Thoughts for Life: #55 Faith Conquers Doubt

Dr. Wesley L. Duewel: Doubt blinds your soul to the role and power of prayer, making you forget God's redemptive purpose and His good will.

Doubt weakens your soul's confidence in God's availability, faithfulness, and active role in your life. It darkens your horizon, distorts your spiritual vision, and numbs your spiritual vitality.

It robs your prayer of its power and effectiveness. In short, it dishonors God.

Faith focuses your eyes on God and His promises, faithfulness, and availability. Faith sees God present, deeply concerned, and active. Faith looks at the problems and needs from God's perspective.

Doubt, anxiety, fear, and worry focus primarily on circumstances, but faith focuses primarily on God. Anxiety looks at things and makes you concerned about, even obsessed, with things that seem impossible.

It tries to get you to worry, to brood about your problems and needs. It gets your eyes off God. Murry says, "The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith."

Faith is not blind to the needs. Faith faces reality but sees reality as measured by God, not as measured by man. Abraham exemplifies this God-focused faith.

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed....Without
weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body
was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred
years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he
did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise
of God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do
what he had promised" (Rom. 4:18-21).

Faith sees your empty hands but sees also the greater reality of the promise of God. On the basis of God's love and mercy, faith claims the promise of God.

Faith is God-conscious, God-fused, and God-believing. Your love, prayer, and faith must always have an object. You do not have faith in faith; you say with Paul, "I have faith in God"(Acts 27:25).

Faith is a triumphing and prevailing grace. It overcomes the world and whatever opposes you, for it focuses your spiritual eyes on greater things than the world.

Faith is highly specific. It claims definite answers from God. Prevailing faith does not just believe in God. It believes for God's answer for the need before you.

God's answer will be a specific as your faith. Prevailing faith is as specific as prevailing prayer.

Used by permission of the author and Duewel Literature Trust, Inc., Greenwood, Indiana

Mighty Prevailing Prayer

#55 Faith Conquers Doubt

by Dr. Wesley L. Duewel

(pp. 94-95)) Zondervan

Doubt vs. Faith Jean Oathout begins our thoughts on doubts and faith today, with some questions that should get us

considering how the one tends to take

down the other.

When troubling thoughts come, are we going to realize them
as from the evil one?

Let's pray-

Father, when doubts come up in our thoughts and hearts, please give us Your thoughts for why it is we're believing for something in particular to take place.

May we focus our spiritual eyes on You and what it is You desire to have happen.
As we face reality, cause us to see what You see, and renew our faith to believe that You are in control of what matters to us.
I ask this in the name of Jesus, and for His glory. Amen.

Today's Bible verses-

(Jer. 1:8 KJV) "Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD."

(Is. 25:1 Amplified) "O LORD, you are my God; I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things, even purposes planned of old [and fulfilled] in faithfulness and truth."

Today's quote-

David Roper- "If we compare ourselves with our difficulties, we will always be overwhelmed. Faith looks away from the greatness of the undertaking to the greatness of an ever-present, all-powerful God."

"When fear knocks, answer it with faith."

(Our Daily Bread 8/20/16)

Today's Spotlight sermon-