Fear No Fear

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

For the outlook of the flesh is death, but the outlook of the Spirit is life and peace, because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him.
Romans 8:6-9 (emphasis added)

The Greek for ‘outlook’ here is phronéma (fron’-ay-mah) meaning the thought, purpose, or aspirations that are in the mind. It’s the innermost, personal level of opinion and perspective as it determines and regulates outward behaviour. It is all about how individual processes of opinion-making connect to how we act. When our personal innermost perspective agrees with the flesh or with the world, we’re focused on death. We are lacking an interior perspective focused on Adonai.

It doesn’t matter how much we talk about believing and trusting. If our minds aren’t in a place to understand and receive it, we don’t gain benefit from that. It is where our battleground is. The devil has NO POWER. None. Things are NOT as they are portrayed in entertainment. He’s not out for souls. They aren’t currency. The devil and the evil spirits are so much hot air and whining and not powerful, impressive creatures we bargain with or fight like a boss in a game. No. They have NOTHING but words (John 14:30-31; 1 Peter 5:8). They want NOTHING but to kill us (John 10:10). They use words to convince us to give them our dominion, our position, our rights, which they then use to defeat us. That’s why it is important for a believer to realise they are IN Messiah Jesus. On our own, we’re no match for anyone. In Jesus? We’re protected and have His authority which NO ONE can take from us.

But how do we SEE ourselves that way? How do we SEE spiritual things? How do we get from feelings and touch and sight and sound to really SEE the unseen (2 Corinthians 4:18)? We need to renew our minds. Not just to this idea of the unseen realm. That’s easy enough. There are a lot of spirit beings eager to talk at us. To gain our ears. We don’t want that. What we want is renewal to Yahweh’s wavelength. To focus on the Voice of Adonai. To be able to discern His voice with His instructions and His correction and His truth from His point of view. “Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God—what is good and well-pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2). Test so that we can approve it. So that we can agree with it. So that HIS point of view becomes OUR point of view.

Renewing our mind isn’t so much a conscious, I have an opinion thing. Believers all over the world sit in churches every week, sometimes multiple days, and they sing, shout, say Amen, nod stoically, and really thing about what the minister is saying. Yet how much of what is thought about and listened to creates actual, real, change? Does it change our lives? Does it make a difference? Statistically, it doesn’t. Thirty-four percent of Christians say they suffer from anxiety. It’s been calculated that up to seven MILLION christians suffer from depression – and that’s in the U.S. alone. Mental illness is a real thing and the church is no stranger to it. Jesus broke the curse. Negative mental spaces don’t need to exist. Mental conditions, just like physical ones, don’t need to exist. Jesus’ sacrifice takes care of each and every one of them. Thing it though… to how many of us (afflicted or not) truly have a revelation of that living inside them? There is an EASY test. If you EVER feel anxious or depressed and don’t feel your revelation come against it flooding up from your heart to your mind and out your mouth… well, maybe you don’t have all the revelation you might need on it. I think we can ALL work on that.

It isn’t a sin to have a mental condition. It isn’t a sin to feel depressed. It isn’t a sin to seek a doctor, medical advice, or go to therapy. But doesn’t Adonai deserve the first crack at it? Or the middle crack? Or the last one? First is best, but going to Adonai is important no matter WHEN you do it. Jesus DIED for our mental states. He died so that we can be RENEWED. He died so that the old ways of thinking, doing, acting, and being, could be eliminated. One hundred percent. He died so that we too could die in Him. He was resurrected to life so that we too could be resurrected to a new life, a new reality, one that starts on the inside. One that is SPIRITUALLY dominated. One that is ADONAI focused. The Word says it again and again and again. When are we going to start applying it? My trust in Adonai isn’t going to help you. Yours isn’t going to help me. Each of us must trust in Him. In the Word. We need to use it the way it was intended to be.

“The unbeliever does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). This is our ‘natural’ state. Hearing these things and ignoring them. Turning away because it’s ridiculous or un-religious or un-orthodox, or whatever. We NEED to be spiritually aware. Everything in the Kingdom of God is spiritual. That doesn’t mean we burn sage, stare at crystals with our inner eyes, or high-step in goat-skin leggings. It DOES mean that we need to change what we perceive on the inside. To see what Adonai created for us to see. There is no war in heaven anymore. The devil lost his place and got kicked out. There is no spiritual war with major clashes and moving armies and heroes calling out demons for one-on-one combat. The war is on our mental plane. It is a mind fight. What DO you believe? What DO you have revelation on? What IS your focus? Do you think intently about Adonai for your bible study time and spend the rest of the day wondering how Stranger Things is going to end?

“if indeed you heard about him and were taught in him, just as the truth is in Jesus. You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man who has been created in God’s image—in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth” (Ephesians 4:21-24). When we died in Messiah Jesus, we DIED. That person no longer exists. When we were resurrected in Messiah Jesus, we became a NEW person. Not a new personality, but a new being. One with a righteous spirit (Romans 8:10). A spirit sealed by Ruach HaKodesh so that no sin can touch it or come from it (Ephesians 1:13-14). That’s all the automatic and ‘easy’ part. But WE need to lay aside that old person. WE need to recognise the OLD thought patterns. The OLD perspective. We thought that way a long time. The world helped to program it into us. Through television, internet, books, comics, movies, news broadcasts, the education curriculum, the conversations we have with our friends, etc etc. We have a NEW mind. We have access to JESUS mind (1 Corinthians 2:16). But do we use it? Ever?

I do KNOW that I have access to Jesus’ mind. I can think His thoughts by asking Him for them. But I rarely remember to when I am facing something. Take building for example. Building a deck. Building a shelf. Building a garden. He not only Created everything around me (John 1:3), but He was a trained and skilled craftsman and architect (Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3 – the Greek word Tekton {Strong’s #5045}). The word for His profession includes carpenter, woodworker; more generally: construction worker, including stonemason and metalworker; an artisan. So. Created everything in Creation. A trained artisan. I think He could help me with a deck. Or anything, really. But do I ask? Not as often as I should. What about the rest of, well, everything? Do I ask? Same answer. Not as often as I should.

It isn’t whether or not we are ‘bothering’ Adonai with trivial people things. He WANTS to be involved with us. He WANTS relationship with us. He wants us to KNOW His point of view and He wants us to FOLLOW it. To make it our own. To start taking on His characteristics (Galatians 5:22-23). To start acting like Him (1 Corinthians 13). This is the goal. But Adonai doesn’t compete. Not in our sense of the word. Adonai doesn’t make a lot of noise to try and drown out the competition. He lets us do the things. It is OUR choice, after all. He respects our CHOICE because He is the one who GAVE us choice in the first place. When Adonai wants to speak to us He does (and He does that almost continually). But He doesn’t compete.

“The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. Look, the Lord is ready to pass by.” A very powerful wind went before the Lord, digging into the mountain and causing landslides, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the windstorm there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire, there was a soft whisper. When Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his robe and went out and stood at the entrance to the cave. Suddenly a voice asked him, “Why are you here, Elijah?”” (1 Kings 19:11-13). A calm, soft, voice. Not the noise. Not the attention getters. Not the flood of feel-good the world promotes and can feel great after a long day of work – the reward for all your hard work. No. A calm and soft voice. A whisper. We are equipped to hear Adonai every time He has something to say about anything. We must choose to hear, and we do that by letting Him renew our minds with the Word. He is the only one who can do it. But when we do, we gain a tremendous amount. We gain HIS thoughts about HIS thoughts. We get a revelatory commentary on the entire Bible. We gain wisdom (James 1:5-8). We are able to discern. We will HEAR Him. We will KNOW when or if we are crossing the line.

“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.” This from today’s verse. We are NOT flesh. We are SPIRIT and connect with that spiritual realm through the Spirit of Elohim inside us. You can trust the Word. You can trust Him. But you NEED a renewed mind to UNDERSTAND it. And Him. And both WHAT He said about receiving from Him, but also HOW to receive from Him (spoiler alert: hold out your hand). Until our mind is renewed to how He sees things, we are always going to look at what we don’t have as not there. As absent. That’s what happened in the garden. They chose NOT to look at what Adonai HAD given them (hundreds to thousands of fruit-giving trees that they were allowed to touch and eat from). They chose to NOT look at the great and intimate relationship they had with Him. They chose to look at the single thing that they didn’t have: knowledge of good and evil. They got that (Genesis 3:7). First fruit of that knowledge? Shame. It doesn’t get better from there. They got kicked out. They lost EVERYTHING. You know what the Word DOESN’T say? It doesn’t say they got depressed.

Right after the kick out, they had sex and made a baby. What next? That child and the next one brought OFFERINGS to Adonai. They didn’t reject Adonai. They didn’t tell their kids about that dude in the sky. They taught their kids to honour Adonai. Adonai SPOKE to them. Often enough that Cain wasn’t freaked out when it happened (Genesis 4:6). If anyone deserved to struggle with depression, it was this family. But that isn’t what we see. We see an Adonai-centered family. One that sought HIM (or at least knew Him). Why didn’t they get depressed and sulky like Job? I think because they ALSO remembered everything that Adonai WAS. They KNEW He was Love. Yes, He corrected them. No, there is no record of either of them repenting. But they did not ignore Him. They did not fail to teach their children about Him. They did not lose their Adonai-focus.

We have NOT had the benefit of that kind of start. We start on the fallen side. On the rebellious side. On the curse side. We need to get back what they had. We need renewal. If we don’t, we will forever be stuck at level one. We will be stuck with the physical world. We won’t be able to enjoy the fact we’re seated with Jesus in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6-7). We won’t experience Blessing upon Blessing, pressed down and running over (Luke 6:38). We won’t have to deal with persecutions because of our successes (yay?). But who wants to miss out on that? I don’t. Do you?

I want to be renewed. I want to have it revealed to my heart, not just my mind. I want the confidence of John and Peter in Acts 3. The Word says it is possible if I keep it before my eyes. If I give Adonai place. If I recognise His place and my place and submit to what I find in the Word. If I submit to Him and let Him call the shots. If I let the Word change my outlook to Peace and Life. If I accept what He tells me and investigate the Word to see that it checks out. If I do these things He gives me the strength to to through my JOY in Him, then there is no reason not to expect it to come to pass. Today. Tomorrow. Longer. It makes no difference (2 Peter 3:9). It is all but a moment (2 Corinthians 4:17). It WILL happen. It can happen to me. It can happen to you. To some extent it HAS happened to me. But I still press on and seek Him more. The battle for your outlook is raging. What is it going to be? Inner Outlook or Outer Outlook? Adonai or everything else?

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Isaiah 49:1

“Listen to me, you coastlands! Pay attention, you people who live far away! The Lord summoned me from birth; he commissioned me when my mother brought me into the world.” Messiah would be called from the womb. Messiah would have and inhabit humanity. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18). Mary was just like us. Just like you and me. She was an ordinary girl living an ordinary – though Adonai-focused life. She submitted to His will, even though it cost her. She knew her baby was special. She kept herself from Joseph until after the birth of her child and he kept himself away – through an agreement between spouses (1 Corinthians 7:5). Jesus was born of a woman. A human woman like millions walking the world today. From the WOMB Jesus was called – and recognised (Luke 1:41-44). Jesus IS Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

Yeshua is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Matthew 16:16b