Fear No Fear

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

You will be blessed beyond all peoples; there will be no barrenness among you or your livestock. The Lord will protect you from all sickness, and you will not experience any of the terrible diseases that you knew in Egypt; instead he will inflict them on all those who hate you.
Deuteronomy 7:14-15 (emphasis added)

Protection is one of those things we all want. Protection from the elements. Protection from the insecurities of the job market. Protection from the financial market. Protection from bullies. Protection from those we think are against us. Protection from competing ideologies. Protection from harm. Protection from negative thinking. And sometimes protection from ourselves. It is one of those things that is common to all humanity.

We protect our children. We protect those who are in relationships with us. We protect our friends. It is one of our base impulses. It is one of our core values. It is one of the things that makes us human. Since we are made in the image of Adonai, we can realise the truth that protection is one of the core values of Adonai Himself. It isn’t a far jump. Protection stems from our feelings of love. Adonai IS love, so Adonai is all about protection. One of the most telling verses about that is in Romans. One of the arguments people have against the idea of Adonai and salvation through Jesus is ‘what about all the other people in the world who weren’t in contact with the Israelites’? Like Adonai is throwing everyone to the flames and only protecting a small few who He prefers. Doesn’t sound like a loving God does it?

“So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned—for before the law was given, sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin when there is no law” (Romans 5:12-13). Adonai wasn’t holding the sin against us because we didn’t have the Law. The price of sin was there. The cost of sin was there. But we weren’t given the Law because we had no framework for instituting it. We weren’t His Covenant people. But Abraham was promised he would be a Blessing to MANY nations. Not just ONE. Abraham came to be considered righteous because of his TRUST. In the same way – trust – we get to enter Grace. “But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if the many died through the transgression of the one man, how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ multiply to the many! And the gift is not like the one who sinned. For judgment, resulting from the one transgression, led to condemnation, but the gracious gift from the many failures led to justification. For if, by the transgression of the one man, death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ! Consequently, just as condemnation for all people came through one transgression, so too through the one righteous act came righteousness leading to life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man many were constituted sinners, so also through the obedience of one man many will be constituted righteous” (Romans 5:15-19).

Adonai set this up so that in Jesus, we would be able to enter into His Grace. His Grace carries His protection. His protection includes protection from the curse (sin). Part of that curse is sickness (Deuteronomy 28:15-22, 27-29, 35, and 58-61). If we want to enter into His Grace and gain protection from sickness, we do it by TRUST (faith). “Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have also obtained access into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory” (Romans 5:1-2). Adonai set this up before Creation (Revelation 13:8), which means Adonai decided on our path to freedom and protection before any of us had had the opportunity to do anything good. He decided it while we were in our sin (Romans 5:8-9). It isn’t offered to us because of what we have done. It isn’t affected by our performance. It is dependant completely on our trusting Him. “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. He has chosen you to be his people, prized above all others on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6).

This was a goal of the Old Covenant, but it was FULFILLED in the New Covenant. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may proclaim the virtues of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. You once were not a people, but now you are God’s people. You were shown no mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10). Adonai’s mercy made the door that we could walk through to the Father. By trusting Jesus, we can walk in the Grace of the Father. His Grace bring us protection. Protection against everything that isn’t of the Kingdom. Protection against everything that isn’t of the Father. Because in that Grace we ARE the righteousness of Messiah Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). In that Grace we are COVERED. In that Grace, we have PROTECTION. Because in that Grace we have place to express our love for our Father.

It is in our LOVE for HIM that we have the freedom to OBEY. ““If you love me, you will obey my commandments. Then I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept because it does not see him or know him. But you know him because he resides with you and will be in you” (John 14:15-17). When we love Him enough to do what He says, we are walking right in the middle of His Will. When we are there, we have full access to everything He gives. The Spirit of Truth is working in us and through us. The Fruit of that same Spirit are ours to reach out and take in the service of what He says we should be doing. When we are obedient, we’re humble – because you won’t submit in obedience to anyone not worthy of being obeyed.

So we are protected when we obey. We obey because we love. And we love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). His love is all encompassing. His love is pure. His love is what helps us to love. Perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4:18). Fear is the hook that sin uses to stay attached to us. Remember the old man is dead (Galatians 2:20). There is no reason for us to sin unless we take our eyes off the prize and let fear lead our decisions instead of trust. When we use what He gives us, the guidance He gives us, and the trust He birthed in us, we are able to walk WITH Him as much as we walk IN Him.

As our Good Father, we are Blessed above all other people. Above all other nations. Above all other everyone. NOT because of us, but because of HIM. Not our works, HIS. Not our gifts, HIS. Not US. HIM in us. HIM over us. HIM around us. It’s all HIM (John 15). “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. For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his creative work, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we can do them” (Ephesians 2:4-10).

We have Adonai’s protection from sickness as well as all the other protections when we remember who we are in Messiah Jesus. We have Adonai’s protections when we TRUST His Word. We have Adonai’s protections when we are humbly submitted to Him. We have Adonai’s protections when we are WITH HIM (Mark 10:27).

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Psalm 97:9

“For you, O Lord, are the Most High over the whole earth; you are elevated high above all gods.” The exaltation of Messiah was predicted. Messiah would be lifted up. Messiah would be on high. Messiah would be above the gods of this world and the world itself. Messiah would be lifted up as Lord Most High. “As they were still staring into the sky while he was going, suddenly two men in white clothing stood near them and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking up into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in the same way you saw him go into heaven”” (Acts 1:10-11). “This power he exercised in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 1:20). Angels acknowledged and reported the exaltation of Jesus to His friends and disciples. Jesus was Anointed and He is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. 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