Doubt

Thief of God's Blessings

For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shah say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith." (Mark 11:23).

Doubt is the common experience of every person on this earth. There isn't a single intelligent individual alive today who hasn't experienced doubt. Every human being that has ever lived has had to exercise control over himself because he has experienced doubt. Satan has devised many tricks of doubt and they are not always so easy to recognise as they should be. Satan is sly and deceitful. Therefore as born again believers, we must be wise to his tricks and know how to deal with them.

At this point, it might be well to come up with a working definition of doubt. To doubt means to favour an opinion, to be unsettled, an opinion or belief, to be uncertain or undecided, to be inclined to disbelief. To doubt means to be fearful; apprehensive, or suspicious, the archaic meaning of doubt is to hesitate. Working with this definition, it is fair to say that to doubt God indicates we are not sure God means what He says. We are uncertain of the outcome if we trust God. We are afraid, wary, apprehensive, and suspicious that lie may have some ulterior motive in dealing with us, rather than having our best interest at heart. There may be few people who are willing to admit to such thoughts. However, in our walk with the Lord each of us has his moments of hesitation that hesitation is an indication of doubt.

DOUBT OPPOSITE FAITH

You see, doubt is the faith of the intellectual (not the intelligent). Doubt is necessary as far as the world is concerned. Because it is the first principle of the development of reason. Doubt (reason) is the exact opposite of faith. If you are acting in faith and you try to reason, it is like playing football on a basketball court. The way of reason is of doubt and uncertainty. The way of faith is of love, believing, and confidence. We need the way of faith because in these physical bodies we are limited to our five physical senses. Each time that you pray for something you can do one of two things: First, you can believe God, act in faith and receive that answer to PRAYER, Or, you can doubt and do without. Satan knows that if he can plant a seed of doubt it will grow and cause problems. And each time Satan (doubt) wins out it builds your level of unbelief. However, each time you allow God to come through, it builds your level of trust, the Word of God will cause your faith to growl and your level of unbelief will decrease.

TRICKS OF DOUBT

We will now briefly examine some of the tricks of doubt and what to do in order to counter the attacks of doubt

WAVER

This is when Satan tries to get you to not believe just for a few seconds. It's a wear-out tactic, similar to the waves of the sea, which continually beat on the shore. The end result is James 1:8 such a man will receive nothing of the Lord. To counter this you must make up your mind before you ever take that step of faith that you are going to stick with your decision no matter what happens. Get into the habit of sticking with your decision -- that's responsibility.

OPINION

Here. Satan tries to get you to believe that it's just your opinion of what the Word of God says or the opinion of some church or someone else. For example, healing is not for today. Tongues are not for today Casting out devils is not for today, etc. The solution to this one is that you must have a definite ultimate authority THE WORD OF GOD. The problem in any circles today is that the Word of God is not always the ultimate authority. A denomination, individual, or religious group becomes the authority and they end up in trouble DON"T STAND ON YOUR OR ANYBODY ELSE'S OPINION -- STAND ON THIE WORD OF GOD!

UNSETTLED

This is similar to waver but much more subtle. This consists of many little attacks based on your feelings. You feel like it is not going to work or that the answer to your prayer may not come through. You're so bothered by the problem you find it hard to believe. It does not go away like the wave does.

2 Cor 5:7 is the answer to this one. We must walk by faith and not by sight, In other words, we walk by what God's Word says and not by how it feels or looks.

UNCERTAIN AND UNDECIDED

They are the same except uncertainty thinks about what will happen before it happens, where undecided happens after God did it. They are not sure if God really did it or not. They don't want to be unbelievers so they remain undecided. What they do not realise is that we are the ones that are being proven and not the Word of God. Therefore, our indecision classifies us as unbelievers. To counter these two, we must recognise God's stability and man's instability. The reason God allows some things to be impossible with man is because it forces a decision. GOD'S WORD IS A SURE FOUNDATION.

HESITATE

Here Satan will say things like: "Wait a minute, don't take that step of faith yet. Let us try this, have you checked this or that out yet? Are you sure you have done everything yet? Don't take that step of faith yet." TOO OFTEN, WE GO TO OUR LIMIT AND STILL DO NOT TAKE THAT STEP OF FAITH. The only way to counter this attack is to take that step of faith immediately towards God and then do it! Start confessing that it is going to happen right from the start.

FEARFUL

You'll look crazy, you'll ruin your reputation if you believe God. If you trust God, you will die! If you talk too much about Jesus Christ in public, it might be bad for your business. Don't get too excited about Jesus or they might kick you out of your church! The one single thing that is robbing the Christians of most of God's blessings is fear. Christians use the word "fear" to express themselves in almost every other breath. For example, "I'm afraid I won't do it right. I am afraid God will do something. I am afraid I will get to work late tomorrow. I am afraid I cannot go downtown with you today. I am afraid I will not get up on time. I'm afraid this is the best steak that I've ever eaten." Many Christians will not give up sin because they are afraid they cannot quit. Many Christians will not operate on the gifts of the Holy Spirit because they are afraid they cannot. Fear will make a man's hair white. Fear will make you sick. Over 80% of the people in hospitals

today are there because of anxiety, fear, tension or worry. The Bible says that fear will stop a man's heart. Fear will control a man's mind a lot quicker than logic will. THE FIRST THING THAT YOU MUST DO IS

STOP TALKING FEAR. Fear stops faith from working. Fear stops God's power from working in your life and it gave Satan license to operate in your life. Forget about what people will think of you. Believe God's Word and do it! REMEMBER, it's up to you to believe and then it's up to God to do the rest!

APPREHENSIVE

This is similar to fear but usually it precedes fear. First you become apprehensive and then you become fearful. Counter this one by daring!: to trust God. When you become a little apprehensive about believing God, just be real daring about it and leap out and believe God's Word.

SUSPICIOUS

Here Satan tries to get us to blame God for disappointments we have experienced in others. Some will compare God with their earthly fathers. Their earthly father lied so God might lie. Or, someone's mother died believing God for her healing. Now they are suspicious of God instead of realising that Satan is the killer! To overcome this you must get to know the character of God, Ask God to reveal him to you through His Word. Get acquainted with God your Father. Find out what He has done for you and what He is doing for you today! Discover His love and His mercy!

"IF" THE BADGE OF DOUBT

It identifies when there is doubt. For example, "What will I do IF it doesn't work? On the other hand, the word "if" is also used in many of the promises of God. For example in John 15:7, "If my words abide in you. "And in 2 Chronicles 7:14 we see that God is not sure what man will do ... GOD IS NOT SURE OF US

AT ALL TIMES! Therefore, one of pour goals should be to see to it that God can count on you as much as you want to be able to count on Him! God should be able to count on us to do the believing and then we can count on Him to provide the answer.

REASON

If so and so is right and if we do this and that thing or if we can accomplish this particular thing...THEN GOD CAN DO IT. However, if we cannot figure it out then God can't do it!

REMEMBER that faith and reason are different and you must decide which one you are going to go by. LEAVE FAITH OUT OF REASON AND REASON OUT OF FAITH! Don't bring faith down to reason! If after reasoning you decide you do not understand it, do not decide it can't be understood. Let God's Spirit open your understanding by faith!

INTELLECTUAL FAITH

So many people sense a feeling of security in their ability to question. It makes other people wonder if they don't know more about life than God does. Listen to those thrilling questions! They even come up with some brilliant answers and they fit together so well with reason. For example, "Man's fear is not of death but of dying. Can God create a rock so big that He cannot lift it? Divine healing isn't for today because a certain Pastor I know died at the age of 30 and preached on divine healing. We must be reasonable, after all God expects us to use good sense." (Hang on, he's ready to dump a whole bunch of doubt in your mind.) No, the Christian walk is a supernatural walk. God has commanded us to walk in the spirit, not in the sense realm. Walk by faith, walk in the spirit, walk by the Word of God and then you will have absolutely no trouble walking in this physical realm of which Satan is the god.

CONCLUSION

As you can see all the forms of doubt we talked about are close and intertwined and that is why Satan deceives so many people So, stop thinking, believing and confessing doubt in your life. Remember that those doubts that run through your mind are not your doubts until you make the decision that they will be. How do you make the decision? Proverbs 6:2 says that we are snared (trapped) by the words that come out of our mouth! You give thoughts of doubt life when you begin to speak them. Cast them out of your mind according to 2 Cor 10:5 and think on the things listed in Phil 4:8

By Jim Kaseman