Photo by Karolina Grabowska The discovery of perfect love and finding courage through faith is the culmination of being in a relationship with God—and that is not a journey that believers will find easy and straightforward. W. Veronica Lisare's The Other Side Of Fear shares harrowing details of a sorrowful youth, an end to a loveless marriage, and a loss of a family member. But it does not end there, for there is also a rebirth: prevailing against cancer, finishing a rewarding career as a nurse, and attaining a new life as a minister for the gospel of Jesus Christ. This inspirational book by Lisare provides a toolkit for the Christian faithful to conquer their fears and reach God. The Other Side Of Fear is a riveting tale of enduring abuse, fear, self-denigration, and ultimately realizing God's love. Through this discovery, she is not only embraced by the assuring warmth of faith but of courage, joy, hope, freedom, and fulfillment. By accepting God, Lisare acknowledges her true self as a daughter of the King of Kings and a devout disciple of Christ. The Other Side Of Fear is about the discovery of perfect love and finding courage through faith. Faith is Struggling Struggling has always been part of faith, and there will never be a moment of reprieve from that conflict because that is not the point of faith. Psalm 103:15 says that mortal life is akin to grass and that, like flowers, they flourish in the field. Life is short and delicate, but it is only in moments of faith that, for a moment, this frailty is transcended, and the value of living is known. Like grass perseveres despite the rain and the wind, the faithful will face tribulation, but there will be prosperous times, the flowering of God's will, and the fulfillment of His promise is at the end for those who persist in believing Him. Christianity does not promise that faith is easy, nor should it be. Faith is progress, not an end-point; it is not the door but the path towards it. Yet, believers are not alone in their endeavors or walking blindly. Not only will the grace of the Holy Spirit and the sacred Scriptures guide them, but they should not forget that the flock of God is many and full of like-minded folk: there are other people out there who will lend a hand. Hebrews 10:25 instructs believers not to neglect meeting together, like others might, so they can encourage each other and do more as a group of followers than solitary Christians. To continue forward, despite the world's evils and temptations, is to be truly faithful. It is the acknowledgment of God's divine plan and trust that there is the promise of eternal life beyond whatever hardship. Follow Galatians 6:9. Believers should not tire themselves from acting and believing in the good because there is a harvest on the horizon waiting for all those who will not surrender. God’s Love is Within All The divine plan of God is ineffable. People cannot explain it, nor can it be expressed, but if there is one thing to be known: it is that eternal salvation hinges on love. 1 John 4:16 says God Himself is love, and whoever lives in love will live in God—God also lives with them. God's love is greater not only because it is infinite and eternal but because God Himself is Love. To show the world His love, He gave Jesus, His one and only Son, as the sacrificial lamb so that whoever places their trust in Him shall not perish but be rewarded with eternal life (John 3:15).
Yet that is not to say that the God of love is conditional because it is not. God's love is unconditional, and He will continue to love everyone despite their sins and merits, for His love is from absolute goodness and infinite mercy. Nothing in this universe can separate people from God's love but the person themselves. Although His love is unconditional and eternal, it is the prerogative of people to reach out and accept It. As can be learned from Romans 10:9 that if you declare aloud that “Jesus is Lord” and believe fully in Him and sincerely in His resurrection, there is salvation beyond death. God is not forceful, for He granted humanity free will, and it will always be from their end that the relationship begins.
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Photo by Karolina Grabowska
Wherever there is complete confidence of hope, there is faith. Faith is the full assurance of hope. Hope emanates from having a purpose that you long for or desire. God gives humanity the sense to live righteously through His vision and hopes to be accepted by Him when judgment day comes. Prayer is founded on faith; one must have hope in God's promises to find faith. When you hope for something, you pray that God hears your struggles and blessings. This article will expound on theological definition, biblical foundation, and practical application of hope and prayer. Theological Definition And The Biblical Hope Bible study tools define hope as trust in, waiting for, looking for, or desiring someone or something; or to expect something beneficial in the future. You can say hope is the starting point on the map; you look forward to your future endeavors. Ordinarily, when one expresses hope, he is expressing doubt. But this is not the specific biblical meaning of hope. The Scripture states that Biblical hope is not just a desire for something good in the future, but rather, biblical hope is a passion and confident expectation for something good in the future. Biblical hope not only wishes something extraordinary for the future; it awaits to happen. And it not only awaits for it to happen; it is confident that it will happen. The moral certainty is that the good you expect and desire will be done. However, hoping in God does not come naturally for sinners like you. You must preach it to yourself and preach diligently and forcefully, or you will give way to a downcast and disquieted spirit. Scriptural Evidence The Scriptural evidence begins in Hebrews 6:9–12. Apostle Paul warns his readers that it is possible for people who have had miraculous religious experiences to apostasy and go beyond the point of no return. He then says, "Though we speak thus, in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things that belong to salvation. This is because God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love you showered for His sake in serving the saints, as you still do. And they desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full confidence of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through patience and faith inherit the promises." Now comes the warning in verses 11 and 12 to not become sluggish and press on. But now, the battle is characterized in terms of hope, not just in terms of service and love. Having all the zeal of the past, one must pursue the full assurance of hope to the end. There is no fight, quest, challenge, or war more urgent than this. Keep your hope hot! Similarly, Lisare's book talks about Strengthening hope and faith in The Other Side Of Fear, from having low self-esteem, abuse, and crippling fear to knowing the ultimate love of God. Author W. Veronica Lisare has discovered courage, joy, hope, freedom, and fulfillment as she embraces her original identity as a daughter of Jesus Christ. The Connection Between Faith And Hope Is there a relationship between full assurance of faith and complete confidence of hope? Faith is the more significant idea, and hope is essential to Biblical faith. Hope is that part of faith that centers on the future. Biblically, you can call it hope when faith is directed to the end. But faith can concentrate on the past and the present, so faith is the more extensive term. You can check this in Hebrews 11:1. This is the closest thing you have to a definition of faith in all of the New Testament. Faith is the confidence of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Meaning wherever there is full assurance of hope, there is faith. Faith is the full assurance of hope. Biblical faith is a confident desire and expectation for amazing things in the future. However, faith is more than that. It is also the belief of things not seen, and some of these are not the future. Faith can look backward (to creation) as well as forward. So faith is the more significant idea. It covers hope but is more than hope. You can also say faith is one's confidence in God's Word. Thus, you can call their confidence in its hope whenever that word references the future. Hope is faith in the future tense. Concluding Words Placing hope in God, you pray that He hears and answers your prayers. In hope people find their faith, prayer strengthens your faith in God, and through prayer, you place your life in God's hands, for He will show you the future. Photo by KoolShooters Somewhere in human minds, removed from the day-to-day, there sits a judge. The judge's verdict is more or less loving, more or less enthusiastic, but not according to any objective rule book or statute. Whatever the verdict, always remind yourself that there is always room for improvement and progression. Your Inner Voice The judge watches what you do, studies how you perform, examines your effect on others, and tracks your successes and failures. Eventually, they pass a verdict. So consequential is this judgment; it colors your entire sense of yourselves. It determines your levels of confidence and self-compassion; it lends you a sense of whether you are worthwhile beings or, conversely, should not exist. The judge is in charge of what people call your self-esteem. The foundation of the voice of the inner judge is simple to trace: it is an internalization of the voice of people who were once outside humans. You absorb the tones of contempt and indifference or charity and warmth you will have heard in your formative years. People's heads are cavernous spaces; pretty much all have voices echoing within them. Sometimes, a cheerful and benign voice encourages you to run those final few yards: "you are almost there, keep running, keep going!" But more so, the inner voice is not very nice at all. It is punitive and defeatist, panic-ridden and humiliating. It does not represent anything like your best insights or most mature capacities. You find yourselves saying: "You disgust me; things always go to shit with someone like you." People take in these voices because they sounded so compelling and irresistible at certain critical moments in the past. The authority figures repeated their messages until they got lodged in your way of thinking – for better and worse. Why Does The Inner Voice Matter? Humanity's level of self-love is very consequential across one's life. It can be enticing to suppose that being difficult on yourselves, though painful, is, in the end, quite helpful. Self-sacrifice can feel like a survival strategy that steers you clear of the many dangers of complacency and indulgence. Relatively, there are equal, if not more significant, dangers in an ongoing lack of sympathy for your plight. Despair, depression, and suicide are not incredibly minor risks. Afflicted by a lack of self-love, romantic relationships become almost impossible. Why? Because the central requirement of a capacity to accept the love of another turns out to be a confident degree of affection for yourselves, built up over the years, mainly in childhood. People need a legacy of feeling that they, in some essential way, deserve love in order not to respond obtusely to affection granted to them by prospective adult partners. Without an ample amount of self-love, the kindness of another will mostly strike them as misguided or fake. And even as strangely insulting, for it suggests that they have not even begun to understand them, so different are their relative assessments of what they happen to deserve. People end up self-destructively – though unconsciously – disappointing the intolerable, unfamiliar love offered to them by someone who has no clue who they are. Wendy Veronica Lisare's book about a journey through Inner-healing is her personal experience of moving from low self-esteem, fear, and abuse to knowing the undying love of God. Lisare has discovered hope, joy, courage, freedom, and fulfillment as she embraces her authentic identity as a child of God. She shares the personal details of her journals from a sad childhood, a divorce from a loveless marriage, a battle with cancer, and the loss of a grandchild, to gaining a nursing job and at the same time being a minister of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Her testimony and the spiritual tools she learned from her life's journey will inspire all her readers to make that move of befriending themselves through every challenge they face. This should be coupled with the understanding that God loves you and knowing that there is another side to fear. Changing The Inner Voice Part of improving how you judge yourselves involves learning – in a conscious, deliberate way – to speak to yourselves in a new and different way – which means exposing yourselves to better voices. Humanity must hear constructive, kind voices often enough and around tricky enough issues that they come to feel like normal and natural responses – so that, eventually, they become their thoughts. One approach is to identify a pleasant voice you previously knew and give it more scope. Perhaps there was a kindly grandmother or aunt who was quick to see your side of things and would offer you deft words of encouragement. The other primary strategy for changing the voices in your head is to try to become an imaginary friend yourselves. Initially, this sounds odd because you naturally imagine a friend as someone else – not as a part of your mind. But there is value in the notion because the extent you know how to treat your friends with sympathy and imagination does not apply to yourselves. |