to hoard everything you can, and often you will make choices that will not help you.  That is similar to what happened with Jonathan and Saul.

 

1 Samuel 15:3,9 NASB

'Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him…But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were not willing to destroy them utterly; but everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.

 

In Saul's world there was never enough.  He thought he had to gather everything he could.  But God told him to destroy everything.  Saul kept the good and got rid of the worthless which means he did not obey God.

 

Do we don't believe God and that He will provide for us?  When we don't believe God, we will find ourselves in prison without being behind bars.  What we can't let go us ties up down and holds us back.  We will struggle when we can't let go of our fear and when we can't trust God.

 

God intends for us to give it all away, our lives and all we have.  Jonathan lives very different from his father.  Saul spent his time in fear because he didn't believe in God, and Saul walked away from God's truth.  Jonathan knew who he was and who his God was.  That made a huge difference in his life and in his choices.

 

1 Samuel 14:6 NASB

Then Jonathan said to the young man who was carrying his armor, "Come and let us cross over to the garrison of these uncircumcised; perhaps the Lord will work for us, for the Lord is not restrained to save by many or by few."

 

Jonathan would not sit back and question God.  He moved forward and even did some risky things.  What he did took faith.  In fact, believing God often includes taking some risk.  Here is what happened when Jonathan lived out of faith rather than fear:

 

1 Samuel 14:14-15 NASB

That first slaughter which Jonathan and his armor bearer made was about twenty men within about half a furrow in an acre of land. And there was a trembling in the camp, in the field, and among all the people. Even the garrison and the raiders trembled, and the earth quaked so that it became a great trembling.

 

God showed up … the ground shook.  Everyone was terrified.  God was with Jonathan, and his choices changes lives.  His and others.  What is it in your life or mine that we step to step forward in?  What do we need to believe God for?

 

Our finances. Trust Him, He multiplies it back.  Our marriage or relationships.   PRAY and watch God work.  Stop picking fight with your spouse but for them.

 

Jonathan never did or said anything to benefit Jonathan.  Saul is constantly scared and hiding.  Jonathan stepped up.  Are you more like Saul or like Jonathan?  Believing God and following in faith means we will push fear aside.  Many of us need to do that today.  I challenge you to live by faith and not in the fear that you won't have what you need.  God will provide.

 

Mark 8:35-36 NASB

"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it.  "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?

Comments

Offset said…
We just went over these passages in youth group. Thanks for the reminder - trusting God, especially in finances sometimes, is so incredibly difficult.
But God always provides.
July 26, 2011 at 9:23:00 PM EDT
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