Fear No Fear

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

But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5 (emphasis added)

The purpose of Jesus being chastised was to prolong our peace. The chastisement came upon him, for he was chastised so that there would be peace for the entire world. From the moment that Jesus was chastised, peace was possible. We’re always talking about peace. World peace. Give peace a chance. If we only understand each other and learn from each other, we’ll be able to enter into the brotherhood of peace. All human effort. And all for naught. We can’t do it. Jesus already did it. We can have peace in Him. When we are born again, we are able to be restored spiritually. Completely renewed into Jesus as new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our spirits are healed and sealed (Ephesians 1:13-14). This prophetic passage of scripture is fulfilled every time a person gets saved. But wait! There’s more…

We get peace in our spirits. 1 Peter 2:24-25 confirms this: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness. You were healed by his wounds. For you were going astray like sheep; but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” That is spiritual healing, spiritual renewal, spiritually returned to the place where we should always have been. That’s wonderful and beautiful. But we also can claim peace from the curse. Not just spiritually, but physically. How do we know? Matthew 8:16-17. “When evening came, they brought to him many possessed with demons. He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”” That seems pretty clear to me.

Jesus didn’t just do spiritual restoration. Jesus also came to provide us with physical restoration. So that we can walk in the total victory that the Lord designed us to. So that we can handle the authority and dominion over and on this planet that God intended for us to have and that Jesus gets back for us. We have a very special place to inhabit. We are more than just mammals wandering around in the muck. We are more than redeemed sinners waiting to get our rewards in the afterlife. We are believers in Jesus! We are just like Him (Ephesians 4:22-24). When we abide in Jesus and He in us (John 15), then we are to walk in victory, authority, and dominion. Imitating Jesus, walking in love, and doing only the will of the Father (Ephesians 5:1-2 and 1 Peter 2:21-23).

We are so much more than who we have always believed that we are. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. In the past, you were not a people, but now are God’s people, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10). This isn’t a stand alone concept. This is throughout scripture. The Lord God is very particular about it. Perhaps so that we will take it in and believe it.

“The animals of the field, the jackals and the ostriches, shall honour me, because I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people which I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise” (Isaiah 43:20-21). His people. A people to praise Him.

“Only the LORD had a delight in your fathers to love them, and he chose their offspring after them, even you above all peoples, as it is today” (Deuteronomy 10:15). Chosen people — as we are all heirs to Abraham (Galatians 3:29). Chosen because He loves us and loved those who came before us. Think about that and let the pressure come off of you. God loves you not just for you, but because of all the people who came before you from your parents right back to Abraham who put God first. We are so performance based as a species, but God shows us again and again that there is nothing we can do to take His love from us (Romans 8:31-39). And if nothing can separate us, why do we pick up such anxiety about it? God loves you, loves you, and loves you. Not only did He love you when you were still a sinner, He loves you now just as much as He loved you then. The Love of God is a constant in this universe. Isn’t it about time we started treating it as such?

“But you will be called the LORD’s priests. Men will call you the servants of our God. You will eat the wealth of the nations. You will boast in their glory” (Isaiah 61:6). “Of them I will also select priests and Levites,” says the LORD” (Isaiah 66:21). “They sang a new song, saying, “You are worthy to take the book and to open its seals, for you were killed, and bought us for God with your blood out of every tribe, language, people, and nation, and made us kings and priests to our God; and we will reign on the earth”” (Revelation 5:9-10). “and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and washed us from our sins by his blood— and he made us to be a Kingdom, priests to his God and Father—to him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Revelation 1:5-6). God takes priesthood seriously (Numbers 18). Yahweh God is Holy and Righteous and only those He has called can present before Him. People He has selected and instructed and who do things just as He requires them to. In Jesus, we are those people. We are called into a priesthood before Yahweh God. We can enter His throne-room with praise (Psalm 100:4). We can walk boldly to the throne (Hebrews 4:16), knowing that we are covered, called, and doing exactly what He wants us to: praising the Holy Name of our ever-loving, ever-merciful Lord God Almighty.

“and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel”” (Exodus 19:6). As priests, in fact as a LOT of priests, we become a nation of priests. Holy unto the Lord because no priest He has called is ever anything but. Holy unto the Lord because we are priests in Jesus and through Jesus, and Jesus is the end-all-be-all of righteousness and right conduct before the Father. In Him, we have privilege and position. “For you are a holy people to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6). We are chosen to be His possession. His special people. His treasure.

That’s why Jesus came. To give us to His Father as a gift. “who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). You also find that we are His own special possession in Deuteronomy 4:20 and Deuteronomy 14:2. His inheritance. His prize. If we are this special, why do we have to wait until heaven to enjoy fellowship with Him? To enjoy the blessings of the Lord? To walk in freedom from the curse physically as well as spiritually? Why should we continue in the darkness of this world when we can be beacons of freedom from the Kingdom of God?

“I will bring the blind by a way that they don’t know. I will lead them in paths that they don’t know. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight. I will do these things, and I will not forsake them” (Isaiah 42:16). Sounds to me like we can be more than we think we can when we are abiding in Jesus. “to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance amongst those who are sanctified by faith in me’” (Acts 6:18). Those were Jesus’ words to Paul (then Saul) on the road to Damascus. Remission of sins and inheritance. We know from Isaiah 53:5 and 1 Peter 2:24 that we are renewed into Jesus. That our sins are no more and we are pure and righteous again in our spirits. So why can’t we walk in our inheritance? Why do we have to wait?

I don’t believe we do. I believe that the commission that Jesus placed on the believers way back then is still applicable to us today: “He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptised will be saved; but he who disbelieves will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new languages; they will take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it will in no way hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover”” (Mark 16:15-18). Protected as we preach the Gospel so that the Gospel can be preached — though after it’s preached we sometimes will be persecuted for His sake. We can lay hands on the sick and they will recover. We can — in and through Jesus — cast out demons — since they have no power anymore. Sounds just like Matthew 8:16-17. When Jesus cast out spirits and healed the sick and then it said He did it in fulfilment of today’s verse.

We are free from the curse. We are a Holy Nation. Priests of the Most High God. A special possession of Yahweh God. His inheritance of men and women dedicated to bringing Him praise and worship. We don’t have to put up with physical ailments or mental ailments or any ailments. We don’t have to put up with poverty — the Lord God sustains us and cares for our every need. We don’t have to operate in the natural. We are a royal priesthood. We deal with the Courts of Heaven, not the natural laws of creation. We always and ever should seek what the will of God is. To do what He says to do and to say what He gives us to say, and never accept anything less than the full glory, wonder, and majesty of the workings of our God. He can do anything. Why not give Him permission to start doing it in your life? Why not walk in freedom from the curse? Why not be all that we can be in Jesus? “For we don’t preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake, seeing it is God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:5-6). Why not let His light in? Bask in it. It’s better than any sunbeam.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Numbers 14:17-19

The Lord God is Righteous. He is totally and absolutely justified in destroying us. We indulge in sin. We cultivate it. We let it seep into our lives so much it takes a lifetime to unlearn the habits of the flesh. And all during that time we keep indulging and indulging and indulging. Like someone gorging on chocolate while claiming that they can’t have it because it makes them fat. But the Lord God Almighty is merciful. He IS abundant in loving kindness. He DOES forgive iniquity. He DOES forgive disobedience. And since Jesus paid the price for sin, He DOES NOT need to be angry with us. Because He loves us. It is and always was sin that the Lord hated, not us. We are cherished children. We’re just children running around screaming while throwing fits and rubbing ice cream all over ourselves. But the greatness of the loving kindness of Yahweh God is up to the challenge. The Lord has been forgiving us since before the world began. In Jesus, we can walk in righteousness. If we focus on the things of God, we won’t have the inclination or the time to focus on sin habits. If we place the Word first and then constantly utilize prayer to bring it alive into our lives, we won’t be giving sin a place. We are not sinners. We are children of God. We are not on the brink of backsliding. We are running in victory. We are not unloved. We are not on our own. God loves us, never leaves us, and is there to support us every step of the way and during all the rest periods too.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.