Fear No Fear

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

With every prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and to this end be alert, with all perseverance and petitions for all the saints.
Ephesians 6:18 (emphasis added)

Constancy, sweet constancy is the cry of the religious. That is how a servant, a steward, a manager, an employee, and a good citizen run their lives in the world. Another word people use is consistency. There is a SLIGHT difference though. Constancy means continuously over time. Consistently means the same exact thing in repetition. Constancy is showing up for work every day. Consistently is showing up and performing well every day.What good is it to be continuous in action if the actions are all over the place? You can swing wildly every time you’re up to bat, but if you’re not consistent with your hits you won’t be a good player. It takes perseverance to be consistent. “So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness” (James 5:16). The King James reads the consistent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Consistency in the ways of Adonai give us great effectiveness.

Thanksgiving is a way of Adonai. We need to be thankful. Consistently. Thanking Him whether we have what we want or not. Thanking Him regardless of our circumstances. No matter what. Consistent. How can we do that? Thank Him for the accident I just had? No. Thank Him that you’re alive. Thank Him that you WILL recover – standing on any NUMBER of healing scriptures to back up that thanksgiving (not even asking for healing, but straight up thanking Him for it before ANYTHING else). Thankful you’re able to bless your workplace with an honest, productive employee (you). Thankful you can help with your landlord’s finances through the paying of rent. Thankful you can smile at the cashier, pay taxes, repay loans, appreciate the weather, and remember what He did for you last week/month/year/decade. It can go on and on. A lifestyle of thanksgiving.

It is DIFFERENT from being positive. It is acknowledging His place in your life. ‘Abba, Father’ meaning ‘Father, my Source’ (Romans 8:15). It’s not saying He is the source of negative things (because He’s not – James 1:17). It’s saying no MATTER what comes YOU give me what I need for where I am PERIOD. Jesus was despised all over the place (Isaiah 53:3; Matthew 12:14). He didn’t give a ‘woe is me’. He got up thankful, eager to know where He was teaching that day. Eager to know who He was healing. Eager to know the Father’s will AND to walk it out in obedience. Jesus was THANKFUL and it directed the course of His life. He wasn’t defeated by ANY of it. We don’t have to be either.

Just because people are insulting us or against us does NOT mean we need to ABSORB the insults (Luke 4:14-30). It washes around us because our mindset is in Jesus. It isn’t in vulnerable human feelings. We’re humble, not vulnerable. We’re protected overcomers, not losers at the mercy of the world. When we are one with Him we are shalom (Isaiah 53:5). We have access to peace, prosperity, wholeness, success, and well-being because IN JESUS we have overcome (because HE overcame) strife, poverty, brokenness, lack of productivity, disease, and sickness of every kind. We are fully pardoned and fully accepted in Jesus. That is how we can be called the Righteousness of Elohim in Jesus. Jesus purchased our victory, our salvation, our emotional wholeness, our mental wholeness, our physical wholeness, our healing, our deliverance, and our overcoming every negative circumstance in Jesus (Isaiah 53:12).

All this is unleashed with our consistency. Consistent reliance on Adonai – whether there are circumstances to be overcome or not. Consistent praise and thanksgiving to Adonai over everything in our lives – large or small. Our family reads through Psalm 91 every day in order to cement in our minds who we rely on and the promises He makes to His obedient children. After that, we take Communion as a further declaration of who is our sustenance. When we get to the ‘do this in Remembrance of me’ part, we speak out two things that Adonai has done for our family. Real things, no repeats, and no generic ‘we got saved’ stuff. Actual examples of His Mercy, Grace, deliverance, healing touch, miraculous intervention or gifts, etc. Reminders that He is real, He interacts with us, and that victorious living is possible because this whole thing isn’t just pulpit words on Sunday. We CAN live by trust in Jesus. We CAN be calm in the midst of a storm. We do NOT need to live like the world does. Things are DIFFERENT in our house and household because of Adonai – not us – and we daily remind ourselves of that. We haven’t arrived, but we’ve pushed off from the dock and are training ourselves to consistently paddle where He leads us. It’s simple, but there are days we struggle.

You don’t leap into victory. We walk there. Step by step along His Way. Learning the truth through the Word and submitting to His point of view. That can be hard because if your mindset hasn’t shifted to His POV being normal, natural, and right, it can chafe. It chafes against human knowledge. It chafes against our knowledge of how head colds work. How the stock market works. How storage of food and inventory management work. Decades of seeing when A, then B will give a mind trouble when seeing A leading to C or D occurring without the requisite steps leading to it. But MINDSET changes that. Either we accept the mindset we have learned because of natural rules, laws, principles, and experience OR we let Him renew our minds to the mindset of Messiah Jesus which relies on Kingdom rules, laws, principles, and experience. Those two mindsets are VERY DIFFERENT. The Kingdom mindset is superior. Will you accept it? Will you submit to it? It comes with the agreement that all the dots will not be explained. They won’t always be visible. It is a mindset of total trust and thanksgiving.

Adonai is the Father of Eternity. We can thank Him for what IS – from His point of view. It isn’t a denial of what WE see. But it’s thanksgiving for what He sees. Like getting up in the morning and thanking Him for a glorious day. Do we have any evidence at that point the day IS glorious? No. We just woke up. But we can agree that ANY day is glorious because He made it and that He makes ANY day glorious because He is in it. On those two points alone, we can thank and praise Him. If we then leave it to Him and rely on Him to bring it about we will experience a glorious day. Doesn’t mean there won’t be hardship. It does mean we won’t take it in. It doesn’t mean there won’t be SITUATIONS, it does mean they won’t be PROBLEMS because He made a Way for us through, in, or over them before we were even born. Our declared reliance on Him followed by obedience to what He tells us as we thank, praise, and pray (listening, not just talking) will enable us to experience a glorious day. Ending untouched by the world and nestled in His protection. Regardless of how those outside of us see it. Overcoming in Him because He overcame.

“It is fitting to thank the Lord, and to sing praises to your name, O Most High. It is fitting to proclaim your loyal love in the morning, and your faithfulness during the night, to the accompaniment of a ten-stringed instrument and a lyre, to the accompaniment of the meditative tone of the harp. For you, O Lord, have made me happy by your work. I will sing for joy because of what you have done. How great are your works, O Lord! Your plans are very intricate! The spiritually insensitive do not recognize this; the fool does not understand this. When the wicked sprout up like grass, and all the evildoers glisten, it is so that they may be annihilated. But you, O Lord, reign forever. Indeed, look at your enemies, O Lord. Indeed, look at how your enemies perish. All the evildoers are scattered. You exalt my horn like that of a wild ox. I am covered with fresh oil. I gloat in triumph over those who tried to ambush me; I hear the defeated cries of the evil foes who attacked me. The godly grow like a palm tree; they grow high like a cedar in Lebanon. Planted in the Lord’s house, they grow in the courts of our God. They bear fruit even when they are old; they are filled with vitality and have many leaves. So they proclaim that the Lord, my Protector, is just and never unfair” (Psalm 92).

It is fitting to thank Adonai. That is NEVER going to stop. In heaven, right NOW, there are creatures who do nothing but exclaim His goodness. When they do, the 24 Elders who sit on thrones drop to their knees and proclaim their thankfulness at His goodness (Revelation 4). This has been happening for a while now. It isn’t going to stop anytime soon. It’s going to keep going. On and on. And on and on. NOT EVER getting boring or dull or done. Because He IS good and His goodness SHOULD be praised. He is a MERCIFUL God. He is a GOOD Father. We should acknowledge that. Consistently. The thanksgiving we give is the vehicle that brings our breakthrough because it is the symbol and acknowledgement of our humility before Him. If we are humble and submitted, we will praise Him and be thankful for His mercies.

There is ALWAYS something to be thankful for. It is the mindset we need to get into. It is the mindset of Messiah Jesus. We have access to it if we let Him renew our minds (Romans 12:2). When we acknowledge Him and develop a thankful heart, so much opens up for us. We’re harder to knock down (James 4:7). We’re quicker to get up (Proverbs 24:16). We don’t dwell on the negative, we give it to Him (1 Peter 5:7). He becomes first place not by our effort, but as a result of us consistently looking to Him to say thank you. It’s just good spiritual manners. Because He DESERVES it.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Isaiah 50:3

“I can clothe the sky in darkness; I can cover it with sackcloth.” Heaven would be clothed in black at Messiah’s humiliation. Messiah would come as a Suffering Servant before He came as a Conquering King. When He did He would be despised, beaten, and humiliated for all to see. Heaven would not be silent about it. “It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, because the sun’s light failed. The temple curtain was torn in two” (Luke 23:44-45). When Jesus died, the world went dark. It is recorded by Julius Africanus (a renowned third century historian) who was disputing the ‘explain it away’ comments by Thallus in his third history on the Mediterranean. Africanus also composed a five volume History of the World which mentions the event. Phlegon was a Greek historian around AD 37 who wrote about the unnatural darkness. Tertullian mentioned it. The world agreed with the Gospel writers. When Jesus died, the sky was clothed in darkness. Jesus IS Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b