Discover the TWO things that will stop your faith from working. One is covered today.

Welcome to episode 334. In this episode, we're going to talk about one of the two things that just stops faith in its tracks. But before we get started, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, if you've listened to these episodes, we're talking about faith. In the first part of these episodes, we were talking about the things that you needed to have faith. These next two episodes, we're going to talk about the two things that stop faith. And the first thing that I want to talk about is fear. Fear will stop faith dead in its tracks. You cannot have faith and fear at the same time. And I believe God makes this abundantly clear. We're going to look at a few scriptures. In the same story with the woman with the issue of blood, there was the ruler of the synagogue whose daughter was ill. She was at the point of death, and he had asked Jesus to come heal his daughter. He just had faith that if Jesus would come and pray over his daughter, his daughter would be made well. Well, we're going to pick it up in Mark 5:35-36. While he was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue's house and said, your daughter is dead, why trouble the teacher any further? As soon as Jesus heard the word spoken, he said to the ruler of the synagogue, do not be afraid, only believe. And I want to stop there. This is one of those foundational scriptures that we have. It's why I started this. It's kind of jumped off the page, if you will, that God said, look, don't be afraid, only believe. If we can just take that scripture and apply it to our lives, we will strengthen our faith immediately. If we can pull fear out of the equation— and that is why I believe the world is just basking in fear. That's why Satan uses fear. That's why the news— that's why all of the airwaves are just fear and anxiety and nervousness. Satan wants you afraid and fearful. He wants you thinking negatively all the time, because where there's fear, there's no faith. And Jesus told the synagogue's leader, do not be afraid, only believe. And this leads me into an Old Testament scripture. We've used this multiple times in It's in Isaiah 54:17. No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from me, says the Lord. The word of God is teaching us through Isaiah that there is no weapon that is formed against us. Anything that Satan brings against us cannot prosper. But we have to rise against it. We have to condemn it. I know I'm a fanatic, but when people say stuff, if I hear an ad on the radio or on the TV or anything like that, and just an example of this, I think I heard during football yesterday, day before, whenever I was watching it, and it said that the shingles, 99% of the people is dormant, blah blah blah blah blah. Well, I just bound it up in Jesus' name. I said, no, that ain't gonna happen to me. Comes in and then you start getting fearful. Oh my gosh. And you can just open the door to the enemy. He's such a punk. He comes in and tries to enter into your fear. You've got to know what the word of God says. You got to have the word of God in you. Satan is going to come against this word every single time. That's his job. That's what he does. He comes to steal, kill, and destroy, and he does it by coming against the word of God. And we've got to remember what faith is. I believe faith is our ability to reach over into the spirit realm and pull out or apply the grace of God that has been poured out on our lives. We use faith to reach over and grab the grace of God and appropriate it to our lives. And I think Ephesians 2:4-8 give us a perfect example of this. But God, who is rich in mercy, because his great love, which, which he loved us even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. And I want to stop there. The grace of God has been poured out on all humanity, on the whole world. The grace of God was poured out when Jesus said, "It is finished" on the cross. The grace of God was poured out. If you remember, the veil that separated the Holy of Holies was ripped, almost like heavenly hands grabbed this— I'm thinking this big old angel come in and just tore it. From top to bottom. It may have been the Holy Spirit, but just ripped the veil that separated the Holy of Holies in the temple of God from the people. It was ripped from top to bottom. That veil could not be ripped by earthly means. This was a supernatural tearing. That is when the grace of God was made available to us, and then we enter through the throne of grace. The Bible tells us to come boldly into the throne of grace. That don't mean we kick open the door and we go to talk to God and we say, God, here I am, this is what I've got, here's my to-do list, here's my punch list, here's my wish list. No, that means we walk in, we have access to Father God, that we can talk to him. This is so wonderful. We should never take for granted our ability to talk to Father God or to the Holy Spirit or to Jesus. And remember, in the previous episode, we talked about that we say it with our mouth. Faith is voice activated. And let's go to Romans 10:9-10, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. You confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart. You say it out loud and you believe it and you don't doubt. And we're going to talk about in the next episode, but this is a key scripture And then we're going to go to Colossians 2:6 and 7. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. We've got to be thankful. We've talked about this multiple times. As it says in Colossians 2:6, as you therefore have received Christ Jesus, so walk in him. How did you receive Christ Jesus? You confessed him with your mouth and believed in your heart. That's how we walk in faith. We confess with our mouth and we believe in our heart. We've got to speak it out, but we can't have any fear. We have got to stop fear right in its tracks. We have got to just not fear. Jesus told the synagogue's leader— I can't think of anything that would be more fearful than to hear that your daughter or your son or a loved one is dead. Why trouble God anymore? Your loved one is dead. And God turns to you and says, "Do not be afraid, only believe." And that's what I want to say right now is don't be afraid. This world is just packing on all this fear, all this angst, all this nervousness, all this division. Do not be afraid, only believe. And the only way we can believe is if we get into the word of God. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. You knew I was going to get a soapbox moment in, and I want to stop right here because I can feel myself going into the next lesson. But let's just pray. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for this listener. I thank you that you would just lead and guide and direct us We bind up fear. You have not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind. God, help us to destroy fear at its root. We bind it up and we cast out fear in Jesus' name. Lord, we love you, we thank you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com. Leave.com.