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After nearly 55 hours of travel, we’ve finally arrived in Mbarara, Uganda for our Gospel Crusade that starts tomorrow night. As we drove for several hours through country, we stopped for a photo op at a monument indicating that we were just passing over the equator.
The New Testament usually uses only one Greek word for fear, phobeo. Jesus said, “Do not have phobia, have faith.” Jesus had no room for cowards. He said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).
Mbarara is the main municipal, administrative and commercial center of Mbarara District. It is also the location of the district headquarters in Western Uganda, besides being the largest urban centre in the area.
Nobody adds anything to his or her life by unbelief. It is a dead negative. Faith particularly acts against the fears that populate the future and cause a thousand other fears to haunt us. We either fear God or we fear everything else.
The essence of fear is being faced with something greater than ourselves, some greater person or Being or intelligence or power. Our fear lies with whatever we see as the greatest thing. If we see God as the greatest, we will fear God more than the devil or men. If we fear the devil the most, we think of him as being greater than God.
Very sanctified and spiritual people can sadly be doubters. Faith and piety do not always go down the street hand-in-hand. Some Christians think you have to be a spiritual giant in order to have great faith. This is backwards. It is the man or woman who is strong in faith who is the spiritual giant. Faith is spiritual strength.
Investors often “diversify” their investments because if one venture doesn’t work out, they want to have something else to fall back on. So a common idiom in the business world is, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” That means, don’t put all your resources into one investment because if one of your “baskets” breaks and all your “eggs” are in it, you will lose everything. You see, if you are holding back some of your “eggs,” it means you are not 100 percent confident that a particular basket will hold. You may be 50 percent confident or even 99 percent confident, but that small percentage of apprehension is what I am calling “unbelief.” So how do you know when you’ve gotten rid of all the unbelief? When you’ve put all of your eggs into God’s basket.
Not seeing is no reason for not believing. Nobody sees radiation. We wait for its effects. Nobody sees God, but millions find the effects in their lives. Unexpected and miraculous things sometimes happen—things that can only be from Him. Even one answered prayer, one healing, one miracle, one deliverance from addiction is evidence of Him. But we do not have just one. Millions of people are healed, millions are delivered, millions of prayers are answered, and millions have experiences that can only be attributed to Jesus Christ, who is risen from the dead.
James 1:8 says, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” You will never really succeed at anything if you are halfway in and halfway out. If God has called you, it is not necessary to have a “backup plan.” You don’t need to hedge your bets. You don’t need to hold some of your eggs back “just in case.” Cast out the unbelief, put all your eggs in God’s basket, burn your ships, and give yourself to Him and His plan, body, soul, and spirit.
Faith is based on a personal relationship, not on a mathematical equation. We know what God did yesterday, but we have to trust Him for tomorrow. There are no guarantees. In many ways, faith is akin to love. It is a heart matter. We do not decide to fall in love after weighing all the pros and cons. Couples get married on trust, not on scientific evidence or conclusive logic.