Hope in Any Crisis by Bill Johnson

Author:Bill Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charisma Media
Published: 2020-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

The foreboding spirit basically causes one to believe that even if things are going well right now, something bad is going to happen. Fear and anxiety work to keep us off balance by compromising our spiritual equilibrium. Scripture tells us that the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, and when we embrace fear, we invite the thief into our homes.

Some say fear is the opposite of faith or the absence of faith. I believe it’s more accurate to say that fear is faith in the inferior; it’s faith in the lie of the enemy, ultimately leading us to unbelief, which wars against God’s truth and His nature of perfect faithfulness. We call this war between God and Satan—between truth and lies, between light and darkness—spiritual warfare.

The biggest area of spiritual warfare is in the mind. By that I don’t mean it’s in the imagination. It exists in our thought realm, fighting over which reality we will live from. Will it be from the mind of Christ or from the mind of all that is inferior?

Paul described these attacks on our thought life as fiery darts. Establishing us in the mind of Christ has always been one of God’s primary goals for us. This has also become one of our greatest tests. I know the mind of Christ has been given to us, as announced to us by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:16. But the challenge here is the same as one I described earlier: there’s a difference between what’s in my account and what’s in my possession. How we think when we face a challenge, problem, crisis, or opportunity reveals how much of the mind of Christ we live with. And if miracles are not a regular part of your thought process, then you’re not entirely in the mind of Christ.

Anxiety and fear are not areas of personal difficulty for me. It’s not that I’ve not had to deal with them; they have just not been a stronghold in my life. And yet I must admit, in the last year or so, I’ve had to battle these issues more than almost any other time in my life—especially at night.

It is true that often we face different types of problems in the night than we do in the day. The enemy wants to rob us of sleep, as that is the time God gives us instruction. He designed sleep for our benefit, as it is there we find recovery and refreshing. When that is taken from us, our daytime lifestyle is affected.

On many nights in the last eighteen months or so, I’ve had to get up in the middle of the night because my mind was too active to sleep. Often I walked the floors, praying, worshipping, and reading from the promises of God. Other times I simply got up and did mindless activities, such as scanning my social media pages or watching TV until I became sleepy again.

The point is, anxiety will rob you of the lifestyle of rest, which ultimately becomes the lifestyle of faith.

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