"The Difference Between Fear and Faith"

What’s the difference between fear and faith?  It all depends.  Let me share with you what I mean by looking at John’s first encounter with Jesus in Revelation 1.

The first encounter John has with the risen Lord Jesus begins, “And when I (John) saw Him (Jesus) I fell at His feet as dead.  And He laid His hand upon me, saying unto me, ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last.  I am he that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.’” (Revelation 1: 17-18.)

I don’t think we can fault John for falling down at the vision of the Resurrected Lord Jesus… who wouldn’t fall and become afraid? But Jesus’ words to John are very revealing about dealing with our fear.   Jesus reminds John of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done.  Jesus is the one who lived, died and now is living the resurrected life.  He has all power and authority.  It's like Jesus is saying, "Don't be afraid, John.  Remember Who I am and what I have done for you."  So how does focusing on who Jesus is and what He has done for us help overcome fear and anxiety?

Fear is rooted in thinking that contradicts the truth of who Jesus is and what He has said.  Someone has said, “Fear is: false evidence appearing real.”  The doctor’s report is bad, the job prospects look bleak or we are let down by someone close to us.  This doesn’t mean we don’t feel bad things or react to them when they happen.  But in our pain, shock or disappointment, we can’t shift our faith from the truth of Jesus to what the circumstances are trying to say to us.

Do circumstances speak to us?  Oh yes they do.  Circumstances say things to us like: “you are really on your own now, there’s no way you can deal with this, things like this always happen to you”…that’s when fear sets in and the lie takes hold.  When I believe that God has abandoned me, or God doesn’t care about me or that God may care for someone else but not me…I am trusting in a lie and I am allowing the lie to take dominion over my life.  I am trusting these lies even though Jesus is the one who has “the keys of hell and of death.”

Some would say it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere and have faith.  But that just shows we don’t understand faith.  Faith is based on something and someone.  I've heard people say, "I have faith".  When I ask them what their faith is based on I hear crickets most of the time.  They may get frustrated and say, "Well, I just have faith". So I say, "So you are trusting in the fact that you have faith?"  That's like taking the anchor of a ship in the middle of a storm and throwing the anchor on the deck of the ship.  Then we yell at the storm, "I have an anchor and I'm trusting that having an anchor will be good enough." But an anchor is only good when it is attached to something solid.

Faith is trusting in the promise of something or someone.  Our faith is only as good as the promise that our faith is based on...and a promise is only as good as trustworthiness of the person making the promise.  We can believe something sincerely but if that sincere belief is based on a lie or the word of someone untrustworthy...that kind of faith is worthless and can get us into real trouble.

Suppose I am a young boy who has an older brother who is always trying to trick me.  We watch a superman movie together on Netflix and I, wide-eyed and naive, say, “Boy, I’d sure like to fly like that.” That's when my no good older brother smiles with that cat-who-ate-the-canary grin and says, “Well, little bro, you can, you can.  The secret is in the cape.  Just pin a beach towel around your neck, jump out a window and you can fly.”  Like I said, I'm young and still gullible so I believe his word to be true.  I firmly believe that wearing a cape can give me the power to fly…that’s no problem until I act on my faith in the word of my older brother. 

Because, even though I may be very sincere in the belief that wearing the beach towel cape would give me the power to fly.  And if, for some reason, I still believe my ornery older brother can be trusted…I’m pretty sure that my sincere faith would fail me.  Especially if I decided to act on my faith by jumping out a window 20 stories above the pavement.  No matter my sincerity, as I go “splat”, my dying words might be, “I believe I can fly.”   You could put on my tombstone, “He was sincere.”  At any rate, the best I could hope for is that I’d end up on a YouTube epic fail video.

If we have faith in a lie or the word of someone untrustworthy...the reality of the world we live in ultimately brings us the pain that always comes when we rely on a lie that contradicts God's truth.  Because God's truth is given to us for life and out of His unconditional love for us.  God's truth and promises give us something and Someone solid to hold on to through the storms of life.

I have found when I am afraid or feeling anxious, the antidote is refocusing my mind and trust.  Life has ways of throwing things at us unexpectedly.  My wife, Donna and I have saying between us.  We repeat it to remind us whenever something happens that shakes us or causes us to be afraid or anxious.  The saying is: “Nothing has changed.”

Not that what has happened really didn’t happen.  But we are reminding each other that even if these things have happened…these events have not changed who Jesus is and what He has promised us.  It’s like Psalm 23 where it says, “Even though I go through the valley of the shadow of death, You are with me…”  Whatever is happening around us doesn’t change the truth that He is with us.  (Besides, the only reason we are seeing the shadows of death is because He is leading us through the valley.   And who is He…the most loving, powerful One who can handle anything or anyone in the whole valley!)

Living by trusting Him takes us to a whole different level of living that is real.  There are times when I have lived in a fantasy world and then acted surprised when that world fell apart. I thought that by living in union with Jesus I would be protected from the bad stuff.  So I tried to lose my identity in Jesus.  Jesus does not invite us into union with Him but into communion.  He invites us to be partners with Him in communion as we journey through life. 

We have not lost our identity nor have we disappeared as real live persons living in a real world.  And the real world is full of good things but it is also fallen, twisted and full of hurt.  Our communion with Him doesn’t totally make us immune to bad things happening to us.  But it does mean the bad things cannot separate us from Him and His purpose for us.  And the bad things that happen do not determine my destiny He has given me in His work in this world.  Tough times may come but He does not change and He has not abandoned us.

Just some thoughts about fear and faith.  What do you think?