BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

out of me. A nd when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace (verses 43-48). e whole time all this was going on, Jairus was still standing there waiting… his daughter was still lying at home getting nearer to death…and satan, who was almost certainly using the delay as an opportunity to pressure Jairus to break his faith connection with Jesus, was probably whispering worrisome thoughts into his ear: How long is this big-mouthed woman going to talk? Is she going to tell everything that's happened the whole 12 years she's been sick? Doesn't Jesus remember your daughter's at home dying? Jairus, however, apparently didn't give in to the pressure. He just kept quiet. e last thing he'd said to Jesus about his daughter was, "Come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live" (Mark 5:23), and he stayed with that confession. He listened to the woman's testimony about being healed of the issue of blood; he listened to what Jesus said to her; and since faith comes by hearing e WORD of God, his faith was strengthened and encouraged. en something happened he hadn't expected. While Jesus was speaking, a messenger came from Jairus' house, saying to him, "y daughter is dead; trouble not the Master" (Luke 8:49). As a parent, I can't think of any words that would be harder to hear. For a father to get that news and still maintain control of his thinking would seem, in the natural anyway, completely impossible. Yet that's what Jesus told Jairus to do. When He heard the little girl was dead, he answered by saying, "Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole" (verse 50). Sure enough, Jairus did it. He obeyed Jesus and refused to fear. As a result, a few verses later we see that his daughter was alive and well. "Brother Copeland, I know that story is in the Bible, but I just don't understand it. How could anyone stop fear from overtaking him in a moment like that?" The power to stop fear is in The WORD of God! Apart from His WORD, no one can stop it. ey might be able to manage it or push through it, but they won't be able to come up with the power to stop it completely. To connect with that kind of power you have to hear and put your faith in God's WORD. at's what Jairus did. He heard the words of Jesus: "[Your daughter] shall be made whole," and he believed them. He shut fear down with faith in God, resisted the temptation to worry, and everything turned out all right. You can see another example of this in the life of Peter. Remember when he walked on the water? Just before he did that he was scared out of his wits. So were the other disciples who were with him in the boat. ey not only had a stormy sea to deal with, as Matthew 14 tells it: In the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But st ra ight way Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus (verses 25-29). In that instance, the power of God's WOR D not only destroyed Peter's fear, it carried him across water. Right out there in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, he walked on the word come, and never even got his feet wet. But then, he let his natural, carnal mind take over. He got his attention off The WORD, started worrying about the waves, and began to sink. He got into fear, it separated him from the power he was walking on, and he was immediately in trouble. Fear Tolerated Is Faith Contaminated A number of years ago, right after the 9/11 attacks in New York City, God dealt with me about stripping fear from the Body of Christ. He made it part of my mandate and said to me in a way that still reverberates inside me, Fear tolerated is faith contaminated! As Peter learned out there on the Sea of Galilee, when fear is mixed with faith, faith stops working. Fear weakens it and contaminates it so that it can't get the job done. 8 : B V O V WHEN YOU WORRY, YOU'RE MINISTERING FEAR TO YOURSELF. You're thinking about bad things and picturing them coming to pass in your life.

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