Recently I’ve been ministering to a lot of people with sickness, or who have sick loved ones, and the thing I hear in their voices the most is fear. One thing you can always count on, it that fear never comes halfway. It always comes as a full-on attack. What is fear? In its essence, it is faith that the devil can do more to hurt you than God can do to help you. In other words, lack of trust in God.


If you go in a room and turn the light off, does the room ever remain half lit? No, it becomes fully dark. Why? Because darkness is the absence of light. Take away the light, and the default condition is dark, just like the conditions we see in this world. When fear comes, it never leaves you half confident, but rather it takes all your confidence away. It never leaves you half in faith, but rather it takes away ALL your faith. You need to understand what darkness is. So far, no one has invented a “flashdark”, that you can shine in a fully illuminated room and make it go dark. That’s because light ALWAYS overcomes the darkness. But when it comes to faith, the devil has a “flashdark” called FEAR, that seems to work pretty well to turn off the light of people’s faith.

I hear the fear in people’s voices when I’m ministering the truth of God’s Word to them. I don’t tell them to be in denial, for example, cancer in someone’s body can be a fact. But rather, I try to help them understand the difference between “truth” and “fact”. A doctor can give someone a diagnosis based on their best information and experience in the medical field, and that’s a fact. It does no good to be in denial and deny the facts. It would be like you and me riding in your car, and all of a sudden, BAM! THUMP THUMP THUMP!. What’s THAT? You just had a blowout and your tire is flat. You might say, “No, I don’t have a flat tire, in Jesus’ name!” And if you keep driving in denial, you’ll ruin your wheel, maybe more. What is the correct course of action? Fix the flat tire by putting on the spare.

Now I’m going to tell you what to do about cancer. I know, because I had it. When the doctor gave me his diagnosis, I applied the “spare”. The “fact” was, I had cancer. The “truth” was, I was healed by the stripes of Jesus some 2,000 years ago. I could have been in denial and kept driving on the rim, so to speak. But instead I got out what you might consider the “spare” and fixed the problem. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling the Word of God your “spare”, but rather your “primary”. But many people only turn to the Word of God once they’ve used up all their other options, like doctors and medicine. There’s only so much a doctor and medicine can do for you, so I personally don’t waste my time with them, I go for the PRIMARY cure, namely the Word of God.

Well, getting back to where I started, when people get the bad news, fear never comes on “just a little”, but rather, it pulls the rug right out from under you. Fear makes you look at the “facts” and disregard the “truth”. Fear makes you make hurried and bad decisions, that when the dust settles and you’ve lost a loved one, for example, you stand back and say, “I should have done that differently.” But by then it’s too late. The time to do it differently is when fear sticks its ugly nose into your life, instead of looking back in retrospect. But like I said, fear never comes halfway. It always comes to overwhelm you, because that’s just what fear is. It never comes to comfort and sustain or encourage you.

As it is written in 2 Timothy 1:7, For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Well, if God hasn’t given us the spirit of fear, then who HAS? Yep, you got it; the devil, the father of lies and fear.

So when I minister to people, after listening to what they have to say, I tell them, OK, now we have the report of the doctor, what does the report of the LORD say? Many will admit to me that His Word says we are healed by the stripes of Jesus. So I ask them, Then what is the problem? You see, if we live in the light, darkness cannot overcome us. But if we live in the darkness, then we have to bring light into the situation so we can see the “truth”.

Why is it we say we trust God, but when anything comes contrary to His Word, we believe that instead? It’s because we’ve allowed the devil to shine his “flashdark” into our lives and turn the light of God’s Word to darkness. It’s almost like we EXPECT the devil to win.
Well, the Lord Jesus said in Mark 11:23-24,

For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

Now, I don’t care what’s going on around you, Jesus told you the TRUTH, and the truth will overcome the FACTS, just like light overcomes the darkness. But the truth will only work if you use it. I have a tee-shirt that says, THE WORD WORKS WONDERS WHEN THE WORKMAN WORKS THE WORD! I know of no better way to say it. God’s Word works whether you believe it or not. But it will work FOR YOU if you do what Jesus said in those two verses. He said, What things soever ye desire. He didn’t say, What things you DON’T desire. But you have to follow His instructions. It seems to me, we want God’s results by following our own way, and it just doesn’t work like that.

There’s no such thing as “I halfway believe”. You either believe, or you don’t, like a light switch, on or off. You will fully believe either God, or you’ll fully believe the lies of the devil, and what you end up seeing happen is the proof of which one you fully trusted in.

What is the sum of this? You can’t pray in fear and expect faith to work. Shine the truth of God’s Word on your darkest fears, and you will see when the light comes on, that the boogeyman has left the building and is nowhere to be found, because he is afraid of the light. Don’t look back and say, “I wish I had REALLY believed, instead of just HOPED.” The light of God’s Word WILL overcome any darkness it is shined upon, because light always overcomes the darkness. Fear comes to destroy you. Give no place to it whatsoever, not even for a second, because fear never comes halfway.