Fear No Fear

(All scripture from Lexham English Bible, Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software)

who satisfies your life with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Psalm 103:5

Saliva greatly helps our mouths (including the teeth) maintain their health. According to the Centre for Restorative, Cosmetic, and Implant Dentistry (crcid.com), saliva is ‘comprised mostly of water, but enriched with a blend of electrolytes, mucus, enzymes, and antibacterial components’. The point of this blend that our bodies mix up is to kick off our digestive process and protect our teeth from bits of food. This keeps harmful bacteria and acids from sticking around and deteriorating our teeth. Oral health is maintained and tooth decay is staved off by a balanced pH in our mouths. Guess what helps us maintain it? Saliva. It even helps with bad breath by attacking the microbes in our mouths that help create it. Saliva is a frontline defense system. So is the Word when the Word is on our tongue.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love her will eat of her fruit” (Proverbs 18:21). We are GOING to eat. We NEED to eat – physically AND spiritually. We have ZERO choice over that. What we DO have a choice over is WHAT we eat. We can eat junk food, food that fights against us, food that diseases use for fuel, food that starves diseases, food that is healthy for us, or food that actively fights for us. It’s OUR choice. The same thing that is true physically is true spiritually. Do we want the devil’s fruit or Ruach HaKodesh’s fruit? Do you want to eat “sexual immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these” (Galatians 5:19b-21a)? Or would you prefer to eat “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self control” (Galatians 5:22b-23a)? Which one is going to build you up and which will take you down? Which will be a benefit and which will be a harm? We MUST do one or the other because we ONLY have two options. It’s like your gender. You might not LIKE what you are, but there are only two options and you have NO CHOICE over which you are. People have taken advantage of modern cosmetic advances (artificial and surgical) to change what gender they PRESENT, but they cannot shift what they ARE. In the same way, we HAVE fruit in our mouths. We MUST choose which we want to present. Will we pick that which we ARE as believers, or will we choose that which we are NOT (1 John 3:9)? Will we be HONEST or will we be PRETENDERS? The choice is ours.

If we CHOOSE to keep the Word in our mouths, we will have a frontline defense against the devil’s fruit. It will naturally combat the spiritual microbes that want to lead to decay and ruin. It will kickstart our digestive process so that our hearts fill up with ABUNDANT LIFE and not DEATH (John 10:10). The Lord’s Word is TRUTH. The Lord’s Word is RIGHTEOUSNESS. And the Lord’s Word TRANSFORMS our thinking from broken to HIS (Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 2:16). This is the Living Water that rises up out of us. The Ruach by which the Word moves. We CANNOT forget the BENEFITS of having the Word on our tongues. It is ALWAYS valid for NOW. It is ALWAYS current. It is ALWAYS applicable. Yes, we live in a world of technological terrors and marvels. The Word can speak to that even through its language of donkeys, horses, and eagles. We can look beyond the symbology and see the application. When we can’t, we can ask Ruach HaKodesh, the author of the book, to explain it to us – and He will (John 14:26).

The Word in our mouths – not flippantly, but spoken in trust and believing – is the mechanism by which our youth is renewed. Eagles moult every year and grow out new feathers. It is a constant process ensuring that they are never without functional feathers. They have smarts and know what they are about. There is NOT a lot of confusion in their day. They have high metabolisms and need to feed on a constant basis to maintain their weight. They only use their nests when they are raising their young (a matter of months). How is it their ‘youth is renewed’? By CONSISTENTLY replacing old thinking with new. Or perhaps enjoying the clarity of thinking brought about by truth? Or perhaps being able to enjoy the functioning of our spirits/souls/bodies like the eagle who sets off after childhood knowing what they are about and ready to perform it, maintaining their physique and ability by consistent feeding? The Word in our mouths gives us a picture of strength and near-constant renewal and maintenance. Like the eagle. There is not a one-time mythical renewal or rebirth. It is a process that is ongoing, but enabling the eagle to thrive. We too can thrive, but ONLY when the Word is in our mouths.

It’s not enough to say the words. We MUST believe them. We can ONLY believe them when we TRUST Adonai. If we don’t believe that Adonai can do it, we won’t believe Him. “By faith also, with Sarah, he received the ability to procreate even past the normal age, because he regarded the one who had promised to be faithful” (Hebrews 11:11). Sarah laughed at the idea that Abraham could rock her boat and give her a child. But Abraham, although old, believed Adonai and got to the point that he COULD father a child. Sarah still wasn’t sure and gave him her maidservant. Abraham fathered a child by her. Abraham had been renewed according to his belief and trust in Adonai. Until Sarah believed Adonai could do it and trusted that He would back up His words, nothing happened. She was ONLY renewed when she believed Adonai COULD do it and trusted that He WOULD do it. We can have EXACTLY the same. Remember both she and her husband were over a hundred when this was going on. Medical science panics when a woman over thirty goes to have a child. Sarah was over a hundred and there were NO hospitals to help her. It was a supernatural conception, a supernatural pregnancy, a supernatural birth, and a supernatural nursing. It was beyond human reason. But Adonai SAID it, so it was possible and true.

We have a choice. Do we want to live by the principles and the morals of the Word of Adonai or do we not want to? If we want to, we have to pay attention to it. We have to study it. We have to think about it. We CANNOT leave it alone. We CANNOT leave it for one day a week. We MUST put our minds on it. We MUST speak it to each other and we MUST speak it to ourselves. We MUST discuss it. We MUST align to IT, and not try to use it to make our point. It isn’t about us justifying our wants and desires. It is about us changing our thinking to agree with His as delineated in the Word. It has to be so much a part of our lives that Ruach HaKodesh only needs to remind us of small things. Chapter and verse or general principles. Ruach HaKodesh should be sought every day for understanding and teaching. We should be GOOD students, DEDICATED students, and SEEKING students. We are justified by our words or condemned by our words (Matthew 12:37). Let your words be HIS Word and let Him renew you. We may age, but we do NOT need to deteriorate. When we live by the Word, speaking it out in all the areas of our lives, we have plugged into the power of Ruach HaKodesh. The raising from the dead and TOTAL restoration power the Father used to resurrect Jesus to life will be active within you (Romans 8:11). You WILL see your life renewed and abundant: spirit, soul, AND body (3 John 2). NEVER forget it and ALWAYS be thankful for Adonai’s Grace and Mercy that brought us into His Covenant (Luke 22:20). Let that thankfulness live on your tongue fuelled by and in concert with His Word. Every day.

Daily Affirmation of the Goodness of Elohim: 1 Corinthians 11:25

“Likewise also the cup, after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”. There is no new covenant between Adonai and humanity. The New Covenant is between THE MAN Jesus and THE FATHER Yahweh. Jesus was the ONLY man who EVER did EVERYTHING godly: in thought, in action, and in words. He NEVER committed a sin, although He was tempted CONSTANTLY. He ALWAYS submitted to Adonai. CONSTANTLY. So HE got the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Because of Adonai’s LOVE for us, we were given the opportunity to enter into that covenant IN, THROUGH, and BECAUSE OF Jesus. He did it out of GRACE and MERCY. He didn’t HAVE to. He did it by CHOICE. Because of His LOVE. He made the Way, He empowered us to walk it, He sent His Ruach to guide and correct us, and He NEVER stops speaking to us about it and the CORRECT Way to live in and through Him (John 15:5). He NEVER lets us forget and implores us not to reject His message. What a GOOD God!

Your Daily Confession of Elohim’s Goodness:

I taste and see that Yahweh is good; I am blessed because I take refuge in Him.

Psalm 34:8