Fear No Fear

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

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”) in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles, so that we could receive the promise of the Spirit by faith.
Galatians 3:14-15 (emphasis added)

Messiah Jesus became a curse for us. ‘Became’ means to come into being, to happen, to become, am born, become, come about, happen, or to emerge. Fundamentally, it means transitioning from one point (realm, condition) to another. Jesus transitioned from being sinless and perfectly righteous in every way from Yahweh’s point of view to being sinful and spiritually dead in every way from Yahweh’s point of view. Jesus TRANSITIONED from the Kingdom of God to the Kingdom of Darkness. He turned into everything that Yahweh hates (Psalm 11:5). Jesus got sick for the first time since He was baptised. Jesus got diseased. He had gonorrhoea up there, never having even THOUGHT of lust. He had stage four cancer and it was metastasised in His colon. He had boils, skin problems, scabs, weeping wounds, anxious thoughts, He was depressed, He had pain shooting through Him, and all of it? It was SEPARATE and on TOP of His crucifixion. He WAS sickness. He WAS sin. He was something He never deserved to be. He had done NOTHING wrong, but took on every single symptom, condition, and feeling of sin (Isaiah 52:14).

Jesus took on those symptoms so much that He DIED. That might sound odd, but Jesus was the Last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-58). He was LIKE Adam but was from heaven, not dust. There is no reason to suppose that Jesus would EVER have naturally died because Adam would NEVER have naturally died if it wasn’t for sin. Jesus was sinless. Hat not even a shadow of it inside Himself. He was PURE. But He submitted to the order of things here. He took on the ONLY thing that could cause death to come on Him. Sin. He took on the thing that He hated as much as His Father hated it. He took it on so thoroughly He WAS sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). He took our sins. Over two thousand years ago He took every sin you ever did, currently do, or WILL EVER do, and bore them inside His own body so that OUR sin was part of the sin HE became (1 Peter 2:24). They were inside His body. They WERE His body. And they were part of the cause of His death. They were buried in that body. Stone rolled. Sealed off. Guarded by Roman soldiers (or perhaps Jewish Temple guards).

As the Romans were guarding your sins – probably dressed in shiny breastplates and speaking with English accents – something else happened. Jesus transitioned. The Father used the Ruach HaKodesh to give life to Jesus’ body. As He did that, it was infused with Perfect Love (1 John 4:18) and Life (Proverbs 12:28) and Light (Ephesians 5:8). It became a NEW body. A NEW thing. Something that had NONE of the sin of the old one from the cross. That is how WE get in on the deal. “But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is your life because of righteousness” (Romans 8:10). Jesus transitioned from the state of dead to the state of living in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a spiritual state that affects the physical state. Death has no part in it because it is righteous. Jesus will NEVER see death. His body ALREADY died, it will die never EVER again. When we join Him in His resurrection we get a place in that righteousness. “For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection. We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. (For someone who has died has been freed from sin.)” (Romans 6:5-7). He was dead, we were dead. He is alive, we are alive in Him. We are not working for that life, we have it. We are not trying to drive out sickness, we are well. We are not looking for our salvation, we are saved. We are not sinners, we are the Redeemed. When we are in Jesus, we have the benefits of HIS life. “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 8:11).

We enter into that promise by trusting that it is true. TRUST (faith) is how we get it. “Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:3-4). We need to read it in the Word. We need to hear it from the Word. We need to understand through the Ruach HaKodesh that this is indeed what it says. That it is true. That we ARE in Jesus. If you know it, you will trust it. If you trust it, you can accept it. Sometimes we learn something new. About a subject in school. About something at work. Even something new about a person. Perhaps it shakes our idea of them. Maybe we need a little space to think about it. To re-frame them. To realise who they really were all this time (and are). Works the same way with Jesus. We need to realise who we really are. The Righteousness of God in Messiah Jesus.

Sometimes, maybe even a lot of time, we don’t feel like that. The TRUTH is that your old nature is dead. It is not tempting you anymore. It doesn’t want to sin. It doesn’t want to make you do anything or keep you from anything. It is dead, buried, desiccated, and useless. It isn’t even enough ashes to fill an urn. The thing we THINK is our old nature is one of two things. Habit. Things we told our brain before. It’s like new math where we are learning to break apart the problem into easier steps and work their way to finding the answer. It often involves using pictures, number lines, and area models to solve problems. But our brains are confused and point out that math is memorising and following a series of steps to reach the right answer. Your brain isn’t rejecting new math. It’s having trouble processing that all that old math holds no function or use anymore.

The other thing is the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens (Ephesians 6:12). The principalities and powers that mimic our old nature. The thoughts that come from outside. Temptation can’t exist if we don’t already know what the thing is. Temptation is that thing being shown to us. Then we have to decide whether we are going to open the door and dwell on it, or reject it. “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each one is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires” (James 1:13-14). Our minds remind us of our old desires. Outside forces show us and remind us of what we are capable of doing and enjoying. Sin is always at the door (Genesis 4:7). This happens to us. This happened to Jesus. But what’s next? “Then when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death. Do not be led astray, my dear brothers and sisters” (James 1:15-16). If we let those thoughts turn into anything but a rejection, we are asking to be led astray. We need to make sure that we do NOT have a temptation baby.

The self-same trust that we use to keep our eyes on Jesus is the self-same trust we use to stand on the Word. It is the self-same trust we use to humble ourselves to the Father in obedience. It is the self-same trust we use to accept salvation. It is the self-same trust we use to get ALL the promises of the Spirit. By Grace through TRUST is how the Kingdom works. It is how we abide in Messiah Jesus. It is how we access all of that stuff that we already have because He already accomplished it. We are given trust by Adonai (Ephesians 2:8–9). We are told to strengthen it with the Word (Romans 10:17). We are to make it such a part of us that there is nothing we won’t trust in when HE says it is possible. Period.

We need to learn what we have been promised. We need to trust in what the Word says about what we learn. We need to trust that we CAN have it. We need to trust that we DO have it. Since we already have it, we can stop trying to get it. We can focus on opening the package that has already been delivered. We can focus on taking from His hand what He put there for us. By TRUST we CAN receive the promises. We CAN have it. We CAN. Trust Him on it.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Psalm 118:22-23

“The stone that the builders discarded has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s work. We consider it amazing!” The rejected stone is Head of the corner. The cornerstone is a basic element of something. It’s foundation. It’s an important quality or feature on which a particular thing depends or is based. Messiah would be the feature upon which the Kingdom of God would be based. Without the Messiah, there would be NO Kingdom here on this earth. It would fail to rise, fail to stand, and fail to endure. He would be the quality that would be upholding it. “Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? “For this reason I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit” (Matthew 21:42-43). Jesus went further and told the disciples exactly what the idea was that would be the foundation of the church: that He (Jesus) was the firstborn Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:16-18). 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