Faith is a stand. To stand in faith means we will not be shaken, moved, displaced or uprooted. The ability to stand firm in faith depends on the depth of our roots. Roots lie beneath the surface. How deep your faith goes into Christ, how deeply rooted you are in Him will determine whether or not you withstand the storm.
Faith is also a walk. It is a lifestyle: ‘The just shall live by faith’. It is not a vague notion or passive acceptance of whatever comes our way. That is blind superstition. ‘Que sera sera’. That is not faith! Faith is something far more empowering! Faith is active, faith is decisive. We exercise faith, we operate faith and it produces a result. And we release faith by speaking it. When faith moves; the ‘immovable’ moves! The ‘facts’ change. Circumstances respond, situations change. The impossible becomes possible!
Faith is the entry point to the supernatural. Without faith we cannot know God. And without knowing God we cannot have faith, because faith is from God. Faith is God’s own ability. Everything God does, He does by faith. Faith is the language and the currency of heaven. Just as fear is the language and the currency of hell.
There are many definitions of faith; one is that faith is the ability, given by God to man, to believe in the supernatural. That is: to believe beyond the natural, beyond reason, to believe for the impossible. It goes beyond human reason, logic and ability. Faith is a gift from God; and it is the ‘faith of God’ that we partake of - i.e we operate in the faith God operates in and in the same way He operates in it! Wow!
Faith is a rest. ‘Be still and know that I am God’ is actually a reprimand to the nations and peoples of the earth not to be agitated, raging and turbulent but to be silent in reverent awe before the Almighty. When Jesus calmed the storm and commanded the wind to ‘be still’ - that literally meant ‘shut up’! He was rebuking the raging of the wind. We cannot be in faith, we cannot see God move and show that He is God unless we obey the command to ‘be still’.
Faith is not an option, it is a command. It is not a suggestion, it is a requirement. To be in unbelief, to stay in anxiety and fear is simply disobedience. Faith trusts God and trust requires a letting go. God expects us to trust Him! He expects us to have faith!
Anxiety is nothing more than a refusal to relinquish control. We cling to the situation by meditating on worry. We find strange ‘comfort’ in covering every anxious thought imaginable. Worriers are often very intelligent people! But they think too much! I’d rather be simple. Over-thinking canexclude you from receiving the Kingdom like a child! Why do we find false security in meditating on the problem - as if that makes it somehow more manageable and tolerable?!
Anxiety is a choice to yield to those out of control, irrational and often contradicting thoughts and emotions. It’s a state of agitation and unrest. It’s a refusal to trust God. It’s choosing fear over faith. It’s rooted in unbelief: which is a sin. But it’s something of a pet that we love to be soft on. But sin is sin. Not popular or seeker-friendly, I know!
Quite recently I heard someone say: ‘Telling someone not to fear is like asking them to fly…They just can’t do it’. But the phrase: ‘Do not fear’ (or ‘fear not’) appears 365 times in the Bible! (That’s once for every day of the year!) Jesus commands us NOT to fear! Why? Because He himself makes that doable for us because He takes the fear and the burdens off us! He breaks the yoke, the bondage of fear. A child of God is no longer a slave to fear - unless they want to be! ‘’O but you’re wrong Jesus, you don’t understand, I’ve got anxiety’. You can keep your anxiety if YOU choose to! Or you can come to Jesus, give him your yokes and burdens and find rest. Will you relinquish control of your life, all your cares to Him?
If we stay in anxiety we run around in circles with no exit strategy. We can’t get a grip, we fan the flames of panic and invite fear to take over. Then we submit to the rule of fear rather than the divine order and peace of God. This restless mental torture is not for the child of God! Fear is a spirit. The spirit of fear will imprison you and take your mind captive. Fear wants you to agree with it by getting fearful. It you submit to fear, you open the door to oppression, to darkness and to torment. Fear is from hell! Don’t entertain it! Don’t let it in!
Slam the door on fear! Rebuke thoughts of fear! Refuse it! Submit to God, not to fear!
‘Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you’. Tell fear to get out of here!
The best antidote to demonic fear is the have the ‘fear of the Lord’. If we have the fear of the Lord, we will be innoculated against the fear of evil! We will have divine immunity to the spirit of fear. The fear of the Lord does not mean a phobia, it means reverential fear, honour, respect and awe.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and he delivers them’. This scripture came to me one night when I felt an attack of the spirit of fear wanting to come upon me. It came just at the point I was about to drop off to sleep. It was like a tangible force field. The spirit of fear was creeping around and it had to be dealt with or it would mean a disturbed night. So I immediately began to declare that scripture, and pled the power of the blood over myself and each member of my family. I rebuked fear and declared Psalm 23: ‘Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me…..’andPsalm 91: ‘I shall not fear the terror by night….no evil shall befall me neither shall any plague or calamity come near my dwelling….for you give your angels charge over me.’’
God has not given you a spirit of fear but a spirit of power, love and a sound mind’. Three things overcome the spirit of fear: the power of the Holy Spirit, knowing (really knowing) the love of God and having a sound mind or ‘self-control’ / ‘self-discipline’.
The power of God! That is not human might! ‘Not by power, not by might but by my Spirit says the Lord’. He puts his power in us and it causes us to speak to the mountain: ‘Be moved!’ ‘You shall become a plain!’ The Spirit of faith is power and authority given to us by God!
The love of God: ‘There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear.’ There is no room for fear when we are filled with the love of God! Love and fear can never co-exist.
A sound mind: We need to garrison our minds against fear. We can’t be like a city without walls. Fear comes in through the mind. Through suggestion, through thoughts and if allowed entry will then move on to attack the heart and ultimately turn that heart to a heart of fear. That is a fear-filled person. Someone controlled by the spirit of fear. They need deliverance from a spirit of fear. That was me 20 years ago: a demon called ‘fear’; let’s be clear - a demon that audibly named itself ‘fear’ - specifically ‘fear of rejection’, that was rooted in my life to the point where it was part of my personality, manifested itself and came up to the surface. It was cast out with the help and prayer of a loving sister in the Lord who knew how to exercise authority! And yes, I was already a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian!
Root fear our of your life! Stop living with it! Renounce it! Stop burying it and denying it. Pull it out by the roots! Tell every root of fear in your life: ‘I curse you! Be dried up from the roots! Be removed from my life right now in the name of Jesus!’ And be filled with the Holy Spirit! He will cause the love of God to be ‘shed abroad’ in your heart and throughout your whole being - giving you a spiritual detox from the poison of fear in your system. All residue of fear will be flushed out of your thinking, your emotions, your reflexes, even your physical body, by the Holy Spirit!
Declare: ‘Faith over fear!’ Decide to go forward in faith. From faith to faith! Don’t shrink back and yield to fear as many are being tempted to do at this time. You must determine to press forward. Jesus warned that in the End Times many would abandon the faith and fall away. Don’t let that be you! Strengthen your inner man. Build yourself up in faith by praying in the Spirit and you will go from faith to faith. If you don’t use it, you will lose it! You must exercise your faith, you must extend your faith, you need to constantly be hearing a fresh ‘Now Word’ from heaven to have faith for what your facing now! Yesterday’s faith will not work for today. You need to go to a higher level of faith. We can’t stay still, we can’t stay where we were in our walk of faith. It’s by definition a walk. We mustn’t stagnate. It’s forward in faith or backslide in unbelief. Stay alert and fight the good fight of faith! Fight against the spirit of unbelief that wants to steal your faith. Resist it or your eyes will close and you will no longer see, you will no longer care and Jesus will no longer be real to you. I have seen this happen to people and it breaks my heart. The spirit of unbelief leads to the spirit of apostasy and many are dropping their faith as Jesus prophesied. So let us be diligent to cherish, nurture and develop this precious gift called ‘faith’.
I pray right now that you will receive an increase in the power of supernatural faith! Lift your hands and receive it! In the name of Jesus I release and impart to you now the spirit of faith. Take it! I declare an upgrade and an increase in your faith now!
By the Spirit of faith, rise up now and rebuke fear. The spirit of fear recognises the spirit of faith and has to obey it! Like the wind and waves obeyed Jesus!