Fear No Fear

(All scripture from Lexham English Bible, Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software)

The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom; all who do them^[a] have a good understanding. His praise endures forever.

_{[a] That is, his precepts (v. 7), or the stipulations of his covenant (v. 9)}

Psalm 111:10

I like that having reverence for Adonai creates in us good understanding. By simply putting Him in His rightful place, our broken thinking starts to repair itself. Getting the Word into our hearts is what will fully restore our minds to what they are capable of (Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 2:16), but even by the act of humbly submitting to Adonai we gain something of great value. I like how the Complete Jewish Bible phrases this verse: “the first and foremost point of wisdom is the fear of Adonai; all those living by it gain good common sense. His praise stands forever.” I think we can ALL use more good common sense. In getting good common sense, we learn to praise Adonai. GOOD common sense means we praise Him. It’s not what we usually teach about common sense, but then again that’s BASIC common sense or HUMAN common sense or LOGICAL common sense. It is only GOOD common sense – the Elohim kind of sensing – that shows us our place and brings out of us the natural actions of being in that place: praise of Adonai.

“The start of wisdom is fear of Yahweh, and knowledge of the Holy One, insight” (Proverbs 9:10). Wisdom is the correct application of knowledge. And insight is the result of apprehending the inner nature of things or of seeing intuitively. It is the ability to have a clear, deep, and sometimes sudden understanding of a complicated problem or situation. Reverence for Yahweh brings us GOOD common sense, where we begin to apprehend the inner nature of things around us – everything being made by Adonai and reflecting His glory – which enables us to receive from Ruach HaKodesh clear and deep understanding of the situations we find ourselves in or find approaching ourselves. Then we can – in reverence for Adonai, His character, and His will – correctly apply that insight in good common sense to the situation. Isn’t that a great circle? We get good common sense, enabling us to understand more of Adonai, which enables us to apply our understanding correctly through Ruach HaKodesh. He has given us all the tools, all the paths to follow, and it all starts with our reverence of Him and His rightful place.

This is all CLASSIC Adonai. Call us to live a certain way, and then gives us everything we need to achieve that life, and connects it to Himself so that our Source remains pure and holy. It is only through life in Jesus (John 15:5) that we can do this walking in Adonai. Without Him, it is IMPOSSIBLE to do. Which is why He keeps it simple, why He makes it about seeking Him, and doesn’t leave us on our own to stumble into overcoming. He overcomes for us (John 16:33). He loves us enough to provide a Way for us (John 3:16-18). And He gives us someone to guide us through the whole process (John 16:13). Since it is all about Adonai, He keeps it all about Adonai, and gives us Himself so that we can succeed in Adonai. Little by little, piece by piece, glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). Simple. But not easy.

Our eyes, our mouths, and our ears are the ways in which we keep Adonai first place, praise Adonai and build life, and hear our instructions. The enemy and the world are desperately trying to block our eyes, our mouths, and our ears up. They want to crowd the entrances and the exits so that what we see, what we say, and what we hear are all about them. They are the darkness that hates the light (John 3:20-21), so they try to bring shadow to everything they come into contact with. If they can snuff us or dim us, less of them are exposed to the Light of the Glory of Adonai. Our minds control us. We use our minds to decide what we look at, what we speak, and what we listen to. The battleground is in our mindscape, but even there we are not left alone: “for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but powerful to God for the tearing down of fortresses, tearing down arguments” (2 Corinthians 10:4).

We need to understand the process and lean into His guidance because in order to reverence Adonai, we must also hate evil just like He does. We need to have the same heart attitude as He does. That takes WORK because we were not born perfect like Jesus with a living, righteous spirit. We were born in sin, with a dead spirit and broken thinking. We have to unlearn what we taught ourselves and renew ourselves to Adonai’s point of view. Our flesh isn’t going to do that. The world isn’t going to do that. The enemy certainly isn’t going to do that. Only Ruach HaKodesh is going to help us do that. If we live according to His point of view, we have good understanding. We get that from His good common sense and a knowledge of His character. If we live according to our broken human thinking, we will NOT have good understanding and it will lead to all sorts of problems since we’re opening the doors of opportunity to the devil and the world.

Let’s start rejecting basic common sense. Let’s let the Word and Ruach HaKodesh show us Adonai’s proper place. Let’s praise Him into His proper place so that we will gain the GOOD common sense. The common sense that not only sees what is happening in the natural world around us, but also what is happening in the spiritual world around us. Let’s get Adonai’s point of view before our eyes and in our minds. Let’s let Ruach HaKodesh start sowing it into our hearts, getting it deep down inside of us where it will bring a harvest of HIS understanding. Let’s let Ruach HaKodesh be our standard of ‘common’ sense. Let’s let it help us live according to His precepts, bringing Him glory in everything we do, everything we think, and everything we say. Let’s let Adonai be first place in ALL things. Amen.

Daily Affirmation of the Goodness of Elohim: Acts 10:38

“Jesus of Nazareth—how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with him.” Jesus was anointed with power and God was with Him. Well, Jesus is the same yesterday as well as today and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8), so Jesus is STILL anointed with power and God is STILL with Him. That means God is with ME too (Galatians 2:20). Yesterday, my son decided to ‘climb a bush’ at full speed while playing some maniacal catching game with his friends outside. The bush took a chunk out of his leg. It hurt bad. It made a hole. There was blood. I felt no panic. I wiped up the blood. Pressed some gauze to the wound. Checked it out. Gave a spray of bactine (antiseptic), used two butterfly bandages and put a big bandaid over the whole thing. Then we prayed (there were three of us there). And spread the news to a small circle. They prayed in agreement with what we outlined. Jesus took wounds so we didn’t have to have them. Jesus released healing on the cross. We were engaging it, thanking Him that we could, and thanked Him for the end result: nothing missing, nothing broken, no infections, no complications. Why? It is written (Isaiah 53:5; Matthew 8:16-17). We believed. We trusted. Well, an hour later I checked on him as he was happily playing inside. No leaks through the bandage. No issues behind it. No real blood. I changed the bandage. Twenty minutes after that he was running through the house and everything was as if nothing was wrong with him. We are STILL thanking the Lord because it is written, it is true, wea KNOW he is healed and we will see visible improvement every time we check it (or if a medical professional checks it), and we praise Jesus He is on the case. It is written. And He’s the same. And He lets US use His authority and power to heal and bring glory to God (John 14:12; Luke 10:19; 2 Peter 1:3; 1 John 5:14). We have yet another visible proof that His will is healing, that it has NOT passed away, and we are thanking Him for all He does and praising Him for doing it. Glory to God, look at what He has done for us. What a GOOD God!

Your Daily Confession of Elohim’s Goodness:

I taste and see that Yahweh is good; I am blessed because I take refuge in Him.

Psalm 34:8