by Rose Murdock

Do you ever wonder if the voice you are hearing or the "feeling" you feel is the voice of fear, doubt or God?  Do you ever confuse them?  Let me give you an example.  You sense that God is leading you to start a business.  You have spent time in prayer about it and you decide it’s what the Lord wants so you go ahead with it.  As things get under way you hit some tough times financially.  You read in the Bible where it says that God’s desire is for you to prosper and that His covenant with you through Jesus Christ includes provision and wealth.  You begin to meditate on those scriptures.  You have a dream and hope for your business to be successful.  You continue to study the Word of God concerning your provision and prosperity.  You’re making confessions of your faith.  You’re speaking your faith and you’re becoming more and more confident that things are going to work out.  But as time goes on it doesn’t look like the bills are going to get paid.  It doesn’t look like business is coming in.  You begin to fear.  You begin to worry.  You begin to doubt whether it was really God leading you to do this.  You become confused and wonder if God is trying to tell you that this wasn’t His will for you.  Your confidence that was once strong is beginning to be shaken.  What voice is right?  The one that says you missed it or the one that says you didn’t?  But if you didn’t miss it then why are you having all the trouble?

It doesn’t seem like we should have trouble recognizing the voice of God does it?  We tell ourselves that we should know God well enough to be able to tell when it’s Him talking to us right?  Not necessarily.  But the problem is not always because we can’t distinguish these ‘voices’ from one another, it’s because we lack the confidence and courage necessary to believe that God will not let us down.  It happens when we begin to give our attention to something other then the Word of God.  When we do that we begin to listen to the voices of fear and doubt.  The voices of fear and doubt scream loudly at you as soon as you take your attention off the Word of God.  They are there to try and convince you that you need to pay attention to them.

When Peter was walking on the water he began to look at the waves and became afraid.  The waves were screaming at Peter, "Look at me!"  In the same way, when your attention comes off of the Word of God and onto the troubling circumstances around you the voice of fear will say, ‘Look at all these bills.  Look at all these due dates.  Now look at the checkbook balance.  You’re going under.  You’re going to sink. What are you going to do?’  You have a choice right then of yielding to the fear or getting your eyes back on the Word of God and responding in faith.  But if you don’t know the Word then you will respond the only other way you know how—with your head—with your own reasoning or with your emotions.  Because of a lack of the Word of God your faith is weak and your own mental or emotional reasoning's respond in fear and bring you to a place of doubt.

30: But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. Matthew 14:30

Peter initially stepped out in faith on the Word of Jesus, "Come."  So whatever it is that you are praying for, it must be based on faith in the Word of God.  There’s no sense in even venturing out there if you don’t have the Word of God to stand on.  The Word is full of promises.  One scripture tells us how to make our way prosperous and successful (Joshua 1:8).  Another tells us how we can have everything we do shall prosper (Psalm 1:1-3).  So you have to start walking by faith in the Word.  Peter did that initially, but then he looked at the waves around him and began to fear.  Fear will tell you that you must have missed it.  Maybe God didn’t really want this to happen.  And by continuing in that kind of thinking we will eventually lose our courage to continue.  This applies not only to starting a business or in the financial realm but also with any of God’s promises.  Take healing for example.  You can apply this to receiving healing as well.  You believe the Word says that Jesus carried your sickness as well as your sin and you start out strong and confident.  But then if symptoms continue for a while you may begin to look to them and to the doctor’s reports and get your eyes off the Word of God.

Peter took his attention off the Word of Jesus and allowed fear to change his thinking.  His faith became weak as a result.  Jesus said, ‘O ye of little faith.’  His faith wasn’t enough to carry him over the circumstances.

31: And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? Matthew 14:31

Notice Jesus didn’t say, ‘Why were you afraid?’  He said, ‘Why did you doubt?’  Fear brought doubt and the doubt was the thing that caused him to start sinking.  Fear made him start thinking and doubt made him start sinking.

But look at this—the basis for Peter’s doubt was what would happen to him if it didn’t work.  Fear got him to consider what would happen if this doesn’t work. And because the cost was so high—his life—he began to doubt.  We may ‘step out in faith’ and ‘believe God’ if the consequences in case it doesn’t work are not too severe.  For example, ‘Well Lord, I’ll step out into the ministry as long as I don’t have to quit my job."  Or "I’ll give what you tell me to give as long as it doesn’t take away from what I need."

Do we only ‘step out in faith’ if we think that what we have to lose isn’t that bad?  We look at the Word of God and say, well I could do this one thing but I can’t do this other thing because if it doesn’t work out I have lost too much.  Do we gamble with the Word of God?  As long as we are considering what would happen if it doesn’t work then we’re not in complete faith.  We don’t totally believe God if we are considering ‘what if.’  God doesn’t call you out on the water just to watch you drown.  His plan is success.  But we need to get our eyes off of the ‘what if’s’ and back onto His Word!

We need to remember that God has given us His Word and He’s given us the faith we need to believe His Word in order for us to be successful.  But He’s not going to do everything for us.  He expects us to put our faith into practice and make things happen.  We have to take that step on the water.  But sometimes we hold back and I think the reason we do is because we want to know ahead of time how everything is going to turn out without us having to do anything about how it turns out.  What I mean is that we are looking for a prediction of how things will go when God says it depends on what we do with what He’s already done and given to us.  We say, "God will this work?" and He says, "Are you going to use My Word and My faith that I’ve given you to make it work?"

When God speaks something to you, do you know that it’s possible for it not to happen?  When He speaks something to you He’s giving you a seed.  It’s up to you to plant it, cultivate it and harvest it.  It’s possible for Him to speak something to you and for it not to happen depending upon what you do or don’t do with it (Or there may be another person’s will involved.  We see with Jonah that he prophesied that Nineveh was going to be destroyed.  But because they repented God changed His mind and didn’t destroy them.  Their will overrode the prophecy and changed the outcome).

But let’s say you’re in either situation of starting your own business or you wanting to receive healing.  The devil will attempt to stop what God wants to happen (success & healing), from happening by calling your attention to things other then God’s Word and then telling you the fear or doubt you have as a result is God talking.  He’ll try and get you to confuse a demonic attempt to stop something from happening with the prophetic voice of God.  The reason they can be confused is that they are both spiritual voices.  People get frustrated with themselves and say, "I should be able to distinguish between God and the devil!"  But what has happened is that they may have come to the point where they can distinguish a spiritual voice from a physical, mental or emotional voice but now they need to take a step further and understand that it’s not just enough to determine that it’s a spiritual voice they are hearing but what is the source of this spiritual voice?  Or rather who is the originator of this spiritual voice?

The devil doesn’t come to us with red horns and a pitchfork.  He will come as an angel of light.  He’ll try and convince you that God is saying it isn’t going to work for you.  He’ll use scripture or whatever and whoever he can.  He’ll try and get you hung up on prediction or fate when really he is trying to stop the will of God from happening in your life by destroying the power of your faith.  Because faith in God’s Word is prophetic in itself.  It makes things happen.  He’s trying to get you to believe in fate instead of faith.  Do you know what your "fate" is?  It’s for you to be like Jesus.  For you to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ!  That’s your "fate."  But it only will happen if you agree to it and do what you need to do to make it happen.  So then it’s not really fate is it?  Instead of fate, which is inevitable no matter what you do, God has given us faith.  Sometimes we are looking for God to tell us what is going to happen, we’re looking for a prediction, when God is telling us that when we operate according to His Kingdom principals the power of His Word spoken from a heart of a believer who has faith in Him and in His Word will be prophetic simply because of the power it carries.  Did you get that?  God is telling us what is going to happen by telling us how to make it happen.

Of course, certain course of events concerning end times will happen the way God has ordained them to happen.  And God will not allow us to take authority over another person’s will.  He won’t even do that.  But concerning the specifics of our life we are to live by faith-not fate.  God’s will is not going to happen in our lives without us doing what we need to do to make it happen!  You didn’t get saved without believing in Jesus and confessing Him as Lord.  You had to do something.  Well you don’t just get saved by faith, you are to live by faith also.

The Bible calls fear a spirit.  Fear is a spiritual thing.  It can disguise itself in various ways but it is spiritual just like the Word of God is spiritual.  Jesus said His Word is spirit and life.  Fear is spirit and death.  The goal of fear is to get you off the Word of God.  In Peter’s case of walking on the water, fear came to bring doubt.  Our faith in God’s Word is the only solid thing we can stand on.  Even if we’re in the perfect will of God, we’ve got to know that we are and walk it out by faith in order to be successful.  If we base our confidence in how well the circumstances are going then our faith is not in God’s Word but in the circumstances, right?  Do you base your opinion of whether or not you are successful by how well things are going in your life?  That’s not a solid foundation.  Only the Word of God is a solid foundation to gauge your success by.  In the same way don’t base your opinion of whether or not you are successful by how bad things are going either.  What the Word of God says is the truth.

The devil tries to get you to fear so you’ll lose courage.  He’ll try to get you to doubt so you’ll lose hope.  Because as long as the hope and courage are there then you’re still a threat to him.  Where there is fear there is still a wish for something to happen because fear is when you are afraid that something will or won’t happen.  It’s based on a desire for something to go a certain way.  And fear tells you that that it’s not going to go that way.  Peter was afraid he wouldn’t be able to continue and that fear caused him to consider what would happen if he couldn’t.  He would sink and drown.  Fear tells you "I can’t do this!  What was I thinking!  Look how far away I’ve gotten from my boat—from my safety net!"  And the fear started when he gave his attention to the circumstances around him rather than the Word of Jesus.

Don’t allow the circumstances in your life to take your attention away from the Word of God.  The Word is your lifeline.  When you get away from it, you’ll begin to fear, you’ll begin to reason and then you’ll doubt which weakens your faith to the point where it can’t keep you above the circumstances any longer.  Learn to recognize the voices talking to you and go with God’s—your success depends on it!

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