Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

Yahweh said to Moses, “Don’t fear him, for I have delivered him into your hand, with all his people, and his land. You shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”
Numbers 21:34 (emphasis added)

We don’t all have ENEMY enemies. There are people who we tangle with or bump heads against over time. People who don’t like us and that we don’t like in return. But that isn’t the case every time. Sometimes we’re minding our own business and people come out against us. Whether because they don’t like us, don’t like what we have said, are jealous, or simply want no encroachment on what they see as their territory. It can happen in any arena of life. In these situations their bluster, their skills, their resources, their allies, or their weapons (financial, emotional, physical, or even peer pressure) can seem overwhelming.

For those who walk in the paths of the Lord, we don’t need to fear. God is a far-seeing God. He knows you have a need before YOU do (Matthew 6:8). He has crafted a solution for your problem before you even know that you HAVE a problem. We have been prodded to buy something more than once and not used it for a fair while, but then a circumstance comes up where we both need it and it’s hard to get. But there it is in the cupboard. Bought in sunny times and exactly what is needed in darker ones. He prepared us. We listened. And obeyed.

He is bigger, wiser, and all around more successful than anything coming against you. The world as we see it is malleable. Everything you can SEE can be CHANGED. Tiny rivers carve giant canyons. Forests become deserts. Ice melts. Jungles can freeze. Nations get toppled. Philosophies fade away. Everything that is natural is CHANGEABLE. We don’t always see that. But the Lord does. He sees it and has a CONSTANT dialogue going in our hearts about what IS going on and WILL BE going on.

Why do we see people as different than the world around us? Why do we think that Larry is never going to change his mind when we see change in the world everywhere we look? People are infinitely more malleable than the world around us. We change the colour of our socks and change our whole attitude along with them. We do it instinctively. Think about your childhood. Everyone has had a possession or a piece of clothing that were our lucky this or that. They had more meaning and altered how we felt and acted when we had or wore them. As adults we do the same thing. Lucky tie for the job interview. Best dress for the wedding. If these small things change our thinking and we believe they change our outcomes, why is it that we think the people around us are so immovable in their thinking? That they will never change or never be able to let us do what we want to do? It’s a major blind spot most of us seem to share. But God is there with a constant dialogue going in our hearts about what is going on and will be going on.

The question – as always – is: are you LISTENING?

The Lord tells us not to have fear. Again and again. He DIRECTLY tells us that one hundred and eleven times and INDIRECTLY between ninety-nine and two hundred and fifty other times — give or take a few. It’s THAT important to get across to us the message that we do NOT have to choose fear (or ANY of fear’s babies: strife, anxiety, depression, and worry to name a few). We are NEW CREATIONS in Jesus (Galatians 2:20). We have His Righteous Spirit INSIDE us, replacing OURS with HIS (Ezekiel 11:19-20 & Ephesians 4:22-24). By Grace, through Faith, we receive EVERYTHING from the Lord that makes us spiritual duplicates of Jesus Himself (Romans 6:1-23). And in Him, by His power, and through His blood, we have total one hundred percent victory over fear and everything it touches (1 Peter 3:18-22) .

The Lord also tell us not to fear because He HAS a plan. He WILL deliver us if we’ll let Him. Look at His track record. It’s pretty good. Unblemished, in fact. He – if we obey, worship, and allow Him in – will give our enemies into our hands. We don’t need to plot revenge, strike back, or do unto them with an eye for an eye or a leg for a leg. Not even an eyebrow for an elbow. Simply follow the path He’s laid out: Praise the Lord with all your heart, petition Him with the cares/requests/worries you have, listen to His response, thank Him for his response, do what He says, and every time the worry/want/care crops up again: thank Him that it’s dealt with, praise Him for His solution and victory, and refuse to pick up the concern. I try to always tell those thoughts to take it up with the cross if they want to discuss it because that’s where I left it. They’re free to knock themselves out at Calvary.

It isn’t so much our trusting the Lord to do something or plan something. It isn’t really about our going to Him and Him thinking about it and telling us what the deal is. It is a mental shift that is required. It is understanding that the victory is ALREADY there. The plan is ALREADY in place. EVERYTHING that is needed for victory has ALREADY been accomplished. All we need to do is WALK in it. We aren’t carving a statue out of a block of marble. We’re using a snap together model kit. We’re not chiselling out of rock, needing to make sure that every strike takes the right chip of the right place at the right angle. No. We’re taking pieces out of a box and putting them together in the order the instructions say. No tools. No glue. Just snap together to assemble. Everything done for us except the execution of it.

The Father has a plan. Let the Lord execute it by listening to and obeying what He says. By giving Him permission to work in your life and walking in obedience with a praisey heart. The enemies that look so tough, so fierce, and so career-destroying will be delivered into your hands. God said so. And He’s a guy you can trust.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Psalm 119

God loves us. He protects us. He gives us precepts to live by. Why? Because He WANTS to protect us. We have the amazing gift of free-will. God gave us the ability to choose and then He LETS US CHOOSE. He will NOT violate His law. He will NOT force us to do anything. We can choose to obey, or not. Choose to believe, or not. Choose to have faith, or not. It’s all a choice. It is an important responsibility. We can trust our own human selves, or we can trust God. Out of love, not fear. Choosing to obey because we understand some of God’s nature as He has revealed it in His Word and believe He is worth obeying. The advantage? It can bring real happiness, bounty, answers from God Himself, graciousness, protection, fulfilled promises, and delight. There is no disadvantage. When you obey the Lord, align to His Word, and stay in His will, every promise is a yes and amen (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.