Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

Let him take his rod away from me. Let his terror not make me afraid; then I would speak, and not fear him, for I am not so in myself.
Job 9:34-35 (emphasis added)

There is a pretty huge gap between where we are and where God is. How can we possibly justify ourselves? Well, just previous to these verses Job had asked for something. Verses 32-33 say “For he (God) is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgement. There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both.” A mediator. Job asked for a mediator. God can be where He is, there would be a mediator between them better than Job but less than God, and then Job in his best shape. Then Job figured he’d be able to talk and justify himself and not be afraid in the presence of the Almighty – or at least find out why (from Job’s point of view) God was doing this to him without justification.

It’s admirable. It’s logical. And it is ridiculously human thinking. Like a clean bill of health, a new set of clothes, and someone to translate for us is all we need to justify ourselves to God. To be able to point to all that we do. All the bible reading. All the going to church. All the right living. All the prayer. All the everything that makes us righteous people in the eyes of everyone who sees us. As if all of THAT makes us pure before God. Works do not justify us. Attitude doesn’t justify us. And following a bunch of rules doesn’t justify us. All of that does nothing but make us Pharisees. Pure in deed, but corrupt in heart. Because we can’t justify ourselves. And being a really good person means nothing on the scale of heaven.

The bible isn’t a set of rules. A series of do’s and don’ts. It isn’t that God doesn’t care about whether or not you do what He says – He cares VERY much (read Jeremiah). But keeping His statues is more than doing what the bible says. If I go through my whole life and don’t murder anyone or kill anyone in any other way, I am not going to get to heaven and get patted on my back. Why? Because I’m not SUPPOSED to kill anyone. I’m not SUPPOSED to murder. I will have done the bare minimum. If I don’t murder and kill because it’s a rule, I have done nothing special. But if I don’t murder and kill because I revere life, then that is different. I will have followed a ‘rule’ because my heart attitude puts me in a place where I cannot do anything BUT follow the rule. If my heart has the right environment, I will automatically do the right things. If I am right, then my behaviour will be right. The only problem is that I am NOT right. The Law was given to show us that. To show us the standard that God had, kick up sin to show us how enslaved we were, and to help us give up and declare to God our desperate need for a saviour since we can’t do it alone at all.

My heart is the heart of a man. It has spent my whole life focused on me. My flesh has been given the rule of the roost. When we get saved, we naturally follow the same pattern. We read the bible, try to do what it says, and assume that our heart will fall into line. Or we think that the doing of the things IS our heart falling into line. That is why we struggle. That is why we can see ourselves as sinners saved by Grace. As a current self-portrait. That is why we see a repeat of our behaviours. Because the flesh cannot inform the heart. The flesh will not do right on its own. It is NOT a trained animal. It is NOT in possession of a doing good automatic switch. We are self-centred. Period. When we think we are doing our best, it will still at its core be about us. Taking care of the poor and destitute — aren’t we doing good? Let’s pat ourselves on our back. That’s selfish. We feel good about ourselves because of what we did. Where is God in that? Nowhere. It is all about us. Even if we are doing it because the bible encourages us to, God is not in that. That is just us doing something.

The Pharisees did all the right things. They followed all the rules of God plus a bunch they added because they felt they helped them follow the rules or that they helped you embody the spirit of the rules. Jesus said to them in Matthew 23:23 ““Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.” It wasn’t enough that they followed the rules. They didn’t have a heart attitude toward Him. They were outwardly holy, but inwardly dead. Works are about this world. Heart is about heaven. What good is it to focus on the first and ignore the second? Jesus said in Matthew 16:26 “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life?”

That brings us back to Job. The inability of Job to be judged righteous by the standards of God. “Let Him take His rod away from me.” Job was stuck in a system without a redeemer. He had no advocate. He was even pre-Law. He was firmly stuck in the kingdom of darkness – which is the reason the devil was able to attack him: Job was in his territory. For us in the New Covenant, we have more than that. In either case God isn’t placing arbitrary rules on us. He isn’t up there in an ivory tower demanding obedience. God in fact, doesn’t DEMAND obedience. He simply states — both gently and firmly — that obedience is the only way to maintain rightness before Him (which Job had achieved – Job 1:1). The first and foremost commandment of God — the most important thing to obey and should obey even if you ignore all else — is to love God. To hold Him first in your life and to worship no other thing. That is a heart attitude, not deed. The second foremost commandment of God — again the second most important thing to obey and should obey even if you ignore all else but these two things — is for us to love our neighbour. To treat them the same way we treat ourselves and make no distinction between us. That is a heart attitude, not a works attitude. Works don’t touch the heart and that is what we need. Heart attitude. Thing is though, a heart attitude will cause deeds to happen. It’s inevitable. Jesus said in Matthew 22:40 “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”” That means if you keep those two commandments in your heart and live according to them you will fulfil and do all the other commandments. Automatically. Because you love God and want to see Him smile.

You don’t kill someone when you’re loving them. You don’t lie to them, cheat them, covet their possessions, sleep with their spouse, or seek to harm them or one up them in any way. You won’t cheat on your own spouse. You won’t treat them as a servant, but as an equal in every way. You’ll treat your parents with respect because they are your parents, not on their own merits — be they good or bad. You’ll revere God and worship Him out of love of Him. You won’t worship other things or put anything before Him. You see? Those two commandments enable us to do the others. That’s just scratching the surface with the ten commandments. That isn’t even getting to the rest of the Law and everything the prophets instructed them. The question is whether we can in and of ourselves keep those two commandments. And the answer is no.

Scripture clearly shows us Job felt trapped in the fix he was in because of his inability to talk to God. He was getting bitter near the end because he knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. He had NOT sinned any sin that caused this. He had sin like we all do pre-saviour and he sinned like we all do period. But what was happening wasn’t a direct response to a sin. Job followed all the nitty gritty, which is good. He feared his children weren’t holy before God, so he sacrificed on their behalf. Why? No mediator. His friends didn’t have the right attitude. They were obsessed with works and with punishment. They were NOT helpful (not until Elihu anyway). Job was frustrated. Job desperately was looking for someone to meet face to face and demand an answer to ‘why me’. That bitterness was becoming his heart attitude – which he repented of: “Then Job answered the Lord: “Indeed, I am completely unworthy—how could I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth to silence myself. I have spoken once, but I cannot answer; twice, but I will say no more.”” (Job 40:3-5). His heart attitude went wrong, and he corrected it right quick. But it didn’t solve his dilemma. He needed more than just a contrite heart. He yearned for Covenant.

Remember Job’s plea in verses 32-33? “For he (God) is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgement. There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both.” That’s what we need. Someone to talk us up to God and someone to talk God into us. God knew it too. And He provided it. Because we didn’t need someone slightly below God and slightly above man. We needed God. We needed a perfect man. We needed both. We got it. In Jesus. “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony at the proper time” (1 Timothy 2:3-6). Jesus paid the price for us. He can talk us up to God reminding Him that the price is paid and sin is not on us. We are no longer sinners saved by Grace. We are saved by Grace from sin. No matter what occurs, we can repent because we are covered by the blood of Jesus because the blood of Jesus eliminated sin. This isn’t a license to sin. This is salvation. It goes hand in hand with Jesus talking God into us.

When Jesus lives in us, we have the holy righteousness of God inside us. Our spirit is His spirit. Our nature is His nature. We are redeemed, praise the Lord. If we let Him, Jesus will spend the rest of our time on earth taking us from where we were to where we can be in Him. A process of sanctification where we move ever onward toward perfection. That’s not sinning because we can repent. That is being enabled to never sin again because Jesus doesn’t and didn’t sin and we have the ability to do what He did. The Holy Spirit — His spirit — lives inside us. We have the Do This Because It Is Right radio station on in our hearts 24/7 365 1/4. If we listen and if we obey, we will never ever sin again. I know that is a big ‘if’. That’s okay too. But if we do, we won’t sin. Sin is not in our nature anymore. We’re clean. Pure. Holy. Him. We’re Him. We are in a NEW Covenant. We are in the system Jesus died to bring us into. The system Job yearned for. We are – in Jesus – the righteousness of Messiah Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The bible doesn’t promise us instant perfection. Not in our whole self. We have instant perfection in our spirit (1 Peter 2:24). Our soul and flesh? It promises sanctification through Jesus (John 17:17). A process of becoming through the Word. We might miss it from time to time. But He is there to comfort us. He is there to receive our repentance. He is there to steer us His way so that we don’t go back. Will we sin? Yes, because we’re human. “But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7-9). Not a get out of jail free card, but a promise to bind our wounds and heal our transgressions when we operate at all times out of an honest heart of repentance (Isaiah 53:4-6).

Jesus is there for us. He is our mediator. He can put His hand on us and His hand on God and say He has paid the price for sin. Our sins are wiped away. We can walk in Jesus, abide in Jesus, and in Him participate in the process of sanctification. To live not according to a set of rules, but to live according to our love of God. In loving Him from our heart, we will find lessening desire for anything that is contrary to His morals. We will find ourselves doing the things that make Him smile and shunning the things that take us out of His yard. We will align ourselves with His Will through His Word. It will transform our thinking and our hearts into altars of worship to Yahweh God. Then we will have no fear. Then we will have His presence with us, which will make us right with Him because through Jesus we are sanctified, justified, and made clean. No rod, no fear. Just love. Perfect love.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Isaiah 46:3-4

We are not alone. We are not abandoned. We are not having to crawl our way before a wrathful God to beg. We are not coerced. We are not forced. We are loved. Is there a hell? Yes. But the entire working of God is to prevent that occurrence. It is bent on getting us as far from it as He is. Saving in spite of us because we believe in Him. He carries us along, we kick and scream like a toddler throwing a fit. But carry us He continues to do. From the womb, throughout our lives, unto our last moments, He carries us. He doesn’t want us to rely on ourselves. He does not want us getting tired in our own strength. He does not want us to accept sickness — certainly not because of anything this world tell us is ‘normal’. He does not want us lacking. Persecutions will come, but He doesn’t want us suffering. He wants us to inhabit His Joy which isn’t about circumstance. It is about location: us in Him. He takes responsibility for us. He is steadfast. He is faithful. He is He Who Bears. Realise where you are today. In His arms. Loved. Cherished. His.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.