Peace

By Phil Pringle

Stress, pressure, anxiety, depression, rage, terror and fear are just a few of the words we hear all the time in society today. In the middle of all this we try desperately to seek a restful, peaceful calm for our own souls, for our families and our world. God himself is the peace we seek. There is no other source for genuine peace. It cannot be counterfeited. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, brings this peace to anyone connected to Him. This book is about how we all can have internal peace of the heart, mind and spirit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PaX Ministries Pty Ltd
• Release date: Apr 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9789813170001

Book preview

Peace

1

TROUBLED MINDS IN A TROUBLED WORLD

Isa 41:10

Fear not, for

I am

with you...

This Scripture has always spoken so very loudly to me, maybe because I’ve found I regularly need to calm fears of my own, but also I see it as the root cause of so many problems people have. In 1984 I wrote a song called ‘Fear Not’, based on this Scripture, which enjoyed some popularity for a while. I was told of troops in Desert Storm singing it together in the trenches to help them with the terrors of being under fire. Someone who fell unconscious into water wrote to me telling how the song had echoed through their mind ‘When you walk through the water, you’ll not be drowned…’ This awakened them long enough to jump out of the water then returning to unconsciousness again but on the ground.

a. Future Worries

There are 530 documented phobias in the world today. Fear is the most common mental disorder in the world, lying at the root of most mental illnesses. Fear has the power to dismantle a persons mind along with their physical wholeness and general well being. Fear does not come from God. Fear comes from the devil.

2 Timothy 1:6,7 Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Fear shuts down our gifts, talents, and potential in life. Fear pushes itself into our emotions. Unlike God, fear does not wait for the invitation to enter our lives. Fear simply forces itself on us.

To be free from phobias we have to take charge deciding we will not be afraid, to literally, ‘fear not’.

The power of a fearless life rises from our relationship with the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. If we are filled with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of fear has no place to live. Secondly, if the Word of God lives in us, in our thoughts and hearts, then the words we speak become reality in our lives. The Word of God must reign in us if we are to reign in life.

Why does it need to be stated that God has not given us a spirit of fear? Because the devil works hard to make fear feel as though it was from God. If we believe that the anxieties we feel are from God trying to communicate with us, then we will open ourselves to that emotion. If Christians can be deceived into believing their fears are from God, then they will be rendered powerless. Know this, any fears you have are not from God. Any voice that accuses you, intimidates you, makes you feel guilty, worried or unsettles you is not from God. It’s the devil. Take your stand, resist the devil and gain the victory over those voices.

The family of fear is intimidation, timidity, anxiety, despair, doubt, unbelief, confusion, hardness, negativity, complaining.

Peace

Faith is the

antidote

to fear.

The family of faith is believing, trusting, courage, confidence, positivity, praise, thanksgiving and decisiveness. This is the spirit we walk in. We are saved by faith, not fear. Faith rests in the finished work of the cross. Fear tries to gain assurance of salvation through standing on its own efforts, appeasing an unhappy conscience. Faith accepts that the grace of God Himself has already provided in Christ all that is needed to be accepted by God Himself. A fearful person worries that God is displeased with them, and tries to gain acceptance with God through their own goodness.

The irony is that when we live in fear we are far more prone to sin. People lie when they fear the truth becoming known. People steal because they fear they will not get what they need, not believing that God will provide.

Dr. David Yonggi Cho says, ‘the two most powerful motivators are the fear of loss and the hope of gain’.

Susan Jeffers who led ‘Fearbusters’, a motivational program in Los Angeles, says, ‘It is as though the inner self doesn’t know what is true and false, and believes the words it is told without judging them. Most of the things we dread, never happen. But the words of our fearful chatterbox can be self-fulfilling, so out-talking it is a skill worth acquiring.’

Great leaders throughout history have led those that followed them into victory because they overcame their own fears and the fears of all around them by inspiring them to rise into courage and confidence.

Winston Churchill famously declared, I have no fear of the future. Let us go forward into its mysteries, let us tear aside the veils which hide it from our eyes and let us move onward with confidence and courage.

After being elected to the Presidency of the United States of America, F. D. Roosevelt in his first Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933 made the often quoted speech, ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.’

Napoleon Bonaparte the Emperor of France, from 1804 to 1814 and again in 1815, marched his armies to victory countless times, declaring, ‘He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat,’ and, ‘hesitation and half-measure lose all in war’.

Here are some stories of people experiencing overwhelming fear;

b. Panic

It started 10 years ago. I was sitting in a seminar in a hotel and this thing came out of the clear blue. I felt like I was dying.

For me, a panic attack is almost a violent experience. I feel like I’m going insane. It makes me feel like I’m losing control in a very extreme way. My heart pounds really hard, things seem unreal, and there’s this very strong feeling of impending doom.

In between attacks there is this dread and anxiety that it’s going to happen again. It can be very debilitating, trying to escape those feelings of panic.

c. Phobias

I couldn’t go on dates or to parties. For a while, I couldn’t even go to class. My sophomore year of college I had to come home for a semester.

My fear would happen in any social situation. I would be anxious before I even left the house, and it would escalate as I got closer to class, a party, or whatever. I would feel sick to my stomach. It almost felt like I had the flu. My heart would pound, my palms would get sweaty, and I would get this feeling of being removed from myself and from everybody else.

When I would walk into a room full of people, I’d turn red and it would feel like everybody’s eyes were on me. I was too embarrassed to stand off in a corner by myself, but I couldn’t think of anything to say to anybody. I felt so clumsy, I couldn’t wait to get out.

d. OCD – Obsessive

Compulsive Disorder

I couldn’t do anything without rituals. They transcended every aspect of my life. Counting was big for me. When I set my alarm at night, I had to set it to a number that wouldn’t add up to a bad number. If my sister was 33 and I was 24, I couldn’t leave the TV on Channel 33 or 24. I would wash my hair three times as opposed to once because three was a good luck number and one wasn’t. It took me longer to read because I’d count the lines in a paragraph. If I was writing a term paper, I couldn’t have a certain number of words on a line if it added up to a bad number. I was always worried that if I didn’t do something, my parents were going to die. Or I would worry about harming my parents, which was completely irrational. I couldn’t wear anything that said Boston because my parents were from Boston. I couldn’t write the word death because I was worried that something bad would happen.

"Getting dressed in the morning was tough because I had a routine, and if I deviated from that routine, I’d have to get dressed again. I knew the rituals didn’t make sense, but