If you look at some of the decisions which we make in our lifetime, a good percentage of them are motivated by fear. In particular when we buy things. Some people call it “impulse buying”. Something looks like a good deal so we buy whatever it is because we think we may not find a better price, only to find the same item a month or so later “on sale”. Sometimes it will go on sale the next day, but the people at the store aren’t allowed to tell you that. This happens in our consumer-driven economy more often than it should. I know because I used to do this more often than I should’ve. I still do at times but I keep praying that this “impulse demon” will go away.

Fear causes many things to happen that shouldn’t happen and these things usually happen because of specific fears. Sometimes they happen because of a general feeling of anxiety which is also a form of fear. We also fear telling other people about our Savior and what He has done for them and for the rest of the world. We fear rejection and anger since there are many who just don’t want to hear about a “god that I can’t see” or “a god that left us here to die on this ball of mud”.

God has never turned His back on humanity. He may allow some tragedies to happen or some wars or diseases to become more virulent or for the war to drag on and on, but He has never left us. We look around our world and we see the good of humanity sometimes but the news reports on mostly bad things. There is very little encouraging news which is reported on a daily basis. We may hear of a good deed or some philanthropy that has helped people when they were in need but that is mostly on a once per year calendar. On a daily level, we usually just turn the TV off so we won’t hear so much negativity.

But…God is still in control. He hasn’t forgotten us and since Jesus told His disciples that God the Father knows even when a sparrow falls to the ground, don’t you think He watches over each of us too? God doesn’t lie to get His point across or to just have His way. He is in control of the temperature of our Sun and the gravity which holds our planet in its place. He knows how much is needed to balance the dance of our solar system so that everything stays out of the way of everything else. The universe itself is balanced so delicately that it takes astounding calculations to know that if even one percent fluctuated in one direction or the other life could not exist.

Why am I writing about fear? Because it is an emotion which we are very familiar with and Satan uses it to cause us to doubt our faith in and our salvation through Jesus. Our lives are bound up in anxiety and fear due to disease and wars and economic upheavals just as we are going through right now. Many people are asking the question, “Why would God allow this to happen?”. He is allowing it to turn our attention back to Him and to the real fact that we need Him!

We have become so desensitized to violence and hatred and the sins which happen each day on the Internet or on the news and on TV shows and movies until we don’t blush about much these days. We are not ashamed of the actions of celebrities or our family members. Sinful actions which would’ve been enough to send someone to live with a relative a few decades ago are looked at as normal and permissible in today’s society. When my parents got divorced about fifty years ago it was enough of a scandal that my Dad’s boss leveled some form of punishment at him which I think had to do with a promotion. That would not happen today.

Do we need God and a belief in Jesus which can save our souls from the second death in hell? Yes! The problem is that today many people don’t believe that there is a heaven or a hell and they certainly don’t believe that the Bible is true let alone the fact that many of its prophecies have come true. God exists and Jesus is the only way to salvation for your soul. Satan is also real and hell is prepared for him but many people will go there as well if they don’t turn their hearts back to the One Savior Who can give them eternal life and atonement for all of their sins, Jesus the Christ.