When we stand still instead of run, we are in a dangerous place. When we stand still there is no victory. When we waver, hesitate, stop in fear instead of having faith, we close up to everything that could happen because we doubt instead of having faith in God. The opposite of fear is not courage or bravery, the opposite of fear is faith, and from that faith, action follows.
God did not call us to a life that stands still, His design for us is to move in the plan that He has for each one of us. He calls us to lives that are full and meaningful (Jer 29:11) and filled with purpose (John 10:10). Smith Wigglesworth was a powerful, faith filled minister of God’s word who brought healing to countless people in the 18th century. He said that: “Faith is a living principle of the Word of God. Its goal is life in the believer, it produces life in the believer and it changes life.”
We as believers are not to live in fear, but to live by faith. Romans 1:17
“For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’
We, who are made right with God through Jesus, are to be characterized as people who live by faith: both now, in this life and in eternity.
But my heart operates in fear often and in times like this, I want to shrink back because this running with God is hard! I want small, comfortable, convenient, easy going, nice, happy…
Hebrews 10:38
‘But my righteous one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back.
I Don’t Shrink Back
If I shrink back, God will not be pleased with me. He did not call me, or design me to be a ‘shrinking violet,’ but He called me to live large, expand, increase my capacity, stretch out, just as J
esus lived His life on earth. He lived an abundant life, abundantly giving himself away in order to bring life abundantly to many. I am to live like Jesus, abundantly living not shrinking back. The very next verse, following on from verse 38 above, speaks to my identity: verse 39
“But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.”
The Lord’s message to me and you is clear; we are not to shrink back from anything in our lives. When fear bullies and threatens to overwhelm us, we are wrong if we think it is OK to step back, make smaller, decrease our commitments, do less. This is exactly what the enemy wants: to get us to stop running our race. We are designed to live by faith, to expand. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” (Heb 11:6) The verse following on from verse 39 above tells us how to “shrink proof” our lives, Heb 11:1
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
We cannot see our growth. We cannot see our future. Fear would have us be blind. But faith chooses to see, faith chooses to believe that which it cannot see and says: Just watch me!
There are three good examples of living by faith and not by fear, or by sight in scripture:
- Abraham in faith would not stay comfortable, but leave to go to an unknown country because of what He believed. Despite his fear and what he could see, he set out anyway. Destination unknown.(Genesis 12:1-4)
- Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt even though he did not know how God would do it, and despite his own fear of speaking, or his regret on past mistakes, he did not shrink back to what was easier. (Exodus 3-14)
- David defeated Goliath as a shepherd boy, even though he was small, inexperienced and the armor he was given did not fit him. Despite the size of Goliath, he did not shrink back, but operated in faith.
Notice they are all old testament persons, who in faith believed, because of Who God is, not what they saw or felt. Martin Luther King Jnr said: “Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
Father increase my capacity to believe. Help me to grow so that my trust in you exceeds what I am afraid of. I choose not to shrink; to go against my natural reactions and choose to believe anyway, to do it anyway, to take the next step because I know that I do not do it alone. You are with me, you enable me and Your name will be glorified. I choose not to shrink, I choose to believe.
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