Fear No Fear

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

May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 5:23 (emphasis added)

What is it about ‘completely’ that is so important? It’s defined as having all the necessary parts. Fully carried through. Highly proficient. But I like the definition as it relates to insect metamorphosis. Completeness is characterised by the occurrence of a pupal stage between the motile immature stages and the adult. What is motile? A person whose prevailing mental imagery takes the form of inner feelings of action. Complete is the stage where a person who dreams about motion is developing from immaturity to maturity and motion. “The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). Yahweh is a God of motion. God is about completeness because He wants to develop us from beings who dream about motion to beings who move in Him. It took Jesus three years of intensive teaching, dying for us, being resurrected to life by the Father, appearing to Saul in person, blinding Him, having Saul learn to re-interpret the entire Old Testament that Saul had been trained in from his youth, and part of a missionary journey before Saul (now Paul) said “‘For in him we live, move, and have our being’” (Acts 17:28). It took awhile. It wasn’t painless. But Paul got to be an adult and move in the Lord. The results of that were churches all over the world and two-thirds of the New Testament. Even then Paul didn’t consider himself complete. Neither should we. Sanctification is a journey for an entire lifetime and it doesn’t end before we’re at the Throne. It probably doesn’t end there either, but that’s the end point we can see from here.

“Samuel said to the people, “Don’t be afraid. You have indeed done all this evil; yet don’t turn away from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart. Don’t turn away to go after vain things which can’t profit or deliver, for they are vain. For the LORD will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for himself” (1 Samuel 12:20-22). This is our walk. Serving the Lord with all of our heart. It is the prime reason for being. We were made by the Lord and for the Lord (Colossians 1:16-17). We are His. We were made to experience life with Him. Worshipping Him. Obedient to Him. We threw that all away. In Jesus we can get it back. It is ONLY through Jesus that we can get it back. Choosing to do what we were created to do. Jesus came so that we could get back to the Father. We are His gift to the Father.

“I pray for them. I don’t pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them through your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are” (John 17:9-11). Jesus gave us to the Father. It is the only way that we can get to the Father, which is why Jesus asked the Father to keep us in Him. To remain in Jesus we need to be sanctified. Not all at once in a moment, but by a process of bringing things to Him and submitting them. One after the other. By a process of renewing our minds by His Word so that we are able to comprehend and walk in His ways. To take the Word and use it to purify us (John 17:17). It is the only standard of truth that there is. Everything else is human opinion.

“Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The Word is good for our instruction. The Word is what sanctifies us. The Word is what gives us a look into what the Lord says is righteous and good. Therefore worship by the Word is all about pleasing God. We should be seeking to please Him. Not out of fear or to follow the rules. Because He loves us. He loves us, so we love Him. If we love Him, we should want to please Him. To be what He wants. To act how He wants. To live how He wants. We can’t please Him in ourselves. In unrighteousness. In deeds, words, or thoughts apart from Him. He is Holy and there is none other like Him (1 Samuel 2:2). He is unique (Deuteronomy 6:4). If we want to please Him we need to be Holy as He is Holy.

If you have a room of darkness and you make light happen, the darkness dissipates. Darkness cannot exist in the presence of light. This is a fact. “Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship do righteousness and iniquity have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what portion does a believer have with an unbeliever?” (2 Corinthians 6:14-15). We are not righteous. We have sinned. It doesn’t matter that our spirit has been cleaned of our sin. This body we inhabit is still flesh that is unrighteous. We need Jesus. It is by Jesus that we can be righteous because we adopt His righteousness. “Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit” (2 Peter 3:18). “But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11). In Jesus, we become like Him. This is the gift He gives us.

We are crucified into Jesus. It is in Him and by Him and for Him that we do anything (John 15). We have to get to the point that we realise that we are nothing in and of ourselves. That it is Jesus who enables us to stand before the Father. That without Jesus’ Righteous Spirit covering us we would burn away. Jesus asks us to wear His yoke that is both easy to bear and light (Matthew 11:18-30). He asks us to learn from Him. Jesus didn’t operate by feelings. He had them. But they did not run His life. Feelings aren’t real. They are input from the world. Input from our bodies. They are not what we listen to. We take them into account, but then we look to the Lord for guidance. Sometimes we have already had that guidance and we can run with it as the feelings come up (like taking your hand off a hot surface before it burns). Sometimes we need to prayerfully submit something to Him for vetting. This is why obedience is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22). It is living the principle of our heart before our feelings. Our hearts need to be set on God.

Jesus said “But seek first God’s Kingdom and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). Jesus was talking about our habit of getting caught up worrying about our next meal, our clothes, our jobs, and all the rest of the stuff around us. He is warning us not to worry. That giving into fear like that doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t do anything but get us stressed and waste our time. That the Father knows our needs and will meet our needs. That we should be focusing on the Lord and the rest of it will all fall into place. Because the Father cares for those who care for Him (Romans 8:28). If we seek Him first, put Him first, and worship Him all the rest of everything will come into line. This is NOT a life free of persecutions or testing by the enemy. Nowhere does Jesus promise that. If a life of ease is what was coming, we’d have no reason to crucify ourselves (Luke 14:27). We are seeking God first and God is putting us in His refiner’s fire to purify us (Malachi 3:2).

This isn’t always a pleasant experience. Sometimes it comes through tears on the repentance floor (1 John 1:9). Sometimes it comes as we are persecuted and bullied because of our faith in Jesus (Matthew 5:11-12). Sometimes it comes as we beat down the old person and walk away from it into what Jesus has for us (Colossians 3:5-6). We need to be broken because we are not Holy. We gain intimacy with Jesus through our brokenness because Jesus went through all that we did and knows what we are going through (Hebrews 4:15-16). Intimacy brings compatibility as we leave more and more of ourselves behind and become more and more like Jesus (John 3:30).

Our purpose is to submit ourselves to God, broken and without ego, laying ourselves on our cross and nailing our Self to it. To let Jesus purify us and the Father to resurrect us to life in Jesus. To let the Lord sanctify us with His Word, renewing our minds to His glory. To set our feet on the path that the Lord lays down and joyfully walk where He wants to do what He wants and when. It would have done no good for Moses to have parted the Red Sea a month before the Israelites got there. Or to have opened it the night before. Or a month after they left Egypt. The miracle was only good for one place and for one time. That is how we need to look at any and everything He asks us to do. Whether it is solely for our own benefit or a service to others.

If we obey the commandments and statutes of the Lord, He will set Himself up as our God and we will be His children. His people. Dedicated to Him. “Having therefore these promises, beloved, let’s cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (Hebrews 7:1). What a great promise. What a great action to take. The one marvellous and amazing. The other is a process that can last a lifetime. But a lifetime reverencing God. A lifetime of kneeling broken before Him. The thief on the cross started by hurling insults and mocking Jesus (Matthew 27:44). But that thief couldn’t keep it up. He could see those that loved Jesus there watching their Lord suffer. He saw how Jesus reacted to them and those crucifying Him. He saw Jesus’ love. And as he was dying and came to the end of who he was: a broken and dying thief; there was a change of heart (Luke 23:40-42). In his brokenness, he came to Jesus. We must do the same. Every day.

When we enter willingly onto the path of sanctification, we are signing up for some intense times. We are signing up to be broken. We are signing up for His yoke. We are signing up to be obedient. But we are signing up for nothing that isn’t good and right and natural. He is worthy of honour and praise. He is worthy of taking our lives in His hands. He is our good Father. He is our good God. He is the one with which we fellowship in perfect love. He is Righteous. He is Holy. Thank you, Jesus, for enabling us to partake at the Father’s table. May we never lose sight of who You are and who we are. Amen.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Proverbs 3:11-12

God corrects us. He loves us, so He does not let us wallow in misery. He does not let us walk in unrighteousness. He does not let us compromise. He does not let us carry sin along, indulging in the ones that “don’t matter”. He loves us, so He disciplines us. But He also does not let us wallow in our brokenness. He does not leave us there. Yes, we are to crucify Self. Yes, we are to drop our ego. Yes, we are to be obedient to His will and His Word. But He doesn’t leave us on the repentance floor. Like with Abram, He calls us from our old country to our new. From our old family to our new. From our old self to our new. We have to leave it all behind. Despise it all. Country, creed, family. Walk away from that and into Jesus. We get to leave the old behind and discover our new selves in Jesus. To become the person He sees us as. We remain broken, but we are broken before Him. Jesus broke His body before the blood could do its job. If we let the blood do its job, we will be broken before the throne and able to walk in all that the Father has for us. We leave the self broken so that we can be resurrected into Jesus and new life. After that it is our choice whether or not we remain in Him. Will we stay in Jesus, or will we return to the broken self? It will still be us the redeemed spirit. But we will either dwell in His overcoming victory or in our broken self. Will you keep the broken flesh crucified so you can walk in Jesus? Or will you walk in brokenness without the victory of Jesus? We must be broken before Him because we are in this flesh body. But we don’t have to remain there. Our souls can walk in Jesus even as our spirits do. We can see ourselves forever as sinners saved by Grace or we can see ourselves as the redeemed of the Lord, new creations in Jesus the Christ. In both we are broken on a daily basis. But in Jesus, we also have victory. Which will you choose? Where will you abide?

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.