Knowing that as a Christian you can be filled with God's Holy Spirit is the ultimate in comfort The Bible explains that God is love and that perfect love casts out all fear.This well know Bible verse compares opposites, "For we have not received a spirit of fear" which is the opposite of "but of power and love and a sound mind"

So just as one and one is two God in me can not be a spirit of fear but just the opposite. Also the Holy Sprit is definitely one powerful force! A glance around the world at the might of the ocean, the mountains God and made and the many stars in the sky above me shows me quite a picture of the power of God. This powerful and mighty God makes the living be alive. He breathes life into each person and takes away life when it is time for that person to stop living on earth. This idea makes me aware that I am held in the palm of God's hand.This God of power and love wants me to have a sound mind. He wants me to be not full of fear but of power and love like He is.

The last part of the verse about the idea that we have received a sound mind is another comforting key idea. God gives us the ability to choose and yet life can be pretty confusing. It is much more confusing when you don't have the option of asking Him to help you weigh and choose what to do and how and when to do it. Being a child of God and asking Him often to guide, protect and teach me is a precious part of my Christian life. Just as Jesus taught his disciples how to make good choices and in situations like the story when a disciple asked Jesus what to do about paying taxes and Jesus sent him off to fish for a catch which had a coin in it to pay taxes with and when he sent the disciples out to get the fish and bread from the boy so that he could mulitply them for the crowd when the men asked him what to do about the people being so hungry he will guide us into good choices which will provide us with what we need to know and do.

Not having a sound mind is a definite result of going against your God given conscience. It is described in scripture as

"1The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron." in I Timothy 4.

I have experienced the non Christian life firsthand and know how it feels to be going against the leading that God gives each of us, turning more and more in circles and more and more away from Him. It's like living life with no road map. There is no way to make sense of it all.

The opposite is also true: with the Holy Spirit teaching, comforting and guiding life takes on a sensible pattern. There are answers and there are reasons for what to do and why to do it. Much of the Bible is more than a list of to do and not to do but it is full of explanations of why and what will happen if I do right and what will happen if I do wrong. The stories in it are full of examples of men and women who chose sometimes to follow the way of the "sound mind" and at times chose to follow the route of an unsound mind and show well the result.

The verse is an attempt to remind us that God does not want us to be filled with fear, impotence, hatred and confusion. He wants His power,and love to fill us and to make us think clearly and well. It is a very uplifting thought and a kind of yardstick to hold our life up to also. When we find ourselves to be full of fear and feeling helpless and hopeless and confused we can know that it is not God's doing and if we tourn our life back towards a focusing on God we will find the fear, weakness and confusion beginning to fade like a fog when the sun begins to shine!

Learn more about this author, Candace Williams.
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