2016: A Year For Living With No Fear

2016: A Year For Living With No Fear

[This commentary comes from Michael Snyder, The End Of The American Dream, who typically devotes his commentary to financial issues, which makes his conclusions even more interesting and unexpected]

2016 is just a few days old, and already there has been a tremendous amount of shaking. Stock markets all over the world are crashing, a huge earthquake just hit India, the middle portion of the United States is dealing with record flooding, Islamic terror continues to spread in the Middle East and elsewhere, and Saudi Arabia has suddenly cut off relations with Iran. Our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and I believe that this is just the beginning. In fact, I am fully convinced that 2016 is going to be an incredibly chaotic year.

So does that mean that we should all cower in fear and try to find somewhere to hide?

Not at all.

My wife and I seek to live our lives in a constant state of “shalom”, which is the Hebrew word for peace. And we believe that 2016 is a year to be lived with no fear whatsoever. Yes, immensely great challenges are coming to this nation. But with great shaking comes great opportunity. In 2016 we believe that there will be incredible opportunities to be a light in the darkness.

We are moving into a time when so many of the things that we have become preoccupied with will fall to the wayside and we will start focusing on what really matters. Many of you have been preparing for the future for many years, and this is going to be the year when those preparations begin to pay off.

When great challenges come, they reveal the true nature of our character. And as things fall apart all around us, people are going to be looking for leaders. To be a leader, sometimes you don’t even have to say anything. People are going to be watching how we respond to the events that are going to be happening this year, and we need to decide right now whether we are going to respond with strength or fear.

If you want to be a leader, you need to be ready to be a rock in the storm. When the waves start crashing all around you, that is the time to set your face like flint and choose not to be moved. Many are going to want to dig a hole and try to hide from the world, but those with courage are going to be running to the front lines instead.

This is what we have been training for.

This is what we have been preparing for.

You were born for such a time as this.

If you look back throughout history, almost all of the heroes that we greatly admire were birthed during times of great crisis. It is when times are the darkest that the light is needed the most. And the hard times that are coming are going to be crying out for strong men and women to arise.

For years, “watchmen on the wall” such as myself have been relentlessly warning about what is coming. In fact, I have been sounding the alarm so loudly and for so long that some of my readers are probably sick of it. But the purpose has never been to “create fear”. I believe that there is hope in understanding what is happening, and I believe that there is hope in getting prepared.

And the truth is that there is very much a spiritual dimension to all of this. For decades, God has been calling America to return to Him, but instead this nation has been feverishly running the other direction. Now a day of reckoning is upon us, and we are going to experience the consequences of decades of very foolish decisions.

In the legal world, there is always a pronouncement of guilt before a judgment is administered. And in 2015 I believe that we were very clearly shown our guilt in a myriad of ways. Some examples include the gay marriage Supreme Court decision, the Ashley Madison scandal, and the undercover Planned Parenthood videos. I don’t believe that it was any accident that those videos came out exactly when they did. The whole world got to see that we are murdering millions of babies, harvesting their body parts and organs, and selling those body parts and organs off to the highest bidder. Those body parts and organs are then used in bizarre scientific experiments, and the federal government is funding the entire thing.

But instead of repenting, Congress just authorized hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for Planned Parenthood for the coming year, and surveys have found that the American people approve of federal funding for Planned Parenthood by about a 2 to 1 margin.

I believe that we were given one last chance to repent in 2015, but instead we chose to shake our fist at God.

Now a great shaking is coming, and I believe that it has already started. Since September, we have seen a very highly unusual series of disasters in America. We have seen horrific flooding in Missouri, South Carolina, Texas and Oregon, a nightmarish wave of wildfires starting at the end of the summer resulted in more acres being burned in this country than ever before, the state of Oklahoma set a brand new all-time record for earthquakes in a single year, a series of very unusual tornadoes just ripped through areas near Dallas, and much of California continues to suffer through the worst multi-year drought in the history of the state.

When we look at the Bible, we see that there is often a progression to judgment. For example, frogs and lice were a couple of the early plagues that hit Egypt in the book of Exodus, but by the end all of the firstborn of the Egyptians were dead. A similar pattern exists in the book of Revelation. Each “shaking” is intended to bring about repentance, and if there is no repentance then more shakings come.

We should be happy that shaking is coming to America, because without shaking I don’t believe that there would be any widespread repentance.

God has been warning us about what is coming, but most of us don’t want to listen.

God sends warnings because He does not want us to fear. He knows everything that is going to happen in advance, He is in control, and He has a plan.

And even in the midst of all the chaos and darkness that is beginning to engulf the world, God is raising up a Remnant.

This Remnant is going to be the army of the last days. It will walk in faith and not in fear. It will boldly take action while others cower. This Remnant is going to become what God always intended His people to be, and it is going to do things that are going to shock the world.

The greatest move of God and the greatest harvest of souls that the world has ever seen are coming. But just because we know what God is going to do in these last days does not mean that we automatically get to be part of it. Now is a time to press in and seek Him like never before. We need to pray that God will pour out His fire on our lives and equip us to be warriors of light in a world that is filled with darkness.

Jesus is coming back for His bride, but right now we are not ready.

Jesus deserves the greatest bride of all. He deserves a bride without spot or wrinkle and that is madly and wildly and passionately in love with Him.

Without Him nothing is possible, but with His help we can become the bride that we were always intended to be.

In 2016, everything changes.

Are you ready?