Fear No Fear

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

Dear friends, if our conscience does not condemn us, we have confidence in the presence of God, and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing to him.
1 John 3:21-22 (emphasis added)

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey my commandments” (John 14:15). Why is it love? Because when you love someone, you want to do things that please them. That make them happy. Please note this does NOT mean you are responsible for making them happy. It means given the option of doing things that make them sad or doing things that make them happy, we would pick the ones that make them happy. In a good relationship, you’re both committed to that. To doing what makes the relationship more positive and avoiding those things that make the relationship more negative. It isn’t about ‘giving things up’ and bemoaning that you can’t do that anymore. But if there is something that bothers your partner for a non-arbitrary reason, why would you WANT to do it anymore? Why is that thing more important than your partner? In the same way, we can choose to engage in behaviours and thinking that Adonai approves of, that make Him happy. We can choose to avoid behaviours and thinking that Adonai disapproves of, that make Him sad.

You find a phrase in the Old Covenant that translates a few ways, but my favourite is: ‘they did wrong/right from Adonai’s point of view’ (examples include 2 Kings 3:2 and 2 Chronicles 25:2). It isn’t about US. We’re selfish people. We like things to be subjective – something based on personal opinions and feelings rather than on facts. There are those who believe the idea of ‘God’ itself is subjective. It IS true for most of the world’s religious and religious deities. Yet Adonai Elohim has proven again and again and again that He is REAL, that He interacts with humanity on a personal level, and that He has standards of conduct based on HIS nature and not ours or the physical substance of Creation. Something that is subjective requires the subject to exist. If I say my coffee pot is my god, it will only be my god as long as I exist. It is subjective.

Adonai Elohim, however, does not require me in order to exist. He doesn’t need you either. He NEEDS nothing. Not our worship. Not our prayers. Not our bible reading. Not our journals. Not ANYTHING. If the entire planet was wiped of life tomorrow, it would not affect the nature of Adonai OR His existence. He was totally complete in every way before He created us. He would be totally complete in every way if we ceased to exist. He didn’t need us to be an object He could love. He didn’t NEED us at all. We were a want, a desire, an idea. But we did not in ANY way complete Adonai. He existed PERIOD. We came afterward. HE is the Source, not us.

The best kind of relationships aren’t one person giving their all and the other taking. The best relationships are TOGETHER. Not co-dependant, but together. Cooperating with each other to reach their goals. Sometimes it is one listening to another. Sometimes it is problem solving together. Sometimes it is pooling opinions and ideas (because you do NOT have to agree). Sometimes it is being together while doing separate things. Each one wants the best for the other. Each one is nurturing toward the other. Each one is supportive of the other. Now, it can be a little different with Adonai, but not as much as you might think. Do you believe that Adonai never gets sad about what is going on in the world? That He couldn’t use a praise session just to make Him feel better? To show Him that there are human beings down here (male or female) that still love, honour, and obey Him? We can nurture Adonai by dealing with Him in the matter in which He deserves to be dealt with.

“So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, continue working out your salvation with awe and reverence, for the one bringing forth in you both the desire and the effort—for the sake of his good pleasure—is God” (Philippians 2:12-13). “Jesus looked at them and replied, “This is impossible for mere humans, but for God all things are possible.”” (Matthew 19:26). ““Come, let’s consider your options,” says the Lord. “Though your sins have stained you like the color red, you can become white like snow; though they are as easy to see as the color scarlet, you can become white like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). “Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee to escape your presence?” (Psalm 139:7). “…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Adonai wants to BE WITH US. He LOVES us. He loved us before we were there to love (1 John 4:19). Adonai is LOVE ITSELF (1 John 4:16). “The person who does not love does not know God because God is love. By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:8-10). Think, just THINK about this. This is how much Adonai loves us. It’s a LOT. We’re promised that if we think on it and meditate on Him and seek Him first and foremost, we WILL know exactly how much Jesus loves us. “I pray that according to the wealth of his glory he will grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person, that Christ will dwell in your hearts through faith, so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love, you will be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you will be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16-19). We WILL know the love that Messiah Jesus has for us and that knowledge will fill us up with ALL THE FULLNESS OF ELOHIM. That is a LOT, my friend. This was Paul’s prayer for the church and it should be OUR prayer for one another as well. We should ALL know it. We are MEANT to be full of Elohim. We were CREATED to be full of Him. Why did we EVER let ourselves forget that? Tell it to yourself every day: He lifts me up because He loves me and He delivers me because He delights in me.

If we love Him, we’ll do things that are right from His point of view. We won’t ask for selfish things. We won’t ask for things He has already provided. We’ll know the love Jesus has for us and we’ll start getting a glimmer of what He wants to give us. THAT is what we’ll ask for. We won’t ask out of the flesh. Out of what we see and touch and feel and hear from people we know. Or on social media. We’ll ask for what we see promised in the Word that He says is COMING, not what has been RELEASED. Healing has been released (Isaiah 53; Matthew 8:16-17; 1 Peter 2:24). We don’t need to ask for it. We can engage it if we trust His Word on it. We will NEVER use the power of Elohim for personal advantage. When we are in our right minds we will NEVER ask for things that are not of Him or His pleasure. We won’t bother to ask for things that are full of flesh. That will take our eyes off Adonai. “Where do the conflicts and where do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, from your passions that battle inside you? You desire and you do not have; you murder and envy and you cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask; you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, so you can spend it on your passions” (James 4:1-3).

We need to do everything with our love for Adonai in mind. Do we get it every time? No! We do not. But whenever we sin, it is because we have failed to love Adonai in that instance. When we sin, we have failed to trust. It’s a FACT. It’s the same when we do something we know our partner doesn’t like. For example, they hate that you leave your sodden towel on the bedroom floor after a shower. You know it. They’ve asked you to not do that. So if you do it, you have CHOSEN to ignore what they said. You have a voice inside you saying ‘they won’t like that’ but you do it anyway. You are ignoring your love for them. You are choosing NOT to love. It is the SAME thing with Adonai. He’s given us His Word. We KNOW what He likes and what He does not. He isn’t cute about it. He isn’t coy. He tells us flat out. We can easily see what lines up with what He likes. What makes Him smile. Anything we don’t do born out of our love of Adonai and our trust in Him is sin (Romans 14:23). We know it. He knows it. Ruach HaKodesh TELLS us (John 14:26).

One of the best ways to stay in our love of Adonai is communion. Communion is about REMEMBERING what Messiah Jesus did for us. Every time you take it – and you can take it multiple times a day if you like – start by listing in your mind (or out loud) things Jesus has done for you. All the things the cross accomplished for you. All the things the sacrifice accomplished for you. All the things the resurrection accomplished for you. All the Grace and Mercy that He used and gave us so that we could Trust in Him. Love. It is all from love and in love. “Love never ends. But if there are prophecies, they will be set aside; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be set aside” (1 Corinthians 13:8). Love NEVER fails because Adonai IS love. When we connect to it, we can walk in His love too. It’s a fruit that will naturally grow out from us when we are connected to Him (the vine). It is the fruit that exists in the Spirit and if the Spirit is in us, the fruit will come out from us – when we let it.

“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). We’re not alone in ourselves. One third of it is Ruach HaKodesh. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:22-24). When we love Adonai, we WILLINGLY and JOYFULLY put away the things of our old life, old nature, old worldview (1 Corinthians 13:11-12). They are childish things. Foolish things. Nostalgic things, sometimes, but not when we see them in the light they are. The good times – any part of them that were actually good – were a mercy of Adonai to us (James 1:17). Putting away such foolishness is easy when we are connected to Adonai’s love with our love for Him because the natural fruit of that is self-control, faithfulness, and love.

So much of Him will be part of us that we will naturally want the things He wants for us for ourselves. And we will get them because He wants to give them to us. It’s all from love, in love, and to love. Love is all we need, when it is our love of Adonai and love from Adonai. All good things are wrapped up in that. Together we can fellowship and live and love together. Adonai and us. Us and Adonai. He does all the heavy lifting, but we can get in on the love. We surely can.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Isaiah 25:8

“he will swallow up death permanently. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from every face, and remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. Indeed, the Lord has announced it!” The Resurrection would happen. By swallowing up death, Yahweh was proclaiming the Resurrection. Messiah would be Resurrected to LIFE. Not raised from the dead to die again (like Lazarus – John 11:11-44). Messiah would be the first fruit of the Kingdom of Heaven with No Death. “Now when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will happen, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 15:54-57). Jesus was raised from the dead. Jesus was resurrected to life. An angel attested to it: “He is not here, for he has been raised, just as he said. Come and see the place where he was lying” (Matthew 28:6). 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