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

To be effective in the riotous and ever-moving world of the service industry, we have to know how to prioritize and we MUST be multi-taskers. As a service provider, you’ve agreed to be in a specific location for a specific duration of time. Other than that, the pace of the work, variety of the work, and complexity of the work is in a large part set by the ones GETTING the service, not the ones PROVIDING the service. We often look at praise and thanksgiving as EMOTIONAL things, but they aren’t. We can praise whether we FEEL like it or not. It isn’t about US, but about whom we are serving. “It will not be like this among you! But whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be most prominent among you must be your slave—” (Matthew 20:26-27).

This all goes WAY back. “At that time Yahweh set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of Yahweh to stand before Yahweh, to serve him and to bless the people in his name until this day” (Deuteronomy 10:8). Priests serve Adonai. We are all priests in Jesus. “And you yourselves, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). What are the sacrifices? “Therefore through him let us offer up a sacrifice of praise continually to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name” (Hebrews 13:15). He are priests serving Adonai with our praises – from the confession of His name (Romans 10:9) to thanksgiving and gratitude (Psalm 107:1-3). HE determines what He needs, not us. We CAN meet that need. We’re empowered as His priests AND we have Ruach HaKodesh living inside us to teach us and guide us in what we should say. We are servants of the Most High Yahweh.

We minister to Adonai and Adonai blesses us. We do not minister TO BE blessed, it is simply a natural result of the ministering. Take your kids. You don’t tell your kids to behave to get things. But when your kids are behaving, you’re likely to bless them. The extra attention, the extra treats, the extra presents, etc. We naturally give more to those who are nice to us. We get along better with them. It’s a natural consequence of the quality of the relationship. Adonai is love and gave of Himself BEFORE we were even in existence (Revelation 13:8), much less in a position to be good or try and ‘earn’ anything (Romans 5:8). He is LOVE, so He loves us. He is MERCIFUL, so He shows mercy. He shows GRACE because of those two things as well. So we’re not doing this to earn favour. We’re not trying to manipulate Him. This isn’t a ploy – it wouldn’t do us any good anyway (Jeremiah 17:10).

We are flesh suited spirit beings. We have a foot in each world, as it were. That means that we need to be good stewards of our time in the physical world without neglecting the spiritual world (2 Corinthians 4:18). In fact, what is unseen is more important than what we can see, measure, and touch (Hebrews 11:3). Yet it is all too easy to get caught up in it. The stresses and events of our everyday lives – more so when crises rise up, whether local, national, or international. If we can’t maintain coming to Him with trust, how can we please Him (Hebrews 11:6)? If we can’t please Him, how is He blessed? If He isn’t blessed, how can WE be blessed? If we’re not blessed, how can we be satisfied? He’s not asking for hard things. He isn’t asking for impossible things. He is asking for a SIMPLE thing. To give Him His rightful place. It’s like agreeing that the sun is visible in our sky and gives light, then acting accordingly. Adonai wants us to recognise His natural place, agree it is His rightful place, and then act accordingly. In order to do that, we need to be multi-taskers. We need to take care of our responsibilities here in the natural world at the same time that we are paying attention to the spiritual world and our responsibilities there.

Ruach HaKodesh is a HUGE help if we let Him be. He is constantly talking to us about our lives and what we do. Showing us where the Word impacts us. Giving us Word-based counsel. Showing us where and how trust in Jesus is needed in every situation we’re in. Reminding us who we are in Jesus and what our covenant rights are as children of Adonai. And also of our duties and responsibilities as children and priests in the Kingdom. We might have issues keeping our attention on multiple things in multiple places, but He does not. He is omnipotent and omniscient. He will direct our attention where it needs to be and speak to us about what we need to be doing, even giving us the words to say if we need them. He is our guide, teacher, corrector, and encourager. He’ll be the one reminding us that Adonai is the priority in our lives. That time with Him is NEVER wasted time. That He is the One we serve, and that our service is voluntary: out of love – not meant to be ignored, lip-service, or a drudgery. We minister to Him with our praise and thanksgiving, giving Him anything He asks for (prayer for someone, for example) as part of that service. It ends up blessing us more than we bless Him, but that’s just a benefit from being humbly submitted and obedient to our Father, King, and Lord.

Daily Affirmation of the Goodness of Elohim: Ephesians 2:8

“For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” You know when you’re a kid and you hear your name called forcefully? Isn’t the instinct to say ‘I didn’t do it!’? I mean, statistically speaking there’s SOMETHING you did that you shouldn’t have done, right? Well, salvation works exactly that way. WE didn’t do it. Not only that, we COULDN’T do it. We have no right to determine what it is that is ‘good’. We cannot determine this because everyone has a different standard for what is good. We don’t even have the chops to determine HOW to do good. Not really. We barely manage an imitation of it by following the structure laid down by the laws of our countries. We still fail, though. There is ALWAYS something WE think is good or a way WE think good should be done that really and truly is NOT good. Only Adonai can say what goodness is. Only Adonai can save us. He is the ONLY one outside the system. The ONLY one who wasn’t created. He IS, He WAS, and He WILL BE. He is Alpha-Omega. Independent. The ONLY one who is or ever was. The uncreated. You know what? He didn’t wait for us to get it. He didn’t wait for us to understand. He put things in motion right away. He made sure to make a Way for us to get back to Him. He even gave us the tools as part of our DNA. He loved so that we could love. He gave us His faith. He did ALL the heavy lifting because we COULDN’T. Ever. He did it all. He finished what we started. He did that for you and He did that for me. Because He CHOSE to show us Grace. Because He LOVES us. 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