Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the NET, netbible.org, all rights reserved)

Come back to me, you wayward people. I want to cure your waywardness. Say, ‘Here we are. We come to you because you are the Lord our God.
Jeremiah 3:22 (emphasis added)

We are a wayward people. Humanity – both males AND females – do not stay focused all that often. Whenever we come across truly focused people, what is it they say about their successes? That they worked hard, that they were consistent, that they wrote down their goals, that they stayed the course. From athletes to actors to entrepreneurs, they all have a similar story. Dedication that they fought to keep steady. They worked at it and ignored the temptation to fall aside. Almost all of them have someone supporting them. Cheering them on. Sharing the hardship.

It is no different in the spiritual realm. Jesus came to save us, but He also came to teach us FULL dedication. Not just looking at the letter of a Law designed to show us dependance on the Lord, but to show us how to get our WHOLE PERSON (Spirit, Soul, Body) focused on Yahweh God. Actions are not enough, there needs to be honest heartfelt belief. Belief is not enough, there needs to be honest heartfelt action. “So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead being by itself. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith without works and I will show you faith by my works” (James 2:17-18). “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded! By what principle? Of works? No, but by the principle of faith! For we consider that a person is declared righteous by faith apart from the works of the law” (Romans 3:27-28). They are two sides of the SAME coin, meaning the SAME thing. It is JESUS, not US who perfects the thing. The thing being us.

People are lazy. Even the hard-working ones. It is hard-wired into our flesh and is the epitome of the flesh or carnal self. You see, the Lord God put us in the Garden so that we could accomplish the job He had for us. “The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it” (Genesis 2:15). Other translations say “to tend and work it“. Maintaining, tending, and working ALL take work. Effort. Skill. Dedication. You can’t make things grow if you’re not DAILY checking on them in one way or another. Once we Fell, our nature moved the internal switch from WORK to NOT WORK.

We are CONSTANTLY talking about rest. Retirement. Taking a break. Telling ourselves we DESERVE it. But the rest our spirit craves isn’t rest FROM WORK, it is rest IN THE LORD. It is the Sabbath rest. It is the rest Yahweh entered when He finished creating (Genesis 2:1-3). Since sin separated us from God, we did not have access to it. So we developed the idea of rest and retirement from our TOIL. First, because we were never meant to toil – that was part of the curse (Genesis 3:17). Second, because if we train ourselves not to WORK, then we will balk at doing what the Lord wills which is a win for the devil and his ilk.

Here we are. People whose culture promotes breaks, rests, days off, ‘personal health’ days, sick days, vacations, retirement, and other things like them. While there is value in the world for some of those, they are superfluous in the Kingdom. If the Lord GIVES you the strength to do the work, you won’t get TIRED in the work the way WE think of tired, and we can rest our way to victory and completion of that which the Lord puts before us. The plan of the Lord for us did not include any of this retirement garbage because we would NOT decay, deteriorate, fade, weary, or weaken. Why would natural rest be needed when we aren’t toiling, but accomplishing?

We are not IN that plan because man and woman felt that they were missing out on something. Given full access to everything in the Garden, they wanted the one thing they were being restricted from. They worked their way up to it, fell to the temptation, and rebelled. Work and weariness entered our lives, and the idea of ‘a break’ came upon us – an attack like no other.

We find it SO EASY to stop work. To sit down and take a moment to ‘collect’ ourselves. To have some ‘down time’. Thing is though, we don’t always wait for the job to be done before we take a break. Which is great training for giving up and walking away when things get tough. To wander off and say it’s too hard. We can’t do it. We don’t do (insert thing you have decided you can’t do here). Some people don’t do lifting. Others don’t do people-time. Others can’t face children. Others need a break every two hours or things go badly. But it is ALL excuse. A get out of work free card that we desperately want to flash so we can sit down and do NOTHING.

It’s true in the world. It’s true in our spiritual walk. We’re not ‘feeling’ the presence of the Lord. Going to church EVERY week? ON TIME???? EARLY morning prayer? I don’t do mornings. Devotions EVERY day? Well, I ‘like’ the bible, but it’s so hard. There are things I don’t like. Old attitudes. It’s a difficult book. I pray, but not PRAY-pray. I get so tired. Declarations just seem silly. I don’t do that ‘weird’ stuff. I like my services like I like my wine – dry and small portions. Etc etc. For every type of person, there is a type of Christian to match. All too frequently, it’s a lazy and wandering type.

“For you were going astray like sheep but now you have turned back to the shepherd and guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25). This is something we ALL do to one extent or another. How did it get fixed? “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we may cease from sinning and live for righteousness. By his wounds you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Our propensity to wander around was HEALED by Jesus’ sacrifice. By His stripes, bruises, and wounds, we were healed of it. He spiritually cleansed us. That enables the Holy Spirit to dwell inside us. And THAT enables us to be faithful to the purposes and tasks of Yahweh God because FAITHFULNESS is a fruit of that Spirit that lives inside us.

Yes, the Lord still heals. He always HAS healed. He always WILL heal – as long as healing is necessary because the curse exists. He wants your bodies whole. He wants your mind whole and settled. He wants the past in the past with no hooks setting snares in your present or future. He wants all those things for you. But what good will it do if your SPIRITUAL state is wounded, injured, or still dead? “For what benefit is it for a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his life?” (Mark 8:36). We need to make sure we are NOT neglecting the spiritual when we pursue physical and mental healing.

The word on healing went out two thousand years ago during the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is there, ready and waiting for us to take it from His hand. If we have faith (Matthew 17:20-21), and we believe (Mark 9:23), then we can receive (Matthew 21:22). How can we believe if we have no faith? How can we have functional faith if we are not hearing the Word (Romans 10:17)? If we let our faith atrophy, it won’t be able to help us believe. If we are getting into the Word in order to stretch and strengthen our faith, our minds will be renewed to His ways and His commandments. If we are renewed into His commandments, we will be repenting of what we’ve done wrong and working to keep from repeating the behaviour. It is an active flow in our lives of actions and words which prove what we are believing in our heart – the contents of which we should be getting from the Word. Never EVER neglect your spiritual walk. It is the vehicle by which our minds and our hearts receive EVERYTHING.

“People do not light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house” (Matthew 5:15). Make sure your house is lit and lit well. It will not only be cozy, but it will be easier to see what the Lord is showing you. And when you can see more of what the Lord has for you, there is no telling how much you will see. The Holy Spirit is here to teach us, correct us, and give us living commentary on all that we read in the Word and hear of the Word. But He doesn’t operate in the dark. Light your light and keep it shining. Spiritual healing is just as important as the healing of those things we see (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Genesis 28:14

“Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west, east, north, and south. And so all the families of the earth may receive blessings through you and through your descendants.” This is a prophetic promise to Jacob. Previously, Abraham was promised descendants as numerous as the stars (Genesis 15:5). There are approximately 200 billion trillion OBSERVABLE stars in our universe from this vantage point. In today’s verse, Jacob is promised descendants like the dust of the earth. Anywhere from 1 to 3 billion tons of dust are lofted and deposited back to Earth each year. 20 to 40 million tons of dust are floating in our atmosphere. 200 tons of dust hit the Earth each day from cosmic sources. That is a LOT of descendants, no matter which one is your metric. One of those descendants was Jesus. “the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor” (Luke 3:34). From Abraham came the line of the Jewish people. The specially chosen people of Yahweh because of the faith of this man – a faith he passed onto his children. Jacob was faithful and was promised a multitude of descendants as well. One of them was to be the vehicle for blessing ALL the families of the EARTH – not just the Jews. Only Messiah could do that. Messiah was to be a seed of Jacob. Jesus is a descendant of Jacob. Jesus IS Messiah.

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

Yeshua is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Matthew 16:16b