Why fear?

Many of us are afraid of the devil and of his followers. But why are we afraid? Does not the bible tell us that when Jesus was raised from the dead that he came back with the keys to death and hell? The truth is that since that time the devil has been defeated and he knows it. But what he wants is to control us with fear and doubt. He wants us to be insecure and to feel guilty and blame ourselves and relive the mistakes of our past, even though God has forgiven us of the things which we won't forgive ourselves of. Put quite simply the desire of God is that every single person come to know him as their father and friend. That all would worship and praise and commune with Him for eternity in heaven. The devil's plan however is this: to take as many to hell with him as possible. So when he sees us trying to serve God and win souls he tries his best to make us doubt and feel like we aren't worthy to do what God has called us to. We let fear grip our hearts to the point that we give up. How many of our friends and family aren't saved? How many of them if they were to die today would wake up to an eternity in hell? God is bigger than the devil. We can't afford to let the fear of a powerless devil keep us from doing all we can to see that our friends and family don't end up in hell!

I've found recently that God wants to walk with me. Many times as we go through life we are under the impression that we are burdening God when we talk to him or ask him for things. The truth is that He wants to spend time with us. He wants to give us the desires of our hearts, but He also wants to give us the things that we need. Those things, sometimes, are not neccesarily what we want at the time. Walking with God is in some ways like walking on this earth. We have to learn how to walk with Him. And we all know that when we learn how to walk we often fall. So why when we fall in our walk with God do we want to give up walking with him instead of getting up and trying again? Does a baby just fall and decide they are never going to walk so they may as well not even try? No! No matter who sees them fall or whether or not it hurt, they know that eventually they can walk! They follow the example of their parents walking and eventually are able. We too must keep getting up and following the example of Jesus in His walk with the Father. Keep going no matter if someone sees us fall or how much it hurt. We are all going to fall. We are all going to walk down difficult paths, but we also have a father there with us all the time that wants to help us up and wipe us off when we fall.