Tag Archive | Colossians 2:8

Choosing Faith Over Fear: A Path to Strength

Jun22
Faith overcomes fear!

In light of recent global news, I believe I am faced with two choices. I can choose to allow fear to rule my thoughts and affect my choices. Alternatively, I can choose to plant my faith firmly in God’s Truth.

.If I choose fear, a formidable fiery dart, then I can be assured it will negatively affect my health. Additionally, my spiritual/mental state, and my emotional well-being, as well. That in turn will negatively affect my relationship with my family and my friends. Considering Satan’s intention to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10a), not only my life, but my witness would be impaired. So consider this. If Satan can pick us off one by one in this way, God’s army would be facing a demoralizing threat. right!

However, If I chose faith, then I have access to the mighty weapons of God mentioned in 2 Corinthians 10:4. With those weapons, I can counter every attack of the enemy. I can according to the second part of John 10:10, have an abundant life. Now, consider the powerful force of God’s army when we access such weapons!

God’s plans always succeed. We might not believe this if we lack the knowledge gleaned from the reading of Scripture. For that is where not only are God’s plans revealed but Satan’s as well. Is it any wonder then why Satan would distract us from spending time becoming informed about God’s weapons?

Yet, with the passage of time, our enemy has, with stealth and patience, deceived us into believing daily reading of God’s word isn’t all that necessary. The result is Christians have become malnourished and just plain ignorant of how to resist the enemy. Making us prime targets for, in this case, the fiery dart of fear.

Case in Point: Recently, by God’s leading, I’ve have discovered the following Truth thought in my battle with the fiery dart of fear.

Proverbs 2:6-12a

6 For the Lord gives wisdom;
from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He stores up success[a] for the upright;
He is a shield for those who live with integrity
8 so that He may guard the paths of justice
and protect the way of His loyal followers.
9 Then you will understand righteousness, justice,
and integrity—every good path.
10 For wisdom will enter your mind,
and knowledge will delight your heart.
11 Discretion will watch over you,
and understanding will guard you,
12 rescuing you from the way of evil—…

Notice verse 10. The result of conferring with God is that wisdom will enter our minds. That very wisdom will rescue us from the way of evil.

In addition, God directed me to the following:

Col 2:8, Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world (any godless idea raised up against the knowledge of God. based on 2 Corinthians 10:5)

But know this. To avail ourselves to these truths, we must go to the source of Truth. Then plant our faith firmly in what is revealed to us there. Then Faith will rule our thoughts, not fear!

Lie or Truth/Can we tell the difference?…

May5

Today I am getting back to the basics of Fiery Darts. We are awash these days in lies. I’ve heard it said, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” (that may be a quote from Lenin but I am confident the original source is Satan himself, the father of liars. We all have been lied to so many times, we can’t easily recognize the difference between a lie and the truth. And this has been going on ever since the Garden of Eden. We are in pretty deep, so what are we to do?

Truth exists and is never changing. As Christians we know that God is Truth. The Truth that He desires for us to know is contained within the pages of the Bible. Therefore, all we have to do in order to recognize a lie is to compare it with God’s Truth. Yet, confusion reigns, generally speaking. So what’s the problem?

The following quote from my book I believe answers my question:

During a Bible study a few years ago, it became apparent that I had a problem identifying Satan’s lies. The major reason for this was that I was not familiar enough with the Truth of God’s Word. I discovered that five-minute, intermittent devotions, for years the characteristic of my time spent with God, was equivalent to not moving beyond the infant stage and drinking only milk. I had become spiritually malnourished and did not possess the strength I needed to distinguish good from evil. pp 29-30,Fiery Darts: Satan’s Weapon of Choice, 3rd edition

Here’s what it boils down to. A Christian meandering in and out of the Bible at will, won’t be familiar enough with the Truth Thoughts contained therein. Understandably, when we are confronted with a lie our lack of familiarity with God’s Truth contributes to our not being able to recognize the lie. We will fall back to what we are most familiar with to decipher the lie. And if we are more familiar with the World’s view on the subject then we will go with that.

Prayer to thwart lies:

Dearest Heavenly Father, I acknowledge that I need your wisdom to prevent anyone from taking me captive through philosophy and empty deceit (teachings that sound impressive but contain very little substance and are not grounded in Christ’s teachings) but based on the elemental forces of the world (that would be any godless idea raised up against the knowledge of God, 2 Corinthians 10:5) and not based on Christ. (based on Colossians 2:8)