Fear No Fear

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

But they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.
Revelation 12:11 (emphasis added)

The blood of the Lamb paid for sin. The price of sin was set before anyone had rebelled. “Then the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.”” (Genesis 2:16-17). The Hebrew for ‘surely die’ is the SAME word repeated. Adonai was saying that Adam would ‘DIE die’ if he disobeyed. Spiritual death was INSTANTANEOUS (Genesis 3:7). Physical death began right away, but it took awhile for Adam to adjust his mind to the process (Genesis 5:5). He wasn’t designed to die, after all. But the price of sin was death (Romans 6:23), both spiritually and physically. We were doomed to die, generation after generation, because sin was part of the world after that point. The dead spirit that gave no life was part of the heritage of Adam and Eve passed down to ALL humanity. Like breeds like.

Since humanity had sin – part of our nature – we were NOT eligible to be a sacrifice to pay for it. That was one of the points of the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant. To teach us what kind of sacrifice was acceptable. ““‘But if he brings a sheep as his offering, for a sin offering, he must bring a flawless female” (Leviticus 4:32). ““On the eighth day he must take two flawless male lambs, one flawless yearling female lamb, three-tenths of an ephah of choice wheat flour as a grain offering mixed with olive oil, and one log of olive oil,” (Leviticus 14:10). Spotless lambs were flawless. Flawless was the only acceptable sacrifice. But in thought, word, or deed we ALL have flaws (Romans 3:23). We are ALL guilty of at least once doing something, saying something, or actively thinking something that goes against what is morally right from Adonai’s point of view. Sooner or later (usually sooner) we ALL go wrong. It doesn’t matter if you do it small or big. “For the one who obeys the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it” (James 2:10). ANY failure means you are not righteous, so you are not flawless, so you are not eligible.

Jesus NEVER sinned. That doesn’t mean that He was a ‘perfectly behaved child’. A child hasn’t done wrong until they KNOW that a given thing is wrong. Anyone with kids knows that there is a vast number of things children do that we never considered to say no to ahead of time. But once it was explained that it was a ‘no’, Jesus wouldn’t have done it. Jesus NEVER disobeyed. And once He was filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus never even spoke a word that the Father hadn’t told Him to say (John 12:49-50). Nothing came out of His mouth that wasn’t directed by the Father. It’s one of the reasons that Jesus spent so much time in prayer and fasting. He was always preparing the messenger (Himself) for the on-the-spot message the Father wanted Him to deliver. He didn’t use notes. He didn’t practice. He was simply ready and in tune with the Ruach HaKodesh and spoke whatever He was told to. It’s the same thing He commanded us to do when put on the spot for our trust in Him (Matthew 10:19).

When Jesus was pierced, bruised, torn, nailed, stabbed, whipped, and raised; His blood was shed. It started in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44). It was finished on the cross (John 19:34). Jesus’ sinless blood flowed out. Blood was the price set by Adonai (Genesis 2:16-17). Adonai provided the sacrifice (Genesis 22:8). Jesus walked out in the physical realm what had been accomplished already in the spiritual (Revelation 13:8). It was the fulfilment of the trust the Father had placed in His sacrifice (Mark 11:22). Jesus defeated hell. Jesus defeated the devil. Jesus defeated death. Jesus died and the Father resurrected Him to life. “We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again; death no longer has mastery over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God” (Romans 6:9-10). It is by this that WE gain life.

We have this life because we join Jesus in His death (Romans 6:8) and then we are also raised by the Father into His life (Romans 8:11). This is the action we were GIFTED in order to overcome IN Jesus AS Jesus did. “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).

It is the BLOOD that sits on the mercy seat (Hebrews 12:24) that anchors us to the authority of the Name (Philippians 2:9) that we have permission to use (John 15:16) according to the Word (1 John 5:14), which is the will of the Father (2 John 1:9-11). The Blood carries all the power of Jesus to renew, redeem, and save. “Indeed according to the law almost everything was purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22). “And after taking the cup and giving thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, that is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:27-28). We hold to the promise of the Blood and do not let ourselves go back to the old ways of thinking and the old behaviours and the old slavery. No. We hold to our freedom. We stand on the Word that Adonai uses to renew our minds (Romans 12:2). I don’t plead the Blood because it is the NAME I have been given to use (John 14:13-17; 16:23-24). But the NAME is like the carrier oil that the essential oil (the Blood) is in. The Name of Jesus has ALL authority, and power. If the Name can’t do it, it cannot be done. It holds and carries the Blood everywhere it goes. The Blood Jesus sprinkles on the altar in Heaven covering our sin and enabling us to have new life. To be HEALED of sin in our NEW BIRTH.

Overcoming by the blood is us accepting and standing in our salvation. In our being translated from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of the Son. To leave darkness and stand in Light. Our identity in Jesus is our realisation and acceptance of who we are. We ARE the Righteousness of God in Messiah Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). We are baptised into this new life spiritually as we accept the LIFE Jesus offers. We overcome the works of the devil at that moment. Sin is no longer part of us. The old man and everything that comes with it (sickness, death, depression, anxiety, disease – mental, physical, or emotional, etc etc) is dead in Jesus. Crucified and gone forever into the grave.

From that moment on, we are in the process of renewing our minds to His thinking (Ephesians 1:17-23) and gaining knowledge of who Jesus is (Ephesians 3:14-19). Our WITNESS (or testimony) is our daily stand on the Word. “So submit to God. But resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). We overcome Him in Jesus who overcomes the World (John 16:33). We stand on that truth day by day, getting stronger and stronger in our trust in that truth. “And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). More and more like Jesus. Reflecting more of who He is. Standing on it. No matter what. No matter if the world understands or not. No matter if the world kills this meat suit or not (Matthew 10:28). What do WE care? If we aren’t here, we’re with Him (2 Corinthians 5:8). No momentary suffering is going to sway us when we’re holding to the truth of our overcoming (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).

We are saved, sealed, delivered to life and we can stand on the overcoming Spirit of Jesus through the BLOOD He shed and the NAME we get to wield according to the Word. Nothing is going to stand against that. Hold to it no matter what and let the Heavens sing of His faithfulness that we witness by our testimony of faithfulness He enables us to prove.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Proverbs 8:22-23

“The Lord created me as the beginning of his works, before his deeds of long ago. From eternity I have been fashioned, from the beginning, from before the world existed.” The Messiah would be from everlasting. Preexistent. Before the world began, He would be. Before eternity was, He would be. Messiah would be unique and First. “And now, Father, glorify me at your side with the glory I had with you before the world was created” (John 17:5). Jesus’ Father created eternity (Isaiah 9:6-7). Jesus was called out of the Father at the beginning of things to light this world (Genesis 1:3). Before creation began, Jesus agreed to be the sacrifice for sin and spiritually was slain (Revelation 13:8). Jesus was Elohim and was with Elohim at the very beginning (John 1:1-5). 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