He tries to twist the rules of faith so that your faith is not in God and in His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, but in your own focus, circumstances, and in your own abilities.
If Satan can accomplish that then you are going to find yourself experiencing doubt, unbelief, and fear. So in every situation begin the day with a meditation of the grandeur and the power of the Creator of the Universe.
Then confess that:
Greater is he that is in me, than He that is in the world. God has not given me the spirit of fear, but power, love and a sound mind.As a trader in the commodity pits, I would start every day with this focus and discipline.
My God is a good God and He loves me. If the devil can't steal my joy, he can't get my goods/my money. I have the mind of Christ and the Wisdom of God.
I hear the voice of my Father and the voice of a stranger, I can't even hear. Holy Spirit, guide me into all truth. I am a tither and I give to every good work. I call on my covenant.
Do you know that even after praying like this, there were times when fear would grip me? At some point in almost every trading day, I would get confused and lose my count and not know where I was and fear would come in.
The market would be moving and I didn't even know whether I was long or short the market. Sometimes, I wouldn't even know where the market was trading.
The fear would sometimes get so strong that it was almost impossible to assess my position without getting far from the fray. (This could be very costly as the further away I got, the longer it would take to get back once I figured out how I was positioned. Every second mattered.)
At other times, opportunities would present themselves that were so huge that just the size of the opportunity caused me to shiver. This kind of fear is easily remedied by trying to seize that trade/opportunity in small bites.
Still, when I would be presented with the opportunity I could feel that old familiar adversary trying to cause a stoppage of the thinking process.
As I would come upon this kind of fear more and more over the years my bites would get larger and my capacity for risk would increase and the fear that would accompany it could be readily, if not easily, managed. Still the fear would come.
The greater one lives on the inside of you. The adversary does not live inside of you. Faith comes from Him, if you have His faith or, as the Gospel of Mark would say the God-kind of faith.
Therefore, faith is bubbled up from within. Fear grips you from the outside. It has to be resisted. It isn't natural to you. You can keep it out. But you will never keep it out if you allow it to surprise you.
You must know that fear will attack every time you step out of your comfort zone to do great exploits for God. Brace yourself, but jump anyway. Act on the faith, but know Satan will throw doubt, unbelief and fear at you in the middle of your jump.
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