I am new here so please bear with me if I am not in the correct thread.
I am struggling with my faith. I am literally terrified of what is happening in our world today. I tend to go through these ebbs and tides with my faith, usually when there is something going on in the world that scares me or something happening in my life is when I turn to the bible and prayer. Then after things "calm down" I tend to falter off. Do I turn to the bible and prayer because I want to "get right with God before it's too late???"
I have doubts, I have questions, I have feelings of do I really believe or do I believe because it's what I know I need to believe to get into heaven and because I've been taught and told since childhood that's what you need to do to be saved. I'm scared to death that I won't go to heaven............
I don't want to falter off again, I want to know that I'm walking with Christ, I want to feel his presence, know he's with me, I want my mind and heart to be open to hearing and understanding him. I don't want to live in fear for myself or my children or my grandchildren any longer :-(
Thanks for reading.....
Fear, the Bible says, is not of God; fear doesn't come out of the love-relationship God wishes to have with us. No, fear comes from selfish desire, actually; from a desire to protect and preserve oneself. Walking with God, though, requires that we give up all rights to ourselves. He's God, yes? He's our Maker and King and will deal with us only as such. And so, He offers us adoption into His family and kingdom only as His children, as His sheep, as His vessels, as His bondservants, as those who are under His authority and direction, who are under His control. We always deal with God as inferior to Superior; God allows no other dynamic for relationship with Himself.
So long as a person refuses this dynamic in their relationship with God, they remain a rebel toward Him, a defiant enemy rejecting His rightful rule. Fear is one result of this circumstance. The rebel knows s/he is in opposition to God, that He opposes them, and that fighting against God is a losing proposition. And so, gnawing fear develops that anticipates the day when an account must be given to God for one's rebellion toward Him, their Maker and Sustainer.
But, when a person is settled into the relationship with God for which He made them, when they are at peace with God, reconciled to Him through Jesus, and living each day under His authority and control, He moves in them to transform them so that they become bright, shining mirrors of Himself, of His love, light, truth and power. In such a life, there is peace and rest, regardless of the state of the World in general.
Many, though, just want the fear to go away; they want to feel easy within themselves, comfortable and safe, but they don't want God bossing them around, changing them, and altering the way they want to live. But God is the peace and rest He gives; He is Himself all the good things He wants to give to us. There is no separation between God's peace, love and joy and Himself; to want these things from God is to want God. As I said, though, people just want "the good stuff" from God, His peace and power, His protection, while they remain rebels toward Him in the general character of their living. This is never going to happen.
Part of the problem is that folks don't know - or believe - that God made them for Himself, not for themselves. We are all of us created to know and walk with God and when we do, we meet the fundamental purpose for which we were made. Doing so is incredibly satisfying and fulfilling in a way nothing else can be, causing us to glorify God naturally and enthusiastically, further fulfilling our created purpose.
God's way is the best way. He is greater, more amazing, more beautiful, more thrilling than anything else, as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe would be. How strange it is that so many doubt this, that they would rather play with "mud pies" of sin in a dark alley of rebellion toward God, than journey with Him to the sunshine, golden sand, blue skies and rushing surf of the seaside of life In Christ.
God uses fear of hell to bring us to Himself, knowing we won't, as the rebellious, selfish creatures we are, generally be brought by His goodness and grace. He intends, though, that when we come to Him for rescue from hell, we see His love, and mercy, and kindness in saving us, through Jesus, from ourselves. We may be moved
to Him by fear, but He wants us to be motivated to
continue with Him because we have come to know and believe the astonishing, perfect love that He has for us. When love is the ground for our walk with God, living His way is a joy, not an onerous burden, a life of peace and rest, not fear and endless striving to earn His favor.
Matthew 11:28-30
28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.
30 "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
1 John 4:16-19
16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
19 We love, because He first loved us.
Colossians 1:12-22
12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.
13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,
14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.
17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.
19 For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him,
20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds,
22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—
John 3:16-17
16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
17 "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
