Fear No Fear

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

You have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bandaged the injured, brought back the strays, or sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled over them.
Ezekiel 34:4 (emphasis added)

This verse – and those around it – show us two very important truths. The secondary one is the spiritual principle that what we do affects what we receive (Luke 6:38). We can be a stumbling block for others and fall over that block ourselves. Perhaps we are not seeing the results in our own lives because of the seeds we are showing around us – on purpose and by example. The primary truth these verses show is that these things are EXPECTED parts of the believer’s life. Here Yahweh is taking to task the leaders of the congregation, the shepherds of the Children of God, for NOT doing what He wanted for His children.

That is a significant thing. Yes, they are charged with fattening themselves and not the people. Yes, they are charged with accumulating money for money’s sake and not for ministering to the people. Yes, they are charged with wearing the best and having the best, not clothing the poor and the disadvantaged. Yes, they are charged with not providing the guidance that the people desperately needed. Leaving them to wander wherever they willed, instead of making sure they were being taught the things of Adonai and the paths they were to follow. But there is more.

They had not healed the people, means that healing the people was EXPECTED. They had not strengthened the people, means strong men and women and children able to stand against what was thrown their way was EXPECTED. They had not bandaged the injured, means that those who are hurt (mentally and emotionally and financially) are EXPECTED to be cared for and nurtured. They had not brought back the strays, means that love and encouragement were EXPECTED, not judgement or abandonment or a forgetting. They had not sought the lost, means that spreading the Good News of who Yahweh really is and how He feels to unbelievers was EXPECTED. That with force and harshness they ruled, means gentleness and kindness toward fellow humans was EXPECTED.

Healing. Helping to strengthen. Caring for and nurturing. Reaching out a hand of understanding. Reaching out to love the lost. Love. Encouragement. Gentleness. Kindness. THESE ALL were EXPECTED. And that was in the OLD Covenant. What about the New? “But now Jesus has obtained a superior ministry, since the covenant that he mediates is also better and is enacted on better promises” (Hebrews 8:6). What is the foundation of it? Jesus the Messiah. In HIM we have a better covenant. “But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even though we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you are saved!— and he raised us up together with him and seated us together with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-7).

To demonstrate the surpassing wealth of His Grace in KINDNESS. THIS is the example of the New Covenant which we are called to. THIS is why healing is expected. THIS is why strengthening is expected. THIS is why care of those who need caring for is expected. THIS is why the counselling, teaching, and ministering to those in a crisis of faith and belief is expected. THIS is why making sure the world knows Adonai is NOT mad at them, NOT judging them, and calling them to live in His everlasting MERCY is expected. They are ALL covered under Adonai’s GRACE and they MUST be expressed with KINDNESS. Mark this well. One of the greatest sins that can be held against us if we are not DAILY letting Adonai deal with us about it is our NOT being kind and gentle to EVERYONE around us.

We don’t have to feel it. We don’t have to come up with it. We don’t have to pretend. We don’t have to fake. We need to access what is in our spirit because HIS Spirit is inside us and an INEVITABLE outpouring of kindness and gentleness will happen when we tap into the Holy Spirit. If I plant a vine and let it grow with even the bare minimum of care (water). Fruit WILL grow and can be picked. I have to pick it. I have to eat it. But it will be there because the vine was there an not neglected. Same with the spiritual things. These things are fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and can be accessed by us when we water the vine with the WORD, which is Jesus the Messiah (John 1:14).

Healing was PART of being someone who followed Adonai. We can see it in today’s verse. We can see it again and again throughout the Old Covenant. We see it in the New Covenant. Jesus NEVER denied a healing. He healed ALL who were brought to Him. If you had faith in His ability to heal you and did not have UNBELIEF about the reality of it you were healed. It is NO different for us because Jesus DOESN’T change (Hebrews 13:8). Jesus is our food and drink. Because in HIM we see the possibility, following HIM we have the access, in humble submission TO HIM we have the authority to act how He says, where He says, and when He says.

“Do not be carried away by all sorts of strange teachings. For it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not ritual meals, which have never benefited those who participated in them” (Hebrews 13:9). This is CONSISTENT teaching from Genesis through Revelation. Healing, strengthening, care, teaching, correcting, preaching, kindness, gentleness, redemption, and reconciliation are for US. Yahweh wants us to have them. And He is UNHAPPY when we do NOT have them. Not angry. Unhappy. Because we are not taking all we are being offered. He’s not mad at us, He’s sad and He tries to get us to see that it is ALL ours. Right NOW. Not later. Not just in heaven. Not some of it. ALL the blessings of Messiah are ours NOW and IN JESUS the Anointed One (Ephesians 1:3-4).

Since these things are OURS, our legal right of inheritance (Isaiah 54:17), we have NO RIGHT to keep them from each other. These things from today’s verse are our warning. That these attitudes and actions are NOT for the Body of Messiah. Never. We have been given the attitudes that we are supposed to have (the Fruit). We are NOT to walk in other ways. Never. Jesus didn’t, and we are to be like Him. Especially if we are in a position for others to look up to us. “So as your fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings and as one who shares in the glory that will be revealed, I urge the elders among you: Give a shepherd’s care to God’s flock among you, exercising oversight not merely as a duty but willingly under God’s direction, not for shameful profit but eagerly. And do not lord it over those entrusted to you, but be examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:1-3).

If we become a stumbling block to others, we become a stumbling block to ourselves. If we will not allow others to walk in what the Word says they can walk in, how can we expect to walk in them? The Body of Messiah is not an exclusive club for only SOME. It IS a member’s only club, but ALL men AND women are being offered membership. We are not gatekeeping. We are not trying to keep people out. We want them ALL. All kinds. All races. All walks of life. Jesus IS the door (John 10:9-10). The ONLY requirement is to go through Jesus. He is the ONLY way. For ALL humanity. Submit humbly to Him. Let HIM be boss. The LORD of your life, your thinking, your heart, and your feelings. What HE says goes NO MATTER WHAT. This is salvation – being changed in a moment from those lost to those found in Him.

Since Jesus will accept EVERYONE who is willing to humble themselves, believe in their hearts, and confess Him as Lord; who are we to deny them ANYTHING of the Kingdom? They have the same right to it as us. We are ALL on a different step of the journey. Salvation is the starting point, not the end goal. The end goal is being an EXACT COPY of Jesus – something impossible this side of Heaven. But we can get closer and closer. Being corrected every day. Taking more and more of our thought life in captivity to the cross. Taking more and more of our flesh in submission to the cross. Becoming more and more like Him. It is what we do! Why would we want to hinder ANYONE else no matter WHERE in the journey they are?

These things are for us. Now. Always. Ever. Do not stand in your own way by standing in the way of other people. Do not lose sight of the FREEDOMS of the Kingdom. The freedoms that we ALL get to walk in. The building up of the Body of Messiah one to another. Each in the way He gives us. Each in the ministry we walk in. Each in prayer and thanksgiving. Turning us into a people of love. “Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Love is not a feeling. It is a choice to pursue a chain of actions. Action of thought. Action of word. Action of deed. Love does NOT deny. Love does NOT let go. Love does NOT smother. Love encourages, builds up, supports, strives, is kind, is gentle, is reliable, is stable, and grows by decision to be a servant. Love one another. Always.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Job 9:32-33

“For he is not a human being like I am, that I might answer him, that we might come together in judgment. Nor is there an arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both,” One of the best things about Yahweh is that He answers us (I John 5:14-15). Job asked for something. An arbiter. A mediator between man and Yahweh Himself. Messiah IS that mediator. Messiah is the One who can stand before Yahweh face to face and before us face to face. Only Messiah can be that arbiter. “For there is one God and one intermediary between God and humanity, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for all, revealing God’s purpose at his appointed time” (1 Timothy 2:5-6). Jesus IS the Anointed One who stands between Yahweh and Humanity. Jesus IS the ransom by which this became possible. Jesus IS our arbiter, our mediator. The One and Only. Jesus IS Messiah.

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b