Fear No Fear

He said, “Peace be to you. Don’t be afraid. Your God, and the God of your father, has given you treasure in your sacks. I received your money.” He brought Simeon out to them.
Genesis 43:23 (emphasis added)

The problem with God is that He is good. Why is this a problem? Because our minds are wrapped up in guilt, fault, and blame. It’s been that way before time was reckoned as time. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the snake, and the snake shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Who me? I was just talking about fruit’. Everyone wants to be not in trouble. Which means we’re always concerned with trouble. Where is it, what is it, and who’s in it? Especially if WE are.

God isn’t like that. WE sinned. WE rebelled. Committed treason. God was wrathful. Not toward us. Toward SIN. Sin cannot exist with God (Psalm 5:4). God is total, pure, unadulterated RIGHTEOUSNESS. Sin ceases to exist in His presence. If we remained in sin and got around Him, we would cease to exist. That’s why He kicked them out of the Garden. If they ate from the fruit of the Tree of Life, they would exist in sin FOREVER (Genesis 3:22). So it was bye-bye paradise. And HEELLLLLOOOOO opportunity to get right with God. To return to fellowship. Standing in the way though, was God’s wrath toward sin and those who love sinning (Psalm 11:5; Psalm 5:4-6; Revelation 2:6). Wrath and payment of the price is the Lord’s attitude toward sin. The price is death (Genesis 2:16-17; Romans 6:23). God LOVES the human being, but God HATES the sinner. It’s a splitting of hairs ONLY God is capable. The end result is that wrath toward SIN and payment of the PRICE of rebellion is due.

The cross took care of all of that wrath/price of sin. We don’t need to try and blame anyone anymore. He isn’t blind to ANYTHING, but thanks to the resurrection of Jesus, the Father sees the best. God doesn’t look at sin anymore because IN JESUS, He doesn’t have to. He sees things (us) as they CAN be (1 Samuel 16:7). Us, those around us, and the situations we find ourselves in. And He does things. Right from the beginning He did them (John 17:24). Always moving, doing, and creating (Psalm 90:1-2). He loves it. It’s part of who He is. We just don’t understand it. We can’t. We think on the level of dust. We toil, strive, struggle, sweat, and blame everyone else for our problems so that we don’t get punished. We seem to default to seeing what is around us now. God doesn’t have this issue. He thinks in the multi-dimensional level of metaphysics squared (Isaiah 55:8-9). It isn’t the same.

We see the impossible, the improbable, and the plain ‘ol weird happen when we dwell in the presence of God. Why shouldn’t we? He is Mighty, Holy, and about a thousand other words just off the top of my head. He is impossibly big, improbably magnificent, and beyond our ability to describe in words – but the Psalms come close so read them frequently.

He’s also a father who wants to play with His kids. Give us a hug. Read us a story. Tell a Dad Joke. Believe me. I was searching for my commentary of the book of Genesis to look up something I wasn’t understanding. Couldn’t find it. Searched the house. Zilch. Nada. I was frustrated. I called out (loudly): GOD! I need a word of knowledge about where Genesis is.

Immediate response: It’s at the front of the Bible.

ha. ha. ha.

I smiled. Nice. Thank you. Very helpful. Har har.

But when I went back to my cough neat workplace cough, I moved a stack of books on the floor. Bottom book? My NIV Study Bible. And in front of that? Underneath the coffee table? My commentary. Right at the FRONT of the Bible.

Could He have just told me? Of course. But this was punnier. And He DOES love to laugh. It was also absolutely true (in BOTH senses), unexpected, and out of left field. Much of what God does can seem that way. And that is very, VERY good news.

Look at what humankind has discovered. What we’ve built, accomplished, and learned. Amazing things. The pyramids, airplanes, artificial organs, ramen noodles, spaceflight, virtual reality, electric cars, Twinkies, human rights, and duct tape. They all PALE in comparison to what God has done, what God understands, and what God can do. He hung stars. Designed cells – have you ever seen the inside of one? It’s a city-level of complexity in there. Check out the sciences sometime. They are a textbook on the Glory of God. There isn’t a single thing that science can tell us that doesn’t WOW on the God level.
Look at the laws He set up, the minutiae to existence, and the way everything is kind of connected to everything else. Aerodynamics, the age of rocks, fossils, development of a species, seeds and how they produce, the speed of light inside an atmosphere vs the speed of light outside an atmosphere, etc etc etc. It’s amazing stuff. And there’s more that we don’t even know we have yet to discover about what He’s done.

The moment man sinned, he was under a penalty of death (Genesis 2:17). It was inevitable. But God didn’t enact the punishment immediately. Because then we would be dead. Instead, He and His Son put into play a way to save us. To bring us back from where we put ourselves – if we let Him. Jesus became man so that we can touch Him. He died to pay for sin (Galatians 1:4) so we can join Him in His resurrection (Romans 6:4-5) and be renewed so that we can go before the Throne of Grace (Hebrews 4:16).

He gave us choice and restriction in order to confer on us authority (Matthew 28:18-19). He didn’t take it away as soon as we messed up. We still have them. We can still choose to submit. We can still choose to believe. We can choose to worship things that don’t live, aren’t real, or are a false power. We can choose not to believe anything. To fight and kick and scream against deity. We can choose any path but His. These are all options. The human mind is infinitely willing to entertain thoughts of the supernatural – right up until you get to God. Then things get real and rejected quickly. But that is our RIGHT. Our gift from God is free will and if we decide to not believe in Jesus, it will be the sin that sends us to Hell (John 16:8-9). But it IS our CHOICE.

He loved us before we knew there was a choice. He loved us then, He loves us now, and He will continue to love us no matter what we do, say, OR believe. The hard and sad truth is that He will love us as we choose to walk into hell screaming and flipping the bird at Him (John 3:16-17). He will love us for eternity. No matter what we choose. We will either choose to be saved through belief in Jesus and what He did shedding His blood for us, or we will shed our own blood. Either way, sin is going to be punished. We get to choose which way it is going to be for US.

God is the ultimate power. The ONLY power, really. All other power in the universe is just a reflection of His power. You’re a witch? You’re using power to accomplish things? It’s reflected Yahweh. A spiritual entity is reflecting to use it like you can take a mirror and reflect sunlight. Just like sunlight can fry an ant, the reflection is an abomination and the resulting sinlight will fry both you and the spiritual entity reflecting it (Deuteronomy 18:10-12). Witchcraft, sorcery, and everything else like it is rebellion against God. It’s the devil using the fallen world around us to sell us what could be had for free in the Kingdom of God. We can speak to mountains and they will move (Mark 11:23-24). Alongside God, hand in hand, we can do anything because when we do them WITH God, nothing is impossible (Matthew 19:26). So why don’t we use this world-changing, physics ignoring power to alter what is around us all the time? Because it is God’s power, not ours. We need to move aligned with His will, not ours. We’re “I WANT” people. God is a “BIGGEST POSSIBLE PICTURE EVER” person. When we do it His way, all things are possible. When we grab it to do it OUR way, it is witchcraft and sin.

Why does He allow it? Why does He let the world prosper in sin? Why does He let people steal from Him? Love. He doesn’t WANT to punish us. He wants to punish sin. He wants us to realise the error of our ways and the foolishness of our arrogance and come to Him. “As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:19-20). God wants us with Him. That’s why He doesn’t strike us dead. That’s why He sent the Law – to point the way to the need for Jesus. To show us we CANNOT do it heart, mind, word, and deed ALONE. “Salvation and glory and power belong to our God for his judgments are true and just” (Revelation 19:1).

He could use that power to harm us. Hurt us. Control us. Face it. We would in His place. But HE doesn’t – thank you, God, you are SO good to us. He sent Jesus to pay for sin and wipe that whole thing away. Removed the barrier. The wrath. Now it can be the way it was and should be. God and us. Together. He gifts us, hugs us, makes us smile, kisses our wounds, heals, nurtures, corrects, instructs, requires obedience, and a dozen other things all because they are the best for us. He is GOOD and He does GOOD things. Most of which confounds us either in why He would do it, why He thinks we deserve any of it, or how He pulled it off.

That makes HIM smile: our faith and our obedience in our faith. He loves to make complex things and then watch us figure them out and realise how simple they really are. Because He is a God of details as much as He is a God of giggles. Joy unspeakable, full of Glory, Above All, and with us every day, every minute, no matter who we are or what we task are doing. He NEVER leaves (Deuteronomy 31:8) and He ALWAYS blesses (2 Corinthians 9:8) – almost NEVER in ways we understand.

And thank God for that too! Life would be SO DULL.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Psalm 86 (especially vs. 5)

God ABOUNDS in steadfast love. He is copiously supplied with immoveable love that is NOT subject to change. Sometimes we doubt this. What do we hear? “God says do this, don’t do that, or that thing is wrong. God says Jesus is the only way to get into heaven.” And we balk. How could a loving God say that? How could He NOT let everyone in? Well, I don’t let my kids do anything they want. I have rules and boundaries to protect them or what’s around them. Why would God be less interested in our well-being than me as a parent? God IS love and He LOVES us. His Word GOES. It isn’t always what we WANT, what we FEEL like, or what we UNDERSTAND. It isn’t God keeping us OUT. It is God making sure that WE GET IN! Sin keeps us out. He HATES it and all who love it (Psalm 5:4-6, 9-10). Jesus came to remove that barrier by paying for OUR sin. To restore the relationship with the Father. To enable Holy Spirit to live inside us. God is all about being WITH us, not gate-keeping. We don’t see it from that position because we’re selfish and fleshly (carnal). We’re all about flesh and explanation and proof and mitigating circumstances. The fact that faith is foreign to us (God GIVES us faith – Ephesians 2:8-9) should be all the proof we need that we start in sin and are in sin unless we believe in the Lord Jesus and let Him cleanse us. That we NEED Him to. The truth is that God has incredible amounts of determined and unchanging love for us – no matter where we are, how we are, or what we’re doing. But He is RIGHTEOUS and that WILL NOT CHANGE. It is OUR choice. It is free to pick up redemption. It takes honest belief. It takes honest confession. It takes baptism symbolic of our joining in His resurrection. That’s it (Romans 10:9; Matthew 28:19-20). Get yours today. There’s enough for everyone.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.