Fear No Fear

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

“Don’t seek what you will eat or what you will drink; neither be anxious. For the nations of the world seek after all of these things, but your Father knows that you need these things. But seek God’s Kingdom, and all these things will be added to you.
Luke 12:29-31 (emphasis added)

Choice and goal. These are the two things that drive humanity. Always have and always will. We decide what we want. We find the goal—could be small or it could be large. And then we choose whether or not we want it. Not want it as a desire, but want it as a work for it. Usually that means working out what we need to do to accomplish our goal. Sadly, for some it means figuring out how to get the goal without working for it—by theft or by the exploitation of others. But we as a species are goal and choice driven. We were given a goal—dominion of this planet—and then given free choice (Genesis 2:1-17). These are the two aspects to everything we are. From our pleasures to our businesses. From our relations with each other to our relations with the Lord. That may sound callous, but it is true. We look at people and have a goal. Friendship, intimacy, a social stepping stone, or whatever it is. We evaluate it and decide whether our goal is worth it and decide to pursue it or not.

The American dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or what class they were born into, can attain their own version of success in a society in which upward mobility is possible for everyone. Living the Canadian Dream has been defined as being able to express oneself freely. This is about being given the authority and liberty to have your own judgments about your values and lifestyle without facing prejudice. The European Dream is generally one in which individuals find security not through individual accumulation of wealth, but through connectivity and respect for human rights. Germans largely dream of stability and predictability. Britons have a belief in democracy, individual liberty, the rule of law, mutual respect and tolerance of others. The French and the Italians look more for a life full of companionship, family, enjoyment of simple things, and a feeling of fulfilment. The Australian Dream is a belief that home ownership can lead to a better life and is an expression of success and security. The Asian Dream is a dream of a prosperous lifestyle reconciled with a sustainable lifestyle. This is very similar to the African Dream which is of hygiene, health, and prosperity. Happy, healthy, and prospering is a global theme when we look at what we consider the ‘dream’ lifestyle.

Whatever it is that the society and culture you are immersed in thinks is the dream, this is the dream you will assimilate and spend your life trying to live out. Sure, there is a certain amount of personal growth and very much there is variation from region to region—these are very broad strokes we’re painting with. More or less, if you are human you want to be happy, healthy, and prosperous. Your worldview determines what happiness is, what healthy is, and what prosperity is. But there is a global reality that regardless of worldview, you are striving. For your dream or someone else’s in order to achieve yours. We strive, strive, strive, and strive some more. The trappings of our situation and societies drag on us like grave-clothes. We call it a grind. A rat race. We vacation places that don’t have the same pace of living as where we are, just to experience ‘rest’ which is often the same faced-paced striving just oriented toward pleasure and not security.

The nations of the world seek after these things. It will stagger you what people are willing to do in service of their dream. Nations conquer nations. Nations enslave people. Nations commit genocide and regicide and every other ‘cide that they feel they need to in order to get what they want. Wise nations have harnessed their populace in order to drive the nation as a whole into the dream. Don’t believe me? How hard are you working for your retirement? In a day and age in which we are told retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, it is hard to manage, and often creates the need for a return to work. It’s all smoke and mirrors in service of the acquisition of wealth for the few by the many. The world’s singular driving principle of thought is this: money creates reality. Money is what creates the lives we want, the lives we want for our families, and the lives we want for our nations. Everything is weighed by money. Valued by it. Structured around it. Money is the chain that the world has linked itself too. It is a reward, a goal, and a tool of control.

The Lord has a driving principle for creation: what you seek, you will find. We see it in scripture. “Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8). “For the LORD says to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live;” (Amos 5:4). “You shall seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). “The wicked, in the pride of his face, has no room in his thoughts for God” (Psalm 10:4). We get what we seek, and the Lord strongly suggests that we seek Him. Not for His benefit, but for ours. Because we will get whatever we seek, whether it is Him or not.

The whole thing about dominion is that we were placed here as copies, images, versions of the Most High God. He created the universe with words. We also have word power as it relates to dominion and ourselves. Why does the enemy push manifestation and imaging? Because they are shadows of what we’re called to. They are in essence abilities we have within a limited framework. We can call things into our lives and cast things out. The problem is that we are called to do this only in service to the Will of the Lord. As found in His Word. Anything else we do we do in our own ability. Like a person who has the ability in themselves to be an Olympic gold-medal sprinter. They may run fast, but without the right coach they will never achieve all they could. We can manifest some things which by our nature we are meant to have dominion over. We can manifest some things that were created and are controlled by ourselves. But they are not big. They are mostly positive-thinking affirmations. They don’t bring physical things into reality, they change the way we see reality so that we are likelier to navigate human systems to achieve human rewards. There is nothing supernatural about them — unless we are tapping into the power of the enemy, which is our dominion handed over to someone who has read the manual and knows what to manipulate and when.

When we use word power with the Word, in tune to the Will of the Father, being obedient to Him, His desires, His plan, His timing, and His instruction, it is quite different. Then we have supernatural manifestation. This is NOT a pile of money in your living room. This is NOT getting God to give you your wants. This is doing what the Father shows you to do and saying what the Father tells you to say. And guess what? It may not be anything like what you assume it to be. That’s okay. It isn’t the US but the HIM that is important. So why does He tell us we’ll get what we seek when at the same time we might not? Because we will. What are you seeking and from whom are you seeking it?

If you are chasing after the things of this world with the world and from the world, you will get according to the world. If you are chasing after the things of the Lord, from the Lord, you will get according to the Lord. The things of this world are shiny and lovely and pleasurable and full of influence and ability. They are also pitifully temporary and often come with warning labels. You want money? The world can give you money. They can throw it at you until you are buried. But what are you willing to give in return? What are you willing to pay? Not in money but in other things? Everything in this world has a price. It was one of the first things established by us. Value. Barter. Trade. The world is run by the thief. He wants to steal from you, kill you, and destroy everything you care about just because there is value to it. Those that benefit from this world the most will pay the highest price. But even the poorest pauper in the poorest nation will pay a price. The enemy would kill us all in a moment if he could and see all we have and all we build turn to dust.

The Lord is motivated by that which lasts: Himself. Perfect love, perfect mercy, perfect understanding, perfect everything. He is spirit, so the things that last are the things of the spirit. The physical realm was made in the image of the spiritual realm, so it will naturally conform to the spiritual. To the underlying blueprint of itself. The stronger the spiritual image, the stronger the natural response. That is how God performs miracles. His Word creates a spiritual image so strong reality bends itself, remakes itself in some cases, to conform to the spiritual image that the Lord spoke into existence. That is why no matter what we are going through, no matter what we see around us, we are called to look to what the Lord has, is, and will say in His Kingdom: “For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory, while we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). It is also why we are called to dwell on and actively put before our eyes, ears, and mind that which is good (Philippians 4:8). All good things come from God (James 1:17) and God’s dwelling is eternal.

Are you going to seek the Lord and what the Lord wants for you? The closer you get to Him, the closer He is to you — not because He changes position but because our perceptions of Him change. The more you seek Him the more revelation you can handle. Not brand new this will change Christianity as we know it revelation. But deeper meanings from the Word aligning with all the rest of the Word. A richness and depth to what He has revealed to us and continues to reveal to us. It is moving from Grace to Grace in and through Jesus as He guides us and teaches us and walks us deeper into the Word of the Father: “From his fullness we all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realised through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only born Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him” (John 1:16-18).

The world is heading toward the final countdown. If you don’t believe God, believe man. We all agree that nothing lasts forever. We all agree that the sun will explode and take us with it. We all agree that whether the physical world we inhabit lasts five years more or five hundred million more, it will end and we will be dead long before that. What is it you are going to seek in your remaining time? The things of this world? What the world says is important? What essentials in humans have changed since humans first walked this earth no matter what origin you put your faith in? Nothing. We are driven by goal and choice. But the modern world has wrapped those two things up in a thousand sparkling packages. We stress, despair, work to the bones, and save, save, save, save, save for what? So that we can not toil as much, seek food, and rest. Exactly what the hunter-gatherers of long ago did. And we call it retirement. If it wasn’t so serious it would be laughable.

What are you seeking? If you seek the world you will get the world. The good and the bad. No filter. No protection. If you seek the Lord you will get the Lord. All good. No bad. No filter. Our protection. If you seek Him, you will find Him. You will find exactly as much of Him as you seek. Though if you seek all of Him like Moses you’ll have to wait to get a peek until you are in heaven. But there is no reason you won’t be allowed to catch a glimpse of His back like Moses did. A flash of a heel. You just need to be willing to seek God like Moses did—giving up everything to obedience to the Word. To listen and obey. You will miss it here and there, but overall you’ll hit more than miss. The closer we get the less we miss until we’re in heaven and we never miss. You can go a day or two or three or quite a few with no sin when you are seeking the Lord. Why? Because sin is a choice, not our nature. If we are choosing to seek the Lord, we won’t be seeking sin. If we don’t let it in, we won’t partake in it. I’m not saying we WILL remain sinless (1 John 1:8), but I AM saying we can keep from most of it and repent if we fall and are honest with ourselves that it was a failure not worthy of our belief in God (1 John 1:9). Stay broken before the Lord and remember John 15. It is in Jesus, through Jesus, and by Jesus that we achieve anything at all. Make Him number one. Seek Him. You’ll find Him. As much as you want to. Why not want it all? You have NOTHING to lose but fear.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Matthew 5:17-18

Jesus came because as a man but without Adam’s faulty sense of Self, He was able to fulfil the Law. Literally. No matter how people at the time viewed them, not a single action of Jesus violated any principle of the Law. He kept it in action, in word, and in His heart. No thought ever violated the Law. No deed ever violated the Law. It was unique. But it was not meant to be. We are all called to fulfil the Law: “Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you go in to possess it” (Deuteronomy 30:15-16). The Lord says right there that we CAN do it. It is a choice. A free will choice not to violate His Law. Why did no one and why does no one but Jesus do it? Because of the first Adam. Because He chose to rebel, we inherit his unrighteous spirit and his selfish nature. Not inherently selfish. Leaning toward selfishness. Weak to it. We need that piece replaced so that we can be restored to the free will without selfishness that Adam had in the beginning. If it isn’t a choice, if our nature is sinful period, then why did God tell Cain to his face that he had a choice whether to let sin in or not (Genesis 4:6-7)? We need Jesus to restore us. Without that, we are doomed. Because we sin without a perfect spirit. We will pick it every time because of our weak-to-selfishness soul. But Jesus paid for sin and once that was paid He could restore us in His resurrection. Because of Jesus, the gift of Grace enables us to use the Principles of the Law to help walk in the Truth — choosing righteousness consciously — to give back to the Father some of the pure righteous love that we received from the Father through the conduit of Jesus who is our Peace Offering. Instead of being rules and restrictions, they are eagerly followed principles of worship to Him. Loving Him above all and everyone we encounter as ourselves. Not lying, coveting, killing, murdering, or stealing. Honouring, gifting, caring, blessing, and enabling. Because we have a NEW nature: HIS nature. The sinful nature is dead and gone. We will be able to be keeping apart and holy, studying, worshipping, praying, and equipping every day of our lives. Doing it all because it’s a service of worship to the Father. Not getting hung up on split hairs, timelines, or amounts because of what comes naturally to us IN HIM. By Grace, through Love, and in broken humbleness seeking to be righteous as He is righteous in Him who is our righteousness. Sounds complex, but it is really just loving Him above all — especially ourselves, feelings, and emotions — and loving those around us as He loves us — unconditionally and without agenda. The rest you’ll do from love and joy and not worry if you miss one. He is there to correct anything that needs correction and walk you through repentance until you are aligned once more with His Will which is His Word. Amen.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.