Our Text for today is:
2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
I use to think that lightning was beautiful. I remember walking the golf course with my son and seeing the lightning but having no fear. We only left the course when it got really bad. That was before I was knocked down by lightening. With a bolt from the blue my attitude changed.
Later a lightning storm came out of nowhere. I was in a building, but needed to make a run for my car. It was exactly the same run I had made a few months earlier when I had my own close encounter with lightning. As I stood looking through those glass doors I realized I was afraid. I wanted to wait out the lightning, but I girded up my loins and made the run. It only took a few seconds, but it seemed to me like the run was 10 minutes long.
The earlier faith I had that lightning would not hurt me was gone. Fear was in its place. In this story is a great spiritual lesson: Faith drives out fear or fear drives out faith.
When you are afraid you will not attempt things. When you are afraid you do not fail in your task, you fail to attempt your task. A fearful man or woman does not have the faith that he can be successful at anything. Faith for success is gone and fear has killed it.
All Godly people should remember Hebrews 11:6:
“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”.
Lonnie Davis