Fear No Fear

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

Dear friend, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, just as it is well with your soul.
3 John 1:2 (emphasis added)

The Midnight Express and the Road Warriors were two of the greatest tag teams in the world of wrestling. They gained traction at around the same time making it inevitable that they would face off. They did that for the first time in 1986 and over the next year they faced off over twenty times. Tag teams are powerful duos full of energy, partnership, and reliance. Spiritual health and physical health are just such a tag team, so don’t let them get caught on the ropes of religiosity.

Religion actually has a lot in common with world wrestling. It is colourful. It is loud. They have pretty costumes. They bounce around a lot and try to bodyslam their opponents. They taunt and mock those watching them. And they’re run from the shadows by people with a love of money, influence, and position. Basically, it’s a circus run by the greedy to worship money. While not everyone involved is jaded and badly intentioned, it isn’t true discipleship and it can be a seedy, seedy endeavour. There is NOTHING good that religion has brought to the church. Religious thinking has been responsible for more reprehensible acts and premature death in the Body of Christ than most of what the world has done to it – and they have been persecuting believers for centuries.

What we need isn’t religious thinking but Mind of Christ thinking. We need to get off the ropes and into the ring. Our battle isn’t against people or governments. Those are just the props of the fight. The real battle is in our minds against ideas, principalities, and strongholds. There are strongholds in our minds that rarely – if ever – manage to be defeated or altered. Take blue sky. We all agree we see it. All around the world, in fact. But it isn’t there. Not the sky, but the colour. The sky isn’t blue. You might already be disagreeing with me. It’s a firm concept we learn on our own just by looking up. It is cemented into our minds in a myriad of ways. It just doesn’t actually exist.

The sky is actually more violet than blue. But because of the way our eyes work, we see the blue light easier than the violet. So we have a PURPLE planet, but we see a BLUE planet. I don’t know if it was planned that way, but it is an EXCELLENT example of how the Kingdom of God works. We are surrounded by the spiritual or unseen world. We operate on that level in our spirits. “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is your life because of righteousness. Moreover if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit who lives in you” (Romans 8:9-11). We operate from the Spirit who is in us. We look at the unseen more than the seen (2 Corinthians 4:18), which means we’re keeping our eyes on Jesus (John 16:16).

It is by TRUST in the Kingdom of God that we can realise everything Adonai says we can realise. First, we have to believe it exists just as we must first believe Elohim exists and that He rewards those who seek Him before we can accept salvation (Hebrews 11:6). It is through our trust in Him that we please Him. It is through our trust in Him that we receive everything He gives. He gives by Grace. We receive by Trust (or faith). It is like a letter. He sent it. It has been delivered to our spirit. But we MUST believe and trust that it is indeed there before there is a point to go open the mailbox. And if we don’t open the mailbox, we will NEVER receive what He sent. If it is a cheque, it will remain uncashed. If it is food, it will rot. If it is clothing, it won’t be worn. If it is the keys to a home, we won’t ever live in it. If we don’t open the mailbox and remove what is inside – taking it from there to here – we won’t have RECEIVED what He has GIVEN.

“The Spirit is the one who gives life; human nature is of no help! The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63). Our human nature isn’t trusting. It sees only what is there. It doesn’t know if more is coming. It doesn’t understand patterns of behaviour. It is like a hamster I had as a child. When you put food into its cage, it would rush up to the dish and shove every scrap of food into its cheeks and then sit there. Staring at you. It didn’t move. It didn’t chew. I’m not sure it knew WHAT it was going to do. But it had made sure nothing could be taken from it. It had received this time and boy howdy did it have a hold on that. Beyond that? I’m not sure it understood that there was always more available. In the same way, we need to understand it is the spirit person that is truly important. And that it needs to be fed. Most important, we need to understand there is NEVER a lack of food. Our spirit understands this, but we MUST train our flesh. We can’t do that though, if we aren’t exercising our spirit.

We need to override the untrusting, disbelieving flesh and look only to the trusting and believing spirit inside us. We’re not trying to manifest our hopes and dreams. We’re not trying to speak positivity and let that take care of things. We’re not performing ritual. We are choosing with our soul to trust our spirit and bring what we know into our bodies. Physically, financially, emotionally, etc. Every which way. Every day should be so full of what we’re pulling out of our spirit – stuff that Adonai put in there – that we are constantly in marvel of the goodness of Adonai.

When we are aware of and take care of the health of our spirit person (John 6:35 & 51), we are in a position to access it. It won’t be starving and weak. It will be healthy and strong. It will be prospering. We can then take what is there and engage it in our physical bodies. In our attitudes, our actions, our words, and our physical circumstances. Nothing will be impossible for us because we’ll be operating hand in hand with Messiah Jesus through the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit). If we conform to the pattern of Adonai (Proverbs 23:7), allowing Him to renew our minds, using the Word to light our path, submitting to what we find in the Word with humble obedience, then we will find ourselves living in the same fashion Jesus did. By Grace, through our Trust in Him, we will get better and better at accessing and engaging what He has given us.

True peace, divine health, total prosperity, and everything else that the Father created for us is possible when we are thinking on the same things as Adonai is. When we keep our minds on Him (Isaiah 26:1-6), when we study the Word and fellowship with Adonai through prayer and praise, then we will have perfect peace. The kind of perfect peace that comes through perfect prosperity. SPIRITUAL prosperity. The gateway (Messiah Jesus) to spirit-soul-body prosperity is making sure our connection to the Way (John 14:6) remains open, healthy, and always before our eyes. Then we will prosper as our SPIRITS prosper. We’ll prosper outwardly because we are prospering inwardly.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Psalm 72:17

“May there be an abundance of grain in the earth; on the tops of the mountains may it sway. May its fruit trees flourish like the forests of Lebanon. May its crops be as abundant as the grass of the earth. May his fame endure. May his dynasty last as long as the sun remains in the sky. May they use his name when they formulate their blessings. May all nations consider him to be favored by God.” All nations shall call Messiah blessed. We are blessed to be a blessing. Messiah blesses and is blessed as well. He will bless all the nations and all the nations will bless HIM. “So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him. They began to shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!”” (John 12:13). Jesus rode the symbol of royalty being crowned (a donkey or mule – 1 Kings 1:33 & 38-40). Jesus, through His sacrifice on the cross, became worthy of being blessed by the nations. “and when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders threw themselves to the ground before the Lamb. Each of them had a harp and golden bowls full of incense (which are the prayers of the saints). They were singing a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were killed, and at the cost of your own blood you have purchased for God persons from every tribe, language, people, and nation. You have appointed them as a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.” Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels in a circle around the throne, as well as the living creatures and the elders. Their number was ten thousand times ten thousand—thousands times thousands—all of whom were singing in a loud voice: “Worthy is the lamb who was killed to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and praise!”” (Revelation 5:8-12). Jesus is the ONLY ONE worthy of this kind of blessing. Jesus IS the Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b