Reflections

Getting rid of fear

The very first word of the Gospel was the voice of the angel saying 'fear not' and the very first words of Jesus after His resurrection was, 'Have no fear' . Between the the first word and the last the constant concern of Jesus was to help men and women find release from fear.

Fear has three things against it:1. it produces sickness and disease

2.it paralyses human effort 3. It is counterproductive.We are made in our physical and mental make-up for Faith and confidence, faith builds us up but fear breaks us down.When God made us in the beginning, He designed us to function in accordance with love, so that when love motivates our being our bodies function in line with its destiny. When we try to make it run on any other ingredient, then it will refuse to function- and rebel. Love deprived children grow up to be extremely fearful, because when love flows out fear flows in.

How can we reduce fear to the right proportion and place this dreaded enemy of mankind to its right perspective? There is only one way. We reduce it to its proper size when we set it against the goodness and Greatness of our loving God. Set against His Almightiness every fear is brought into perspective and shown to be the evil it is. When love flows in, fear flows out. Take a fresh look at God's unending love for you as He demonstrasted at Calvary, and in the knowledge that He did all this for you, watch all your fears melt away.

Reflections

Coping with difficult circumstances

Why does God sometimes guide us into dark and difficult circumstances? Lets face it-some

circumstances that befall us are so filled with horror that it makes us dumb, and when speech

returns the first question that crosses our lips is does God guide us?

We must cling to the underlying truth that God's highest will for our lives is to make us like His

Son, Jesus Christ, and if so, to achieve that, God has to let us go through deep and difficult circumstances then He will do so- but not without first supplying us with enough grace which enable us not just to bear our problems, but to use them. God never allows what He can't use,

and you can depend on it that if God guides your life into difficult circumstances it is because He sees in that a way by which He can make you more like His Son Jesus Christ.

If transforming us into the image of His Son is God's chief aim, then should it surprise us that He does not intervene when we ask Him to deliver us from pressure? One thing is sure- He 

will never allow us to go through anything which we are not able to bear, and He matches a special supply of His grace to our every need. Some of the sweetest souls we know are those who have passed through the deepest trials and difficulties, yet by their willing response have

transformed their hurts into spiritual qualities which enrich their characters and remind us, as we look at them, of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.