Fear No Fear

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

But just as it is written, “Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard, or mind imagined, are the things God has prepared for those who love him.” God has revealed these to us by the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God
1 Corinthians 2:9-10 (emphasis added)

The modern world wants to turn spouses into roommates. People we live with, but could get rid of if we wanted to at almost a moment’s notice. We learned this with modern dating culture. We turned a process of getting to know someone into all the scope of a marriage with multiple people until you find one you think might work out. To shared values, ideas, and ways of approaching the world, we’ve added sexual compatibility, cohabitation, sometimes children, and a blending of finances. These are complex enough things with a spouse you are bound to, but having them with someone you’re essentially ‘trying out’? That’s crazy. You take things like sex, meant to occur only within a covenant relationship, enjoy it with a casual date, and then you break up. Guess what? This desire for physical pleasure and release which should only occur within a covenant? Now it’s awake as an itch and telling you that it needs scratching. We’ve cheapened the idea of marriage by making dating a necessary thing in our social circles. Not pure dating, but dating as a ‘tryout’ or a ‘compatibility’ tester. No wonder we go into marriages and struggle. We’ve done everything backwards.

Adonai prepared marriage and prepared us FOR marriage. If we did it His way, we would have fewer if any real problems. And those we faced would all be external. They wouldn’t be coming from inside the marriage unit. Adonai’s way is to seek Him first. Put Him first. Start doing what He has for you to do. Then a partner will come your way. You were made for companionship and He knows it isn’t good for you to be alone (Genesis 2:18). He’ll take care of it. He KNOWS what we need and provides it for us (Matthew 6:8 & Philippians 4:19). We’ll be brought to a like-minded person that will grow together with us, compliment us, and be someone who will help us fulfil our calling as well as letting us help them fulfil theirs.

We often can’t find the way through our own minds, our own strength, or our own experiences/resources. It takes Adonai to SHOW US. He prepared everything we’re ever going to need long before WE knew we needed it. Spouse, child(ren), home, job, savings, etc. He is our Father and our Source (Romans 8:15). These things will be revealed to us by Ruach HaKodesh. He penetrates into the deep things of Elohim and he reports them to us. If we aren’t plugged into Jesus, there’s nothing for Ruach HaKodesh to share with us. But if we’re plugged into Jesus, if He is our firm foundation – not a promise, not a paper, not a ring, but the meaning they symbolise and remind us of whenever we see them – then the things of Elohim will not be withheld. He’ll tell us how we’re to go, how we’re to stand, what we’re to read and declare. He’ll tell us what to build on, how to build it, how to weather-proof it, and it will all be in accordance with the Word. All of it. We must focus on Him and stay focused on Him. If we mix it with the way the world does things, we’ll get the same results. Broken people can’t fix broken marriages. All they can do is duct tape them up and hope for the best.

“However, God’s solid foundation remains standing, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from evil.”” (2 Timothy 2:19). We turn from evil because when we focus on evil, evil comes to hang out. If negative things are what we’re educating ourselves in, negative things are what we will be proficient in. This world operates on seedtime and harvest time. “While the earth continues to exist, planting time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease” (Genesis 8:22). Decades could go by between the sowing and the reaping, but the one ALWAYS follows the other. In our marriages we can choose to sow compassion, understanding, and Jesus’ love for us to each other on a daily basis. We can choose to believe in the Word, Trust that Jesus was telling the truth, and expect the results He said were coming will come. Or we can choose to NOT Trust Jesus and go at it in the flesh. In our own understanding – though that isn’t wise (Proverbs 3:1-12).

Everything that isn’t motivated by trust in Jesus is sin because instead of trusting in the positive we are trusting in the negative. When we take our eyes off Jesus, we will put them on not-Jesus. It’s a binary system. It is also not a system of missing out. “All generous giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change” (James 1:17). Everything good comes from Elohim. Keeping our eyes on Adonai means we are also seeing all the good things. This is how we are to approach our marriages. This is how we function day-to-day. Yes, hurts can happen. But how long are you going to look at them and say ‘I was hurt’? When are you going to start looking at them and say ‘I am healed’? A scar or scab is evidence of the healing process. But even they don’t need to stay. “Yes, I will restore you to health. I will heal your wounds. I, the Lord, affirm it! For you have been called an outcast, Zion, whom no one cares for” (Jeremiah 30:17). Restoration means at least as good as it originally was. Adonai can heal scars, scabs, and other physical identifiers of past trauma – He can do the same with our mental scars and triggers as well (John 14:27).

We need to be careful to be walking in this way. It does no good to give lip service to Adonai, but have all our conversations about the negative. “Do not be deceived. God will not be made a fool. For a person will reap what he sows” (Galatians 6:7). It doesn’t mean IGNORE the negative. Burying things or sweeping them under the carpet is a terrible idea. Instead we bring the negative to Him, casting it onto Him (1 Peter 5:7) and receiving from Him the solution (2 Corinthians 1:20-21) and applying the Fruit (Galatians 5:22-23) we need to turn it to a positive through Jesus (John 15:5). We do that by removing anything that stands between Adonai and us whether that is a behaviour pattern, a way we spend our time, language choices, or anything else.

“When they return to it, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them; I will remove the hearts of stone from their bodies and I will give them tender hearts, so that they may follow my statutes and observe my regulations and carry them out. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:18-20). We need to act by the prompting of Ruach HaKodesh. We will KNOW what needs to go or what needs to be cut back. We won’t be giving up anything truly good for us. We won’t miss it in the sense of yearning for it. The reason is that when we put Adonai in the place He deserves to be, it’s better than anything else. When we do that, He isn’t idle. He gives us a new heart (just like at salvation), melting the hardness WE put there – toward Him and toward each other. He makes us tender again. He restores to us those early days. He can continuously do this when we continually put Him first. We become HIS people in HIS marriage with HIM as our God. This isn’t idle promises. This is a yes and Amen. That’s a positive promise you can trust coming to pass here and now, not later in heaven. We don’t know how relationships work in heaven other than that Jesus said we can’t comprehend it, so don’t try (Matthew 22:29-30).

We NEED a new heart that is powered by HIS Spirit. “So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away—look, what is new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We can’t live a victorious marriage. MESSIAH IN US lives the victorious marriage (Galatians 2:20). If we keep ourselves connected to Jesus (John 15:5), then we will be able to engage that victorious marriage. Every time the marriage seems to be overcoming us or turning sour or being a source of strife, it’s our hint that we have disconnected from Jesus. Time for Communion. Time for a moment (or more) of praise and thanksgiving. Time to acknowledge our reliance on our Source: the Father. Is it a hassle? To the flesh only. Our spirits are overjoyed to do it. We need to bring our flesh into line, sacrifice our pride, and kneel in worship (not as to a dictator). “Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). The life of a Believer isn’t just difficult; it’s impossible to live without Elohim’s supernatural ability working in and through us (John 14:26). It’s simple, but it CANNOT be accomplished outside of Messiah Jesus. There is NO WAY except Jesus (John 14:6).

“For our momentary, light suffering is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison because we are not looking at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen. For what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). Marriages can have issues. All relationships can have issues. But we cannot solve them in and through human thinking. We can patch them. We can manage them. But there is no healing in that. No victory in that. Paul is explaining here that ALL issues can easily be dealt with if you have the right mindset. If we realise all our problems in our marriages (and on this earth) are temporary, and recognise there are rewards awaiting us for enduring hardship in this life, and if we focus our attention away from human, fleshly thinking toward spiritual Jesus thinking, His solutions can become ours. This doesn’t say stay in dangerous circumstances. It doesn’t say pretend nothing is happening. It says be in the BOAT, not in the STORM, and let Adonai lead you as to how to deal with the storm (Matthew 8:23-27). When we have ANY OTHER mindset, we’re in the storm dealing with the storm. We’re letting the storm, the world, and/or the enemy fix the narrative of what is going on. We’re letting the situation take power over us instead of us taking power – through and in Jesus – over the situation. You’re inviting this to go from being a situation that Adonai has well in hand to a problem YOU are struggling with. On the one hand, you’re on your own. On the other hand, Adonai knows what to do, will help you in and through and after the situation is over, and operates from the high-ground secure fortress of having overcome the world. Seems like a no-brainer, right? Submit to Elohim, stand on the Word, and the devil flees (James 4:7). Anything else isn’t an abundant life.

We heal our marriages and keep them in health in the exact same way we heal our bodies and keep them in health. Through Trust in Messiah Jesus and what He fully accomplished and released through the cross. Through Trust in His Father and what He enabled us to partake in through the Resurrection of His Son by Ruach HaKodesh. If we are only living according to what is humanly possible, we may have access to quality coping mechanisms, good therapy, medical feats of engineering and biology, and quality literature/entertainment. Humans are incredible creations capable of beautiful and useful things. But if that is all we have, we have a second-best doomed to end thing – no matter HOW great it is (1 Corinthians 15:19). We need to go beyond humanity. Beyond counselling. Beyond therapy. We need to get healed. We need to be whole. And we need to change our mindsets from us to Adonai. We have access to the mind of Messiah (1 Corinthians 2:16). Let’s engage it, keep our pride nailed to the cross, and start operating in EVERY way from His Love. “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Let’s CHOOSE to be healed. CHOOSE to be whole. CHOOSE to be His, first and foremost. Changing sorrow for JOY. Sickness for GLADNESS. Brokenness for HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS. Operating like He does individually AND as a marriage unit. Male and female yoked together with Messiah Jesus, enjoying abundant life in Him regardless of what’s around us. Beacons in the storm, showing the world where THE Rock is situated. The ONLY true safe haven humanity – or marriage – has.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Isaiah 52:15

“so now he will startle many nations. Kings will be shocked by his exaltation, for they will witness something unannounced to them, and they will understand something they had not heard about.” The Servant Messiah would startle the nations with His message. It would NOT be what they expected. It would call to them and enable them to really hear it. It would be unlike anything else they’d heard. “For I will not dare to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in order to bring about the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem even as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. And in this way I desire to preach where Christ has not been named, so as not to build on another person’s foundation, but as it is written: “Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.”” (Romans 15:18-21). The message of Jesus shook up everyone who heard it. It happens to anyone who hears it. It is so not compatible with the message of the world it is almost jarring. Jesus made the Way of reconciliation with the Father. He did it through Grace, because of Mercy. We don’t earn it. We don’t deserve it. Yet He provided it and calls ALL humanity to His Father’s embrace. Jesus IS Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b