Fear No Fear

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

“He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and turn to me, and I would heal them.”
John 12:40 (emphasis added)

This has always seemed like a backward verse. If Yahweh wants everyone healed (Acts 10:38), then why would He harden someone’s heart to prevent them from coming around and being redeemed and healed? Yahweh wants everyone saved (1 Timothy 2:3-4), why would He take this attitude? This is the kind of verse that people latch onto to claim that Adonai isn’t loving or that He is like other gods, jerking people’s chains.

What we have to make sure that we never forget is that Yahweh is RIGHTEOUS. He is morally right, justified in being so, and ALWAYS acts in accordance with His divine and moral laws. That means that ANYTHING that isn’t in accordance with that earns His displeasure and anger. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness, because what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them” (Romans 1:18-19). Yahweh has made Himself manifest in all people. EVERY SINGLE PERSON is aware that there is a God. They reject it, fight against it, bury it, or turn that burn onto another god; but they cannot escape the truth that there is a god. Atheists throw their worship, faith, and belief onto reason or science or something other than a deity, for example. But in the end it is a God-shaped whole that they are trying to fill. Every human being does this in one way or another.

Yahweh has put this knowledge inside all of us so that He can build on it as He reveals Himself to us – regardless of whether we accept Him or reject Him. The Holy Spirit is here on earth to convict humanity of one thing only: not believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the firstborn Son of Almighty God. It is THE sin that sends you to hell “concerning sin because they do not believe in me;” (John 16:9). Because true and heart-known belief in Jesus as Messiah is the only way into heaven (John 14:6). He gives us chances, He speaks to us, He prods us, He encourages us, He calls to us, He loves us, and He wants us to turn to Him.

Some people, however, refuse to respond. They hear the call, and ignore it. They harden their hearts against the conviction of the Holy Spirit. They work to reject and ignore guilt, regret, and belief. They work HARD to put their minds and energies in other directions from Yahweh. They CHOOSE to not believe. They CHOOSE to not follow. They CHOOSE to not be corrected. Yahweh is a JUST God. He gave us free will. He doesn’t FORCE us to do ANYTHING. He lets us choose, He lets us decide, He tries to change our mind, and He tries to correct us. But sooner or later, if we will NOT respond, then He lets us be rebellious.

He lets us reject Him. He lets us wallow in our own crapulence. He lets us sink under the curse we CHOSE. Yahweh enforces OUR DECISION and we endure the just judgment that is a DIRECT RESULT of OUR CHOICE that He tried to get us to abandon. Repeatedly. This is the exact same kind of situation that Pharaoh was in in Egypt with Moses, Yahweh, and the Israelites. In Exodus 8:15, 32 and 9:34, Pharaoh CHOOSES to harden his heart. A heart that had already made himself a god on earth. Had already sided with the gods of Egypt. He had already demanded worship due Yahweh. So Yahweh let him have what he was insisting on. Pharaoh rejected the advances of the Lord. Pharaoh rejected the correction and proddings of the Lord. And so, in Exodus 7:13; 9:12; 10:1,20,27; and 11:10, Yahweh enforces Pharaoh’s choice. He judged Pharaoh with it. He will do the same today just as He did in Jesus’ day with the Pharisees (today’s verse and also Isaiah 6:10).

This is an extension of the principle of protection that Yahweh enacted in the Garden in Eden. “And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever”” (Genesis 3:22). Because of ADAM’s decision to rebel, Adam fell. Yahweh did NOT want Adam, Eve, OR their descendants (you and me) to remain that way. He did not want them in an ETERNAL fallen state. He wanted to REDEEM them. The only way to do that was to remove them from the possibility of eating from the Tree of Life. It was a TEMPORARY banishment to make sure that their ETERNAL salvation could be secured for them.

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life—water as clear as crystal—pouring out from the throne of God and of the Lamb, flowing down the middle of the city’s main street. On each side of the river is the tree of life producing 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month of the year. Its leaves are for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:1-2). When humanity’s redemption is complete, it will not be an issue eating from the Tree of Life. We will have come out from under the curse and free to enjoy it. Forever. Our temporary ban will have been lifted. Just as Jesus was our substitutionary sacrifice (1 John 2:2), He is our substitutionary fruit until we get to the real thing (John 6:53-54).

The question that today’s verse brings up is not what Elohim is going to do to YOU, but what YOU are CHOOSING. Are you going to reject the Word? Are you going to turn aside from what it says about your healing or the healing of those around you? Are you going to choose to let it be a thing you are waiting to come to pass when Elohim decides to do it? Or are you going to believe that Jesus accomplished it when He was crucified and it is available for you to claim and walk in RIGHT NOW? Are you going to stand on 1 Peter 2:24, Matthew 8:16-17, and Psalm 103:3? Are you going to see it in your mind’s eye because of what the Word says? Are you going to thank Him for what the Word says? Are you going to praise Him for the healing you ALREADY have? Setting your mind on the things that are unseen, not on that which is seen? WHO is going to give you your final word on this issue? Yahweh? Or some human? Or even yourself?

Do NOT harden your heart. Ask Jesus to keep it soft. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you in how you should walk, talk, think, and emote. Use the tools that the Father sent for you to use. Take what the Father is offering to you. Sickness is of the curse. It is of fear. It is of death. Jesus came to give you LIFE. Choose to believe that. Choose to walk in that. Choose to submit to the Word and not your senses. Don’t just pick this up willy nilly. Base your actions, words, and thoughts on the WORD and what ADONAI says that you can have RIGHT NOW. Let HIS Word be the ONLY word you accept.

He can open your eyes (2 Kings 6:17). He can soften your heart (Ezekiel 36:26). You can see with your eyes and understand with your heart and turn to Him (Matthew 13:16-17; Isaiah 45:22). And He WILL heal you (Exodus 15:26).

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Numbers 21:9

“So Moses made a bronze snake and put it on a pole, so that if a snake had bitten someone, when he looked at the bronze snake he lived.” Throughout the Old Testament Adonai put symbols, types, and shadows before us so that we would recognise Messiah when He came. So that we would recognise Jesus. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God” (John 3:14-18). “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:31-32). Jesus was lifted up on the cross to be the One who Saved Us. Jesus IS Messiah.

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b