-Doubt can lead to unbelief.
You can be drowned by doubt
or you can drown your doubts.
Great men of faith had doubts.
How did they overcome them?
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When it comes to doubt,
you know,
everyone can experience doubt.
Just because you walk with God
and just because you are a friend of God
and just because you are a man of faith
it doesn't mean that you will not experience doubt.
I see in my life and in the lives of other people
that doubt can come in four different ways.
When you begin to doubt Jesus Himself, the object of your faith,
you're beginning to question the power of Christ.
Is He really strong enough to save?
Is He really strong enough to answer the prayers?
Is He really strong enough to help and deliver?
And that's the first way that doubt can appear.
The second way that doubt can appear or surface in a believer's life
is when a believer begins to doubt the power of Jesus within himself.
The power of God within a believer.
It's questioning if one is close enough to Christ,
to hear and to answer.
The second one is doubting the power of Jesus within a believer.
It's questioning if one is close enough to Christ for Him to hear and answer us
and to grant us enough power to meet the need.
You know, the first one is doubting the Lord.
The other one is doubting the Lord and His presence within us.
The third way doubt appears in our life
is when we begin to doubt our own faith.
And this is a huge one.
When you begin to question the strength of your own dependence
and confidence upon God.
The fourth way that doubt can appear in the life of a believer
is when you begin to doubt whether what you are believing for,
what you are asking, is really His will.
If He really wants to give it to you?
Or maybe He put you in some kind of category where He just does not will
for you to have that,
or desire for you walk in that particular thing that you are asking.
Doubt can really throw a lot of people off.
Doubt can really cripple your ability to walk with God.
We must understand before we talk about how to overcome doubt
We must understand that doubt is not unbelief.
Okay?
Doubt can lead to unbelief but doubt is not unbelief.
There is very basic difference between doubt and unbelief.
Doubt is, "I can't believe.
"I need more proof."
Unbelief says, "I won't believe in spite of the proof."
Doubt says, "I'm looking for the light."
Unbelief says, "I'm content in the darkness."
Doubt is honest.
Unbelief is stubborn.
And so that's why in the Scriptures we see Jesus always
judging unbelievers.
Jesus always condemning unbelievers.
Jesus judged unbelievers.
But He worked with doubters.
John the Baptist had a moment of doubt.
Thomas had a moment of doubt.
Disciples sometimes were not sure.
Even Jesus was tempted with doubt in the wilderness.
So Jesus can sympathize and help doubters.
But what He doesn't help,
and what requires repentance
because of the hardness of our heart is unbelief.
It's when we are stubborn, or when we are content in the dark.
And so practically, how do we overcome doubt?
1. Don't miss community.
If you look at the life ofThomas, you will see that,
Thomas, disciple of Jesus,
he missed the meeting where disciples were together and Jesus came.
And because of that he started to have doubts.
That Jesus really risen from the dead.
And so, doubt feeds on isolation.
When we are staying close together in the community of believers,
it helps us to overcome doubt.
A lot of times when you are at home,
you are not going to church,
you're not meeting with believers,
you're not attending small group,
your doubts begin to be magnified.
Your doubts begin to maximize.
Instead of being overcome,
instead of being squashed and drowned,
by being in a community of believers,
because not that you no longer question things,
it's just that you are protected in the community.
When you are not in the community, your doubts become bigger.
2. Remember how much Jesus loves you.
When Thomas eventually came back,
and Jesus met him,
Jesus let Thomas touch Jesus.
The scars of Jesus.
And He told Thomas, He says, "Listen, don't be unbelieving."
"And blessed are those who believe when they don't see."
And when Thomas touched Jesus' scars,
he said, "My Lord! My Lord!"
You know we are reminded also in Isaiah 49:14-16,
when Israel says, "God has forsaken me."
And the prophet reminds him, he says,
"I inscribed you in the palms of My hands."
He says, "Can a nursing mother forget a child?"
He says, "How much more? I will never forget you."
And I think when you are doubting,
you have to remember not what you feel,
you have to remember what God's Word says.
And that God loves you with unconditional love.
In fact, we overcome our fears,
we overcome our doubt,
through love.
Remember God loves you.
Focus on His love for you.
Not on your love for God.
Not on how good your love for God is.
Not how small your love for God is,
not even how big your faith is or small your faith is.
Focus on this amazing love that Jesus has for you.
It will help you to overcome fears and doubts.
3. Remember what God has done.
So not only remembering that Jesus loves you,
but remember what God has done.
See, when we focus on what God has not done,
a lot of times what begins to happen is we feed our doubt.
When we focus on what God has done we feed our faith.
It's very simple.
When David walked to fight Goliath,
David remembered all the times God delivered Him before.
Now in those stories when God delivered him,
there was also a component of that story with God
where God didn't protect him from the lions.
In the sense God didn't shield the lions or David from the lions.
David could have remembered how God allowed the lions to attack him.
But in that miraculous story of deliverance,
he chose to remember what God has done,
instead of what God did not do.
In the sense, what God allowed to happen.
I think all of us have stories where certain things were "allowed".
I call it the permissible will of God.
You know, and many of us we build our doctrines--
and I'll say it like this;
is that many of us what happens is we build monuments
to what God has not done.
Instead of building memorials to what God has done.
So the moment you have doubt filling you up,
and you begin to kind of struggle with it,
and you feel like drowning,
just pause for a moment.
And honestly, get together with believers,
go to a Bible study,
go to a small group,
join a church,
and then begin to reflect on God's love for you.
You might say, "But I don't feel God loves me."
You don't have to feel God loving you.
You have to know He loves you.
And actually there is a proof of that - that's the cross.
There's a proof of that- that's the scars.
There's a proof of that - Jesus died. That's a historic fact.
And He died because He loves you.
And then remember what God has done.
Remember how He protected you.
How He saved you.
Remember miracles of God in your life, in other people's lives.
And you will see how your faith will be made stronger,
and your doubts will begin to drown and die.
4. Call on Jesus in the middle of your doubt.
If you remember the father of a son who was demonized,
you know, and Jesus came to Him and He said, "If you believe.
Anything is possible to those who believe."
And he responded back to the Lord and he said, "Lord, I believe.
Help me with my unbelief."
And so he admitted to Jesus, "I'm struggling with my faith Jesus. Help me."
And you know what Jesus did?
He worked with that faith that he had.
When Peter was drowning because he was so-- he allowed doubt.
He cried out to Jesus and Jesus rescued him.
Don't think for a moment that just because you are doubting
that the Lord is going to shut you up.
And the Lord is going to shut you down,
the Lord is not going to listen to you.
When John the Baptist had questions, "Is Jesus the one?"
Even though he was the one that declared Jesus was the one,
Jesus didn't shame him for those questions.
He just reminded him of what Jesus was doing.
You know, instead of what was not happening, like John's deliverance.
'Cause see, John was expecting that Jesus is going to deliver him,
and Jesus is not delivering him.
So John is doubting whether Jesus is the son of God.
Whether Jesus is really the Messiah.
Because if He is, why isn't He delivering me plus I'm His cousin?
You know, Jesus reminds John, "Look at what I am doing.
"Not at what I am not doing.
And feed your faith not your doubt."
So call on Jesus.
Just scream, help.
Say, "Jesus, help."
And He will help you.
And the last thing that you can do to help overcome doubt,
and come out of the season,
climb out of this cloud of overwhelming doubts;
is honestly, confront the devil with the Word of God.
You may say, "The devil?
I just thought that doubt is just my feelings."
Yes.
But the doubt is also a weapon the enemy uses to overthrow your confidence in God.
He did that with Adam and Eve.
Before he could defeat Eve, he had to disarm her.
How did he disarm Eve?
Through doubt.
So doubt,
disarming,
defeat.
That's his strategy all along.
He begins to put a question mark where God put an exclamation mark.
And Eve of course, she responded back but unsure.
And then she gave into that doubt which disarmed her.
And instead of trusting in what God said,
she just went along with the lies that the enemy presented to her.
And then she ate the fruit that God told her not to eat.
And Jesus faces a similar battle except not in the garden, in the wilderness.
Where Satan begins to question Him.
And he begins to put question marks where God made very clear;
" This is my beloved son in Whom I am well pleased."
"If You are the son of God."
So doubt is a time when you are going through a very emotional dark time
dark season of your life.
And the devil begins to question everything that you were very clear about
just before you entered into this season.
Satan will begin to put a doubt,
and a question mark where things were very clear in the light.
So doubt works in the dark.
Meaning in those dark seasons of your life.
You begin to question honestly, things that were completely clear.
They completely made sense,
like, you were sure about it.
And now in the wilderness, like, you get these doubts.
And these doubts are not from you.
Most of the time, they are demonically sent.
They are sent by demons themselves.
By Satan.
So what do you do during that moment?
You speak to those doubts the Word of God.
You speak what God has said, excuse me, what He has written.
A lot of people live by what God has said meaning, "God told me."
"God told me."
You know?
And...
And that's not really good.
Because we have to live by what is written.
Jesus could have easily told Satan, "Shut up!"
He could have literally told Satan, "Are you kidding Me?"
"What, you are going to question Me?"
"Dude."
He could have honestly made him evaporate.
Yet Jesus said, "It is written."
Jesus relied on the written Word of God.
And Jesus quoted the written Word of God.
And therefore He shut down every doubt.
So sometimes doubts come because you missed community,
sometimes doubts come because you just took your focus off of what God is doing,
sometimes doubts come because you focus more about your mistakes
instead of how much God loves you.
But there are times honestly,
these doubts,
they really become loud during your very difficult seasons of your life.
And actually, Satan is behind that microphone.
He is behind that microphone.
And he's amplifying those doubts.
And in that moment,
you don't have to just call upon the Lord.
You have to speak God's Word back to your doubts.
If you are afraid, begin to speak, "The Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear?"
"The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid of?"
When the enemy says, "You are going to die."
You know, "I will not die. But I will live and declare the works of God."
When the enemy says, "You are a failure, and you are a loser."
You know, "I am a tree planted in the house of the Lord. And I will flourish.
And I am a righteous person."
When the enemy says, "You are what you did."
You say, "I am a new creation in Jesus Christ."
When the enemy says, "You are sick."
"No, I am healed by the stripes of Jesus."
or, "You are weak."
"No, I am strong in the Lord.
I can do all things through Christ Jesus."
And you begin to combat those lies with the Scriptures.
It's okay to be tempted with doubts.
But please, don't give into them.
Don't drown by them.
By being a person who simply takes those doubts
and not confront them with the truth of God's Word.
Remove the pacifier from your mouth, and put a sword in your mouth.
Joshua 1:8 says, the book of the law shall not depart your mouth.
Your mouth.
Not just your mind, your mouth.
But you shall meditate it day and night.
And then you will make your way successful--
And then you will make your way prosperous,
and then you will have good success.
Have you noticed that first you declare it out of your mouth?
And then this book of the law will begin to fill your mind,
and then you will make your way prosperous,
and then you will have good success?
What God is saying is this;
is that I want My word to begin to come out of your mouth.
Speak your word-- God's Word.
Speak God's Word to your soul.
Speak God's Word to Satan.
Speak God's Word to the enemy.
Like, confront him that's a sword.
Like in the spiritual world, it's not a Word, it's a sword.
And you can penetrate.
And sometimes you feel the doubt will lift.
Because the enemy will leave you.
Why?
Because you are using your sword.
It's time to use the sword of God's Word.
It's living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword.
It's piercing to the divisions of soul and spirit,
of joints and marrow.
And it's a discerner of thoughts and intents of the heart.
Hebrews 4:12
So begin to memorize the Scriptures.
Begin to set up memorials of what God did.
Remember the cross.
And live in the community.
And if things get hard, cry out to Jesus.
And then speak His Word to the enemy.
Strengthen yourself through God's Word.
Speak God's Word to yourself.
Speak God's Word to your circumstances and to your emotions like David.
He said, "O soul, why are you disquieted in me?"
He said, "I will yet praise God."
"I will yet worship God."
We all go through doubts.
But God does not want these doubts to disarm our confidence in Him,
and then defeat our life and throw us under the bus spiritually.
He wants us to overcome these doubts.
Drown these doubts in the abundance of His love.
And in our confidence in His Word.
Drop the comment below on what helps you to overcome doubts.
Or share your experience.
I would love to hear about
maybe a situation in your life where you struggled with doubt
and how you overcame it.
I believe it's going to help other believers who will read these comments
to also be strengthened.
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God bless you
and until next time.