Hebrews 10:35-39(NKJV)
35Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. 36For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: 37 “For yet a little while, And He who is coming will come and will not tarry. 38 Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.” 39But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
As we have studied Israel’s transition from Egyptian slavery to nationhood in Canaan, we have been focusing on the need to overcome fear. When they were faced with the Red Sea in front of them and the Egyptian army behind them, their only hope was faith in God. They could not walk in this faith if they allowed themselves to be dominated by fear. We are in the same position today. We need God to move on our behalf, but there are major forces whose aim is to stir up fear in our lives. We must not allow fear to dominate us. We have much too much to accomplish with our faith.
These verses in the book of Hebrews point us to part of the solution. Verse 38 tells us the just shall live by faith. What does this mean? If you have a job that pays you money you say that that job is how you make your living. That means that the job is how you put food on the table. It is how you pay for shelter. It is the source of all you need to live. That is how we use this term in the natural. In the spirit we use the term to “live by faith” in the same way. We depend on faith in God for all we need to live.
To live by faith means that we see everything through the prism of the reality of God and his willingness to move on our behalf. We see everything through eyes that say, “If God is for me nothing can be against me” and “Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.” We depend on faith in God to make the difference in every situation. This produces a lifestyle of confidence and optimism.
Fear is a force that works in a similar way only it flows from the opposite end of the spectrum. Fear looks at the bad things in life and focuses on how we must avoid them. Faith focuses on the goodness of God and how we can walk in it. Fear says I must hold on to all I have so I will not do without in my old age or in difficult times. Faith says God is my source of supply so I will give. If I give it will be given back to me when I have need.
The just shall live by faith but the world lives by fear. Just watch or listen to the news. The focus is always on what is bad. They will spend days and weeks talking about the latest tragedy or disaster and a few minutes talking about something good that may be news worthy. This is not by coincidence. The devil’s power is based in fear. God’s power is based in Faith. The devil has always tried to use fear to dominate the earth. In the end, however, faith always prevails.
How can we walk by faith in a world focused on fear? The first thing we must do is feed the one we want to dominate our lives. Faith comes from the Word of God. Fear comes from the word of fear. We cannot turn off the voice of the world completely, but we must balance the voices we hear. Jesus said in Mark 4:24 take heed or be careful of what you hear. The amplified bible says the degree of thought or study you give to the truth you hear will be the degree of power you get out of it. If we want to eliminate fear and build faith we must begin to “hear” more of the word of faith and less of the word of fear.
The verses above give us some other keys. We need to be sure and not “cast away” our confidence. The only confidence we have is faith in God. It is the only truly sure thing in the world. We are being exhorted not to turn to natural things when faith doesn’t seem to be working out for us.
Verse 36 tells us we need endurance. We are in this for the long haul. Sometimes faith takes time. We don’t see changes right away. We need to commit to the road of faith. In the end we will see the fruits of faith come to pass. Often they will not look the way we expected. They will meet the need in ways we didn’t expect and sometimes in ways we didn’t think we wanted, but the needs will be met.
It says here that God has no pleasure in those who draw back. We must not give in to the message of fear that the world constantly preaches to us. We must not draw back in fear but press ahead in faith. Like the Hebrew children faced with the fiery furnace we must say, “Our God will deliver us, but if he doesn’t we still won’t bow to fear.” God will deliver us, but we must make the decision that no matter what we see we will not give in to fear and draw back from God.
When we take this attitude fear cannot win over our faith. We will trust God to the end. What if we die trusting God? We had better not die any other way. Death and life are what this is all about. I like to say, “The worst thing the devil can do to us is the best thing that will ever happen to us.” Death is not an end to be feared for a Christian, but a beginning to be anticipated. Praise God!
Take some time this week to change your focus. When you hear the news, think of the how it is affected by the fact that God is alive and exists. When you look at your own circumstances begin to meditate on the promise of God and the infinite ways God could bring about positive change. Reject a fear focused life and take hold of a life focused on God and the difference his presence makes in everything.
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