Q&A Forum - April 2016 (best of Elise)

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The above entry touched on the subject of guilt brought on by a strict religious upbringing. Guilt is the byproduct of fear. I believe God has called us to live a life of faith, not fear. Yet religion uses fear to keep the flock in line. When a mind-set is developed by having it repeatedly beat into you that God will punish you if you don’t live a certain way, then fear creeps in and one develops an attitude that negative things will happen to you if you don’t conform. This is hard to overcome because negative things can happen to any of us and if you are of the mindset that the reason a negative event occurred is because God is mad at you, it cripples you and you go around living your life in fear.

Faith is the opposite of fear. Faith is a positive expectation that good will come. Faith is a belief that God is not angry. Faith believes that God is love and God wants to bless us. Faith makes a person run to God. Fear makes a person run from God, because they are afraid of God.