Fear No Fear

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

When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you. If you seek me with all your heart and soul,
Jeremiah 29:13 (emphasis added)

You soul is your inner identity and personality. It is who you really are at your core. Which is why it is SO sad to see so many people who choose to make a physical sensation the core of who they are. We are so much more than a single thing. It doesn’t matter whether it is your profession, your sexuality, your gender, your nationality, your ancestry, your language, your hobby, or whatever. We are so much more than ONE thing. Our hearts are our seat of strength and the repository of our life. They hold our memories. They hold our emotional nature. And they hold our understanding. The heart is the mind that runs the brain. These are two of the most important parts of us. They are the most human parts of us. And they are easily distracted by shiny things.

When we have our emotions, understanding, strength, identity, and personality focused on Jesus, we are always connected with Adonai. It will NEVER vary. It is a PROMISE of Elohim. He ALWAYS keeps His promises. “Every word of God is purified; he is like a shield for those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he reprove you and prove you to be a liar” (Proverbs 30:5-6). We don’t submerge our personality in Him, we let Him perfect it so that we become MORE like how we REALLY are instead of a better version of what we’ve let the world program us into. “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith excellence, to excellence, knowledge; to knowledge, self-control; to self-control, perseverance; to perseverance, godliness; to godliness, brotherly affection; to brotherly affection, unselfish love” (2 Peter 1:5-7). We can choose to be joyful anytime we want. All we need to do is to praise Adonai and but our love of Him into it. “He said to them, “Go and eat delicacies and drink sweet drinks and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared. For this day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). Our praise brings strength to our joy. It creates joy because Adonai Elohim is SO GOOD. Our understanding should also be founded on Him. Adonai is the only one who can truly inform us about anything real. “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. For who among men knows the things of a man except the man’s spirit within him? So too, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:9-11). The flesh kicks up lots of feelings and feelings can easily be brought up by interactions with the world, but like with toddlers or dogs, those feelings are real. They pass in a blink. Emotions on the other hand are products of our soul. They are based on our thinking, not our feeling. And Adonai made them. They aren’t bad, unless we are basing them on something that is frivolous or bad. Adonai is FULL of emotion. So is Ruach HaKodesh. They are ALL positive and they are ALL encouraging. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also behave in accordance with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-25).

Identity is a big thing. Identity is thought to be the distinguishing character or personality of an individual. The relation between us and that thing or character that can psychologically identify us. It is what identifies us as US instead of as Bob or Jane or anyone else. There is an individuality to it. A lot of people these days are choosing their sexuality or their gender as their identifying characteristic. Adonai had so much more in mind when He was crafting us. And in Jesus, we can be so much more than how we dress, what bathroom we use, or what we do at night behind closed doors. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may proclaim the virtues of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). “For we are his creative work, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we can do them” (Ephesians 2:10). “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Elohim made us to be something more. Something special. Elohim made us to be like Him. “God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Adonai didn’t do that for any other creature on the face of the Earth. We’re special. We weren’t simply brought to life. We have the breath of lives within us (Genesis 2:7).

These are a lot of diverse qualities that we are supposed to have trained on Him. The question is ‘Do we?’ It is easy to say we do. When we’re at church, bible study, or having coffee with the Pastor. What happens when you’re alone? When you are home? Do you think about what Jesus would like to hear when we choose to argue with our spouse? Do we think about what the Father might do in our place when we choose to get mad at our kids? Are we asking Ruach HaKodesh for the words, the intonation that is needed to prevent people from being offended. To prevent people from being apart from us. From us driving them away instead of making opportunity for them to be closer to Jesus. All these qualities I’ve mentioned that are part of our Soul and Heart, they are intimately tied to what the Word says Jesus IS.

What Jesus says about us is what we CAN be. But it is easy to lose sight. To lose connection. The promise we are given again and again is that if we seek Him with all we are, then He will be found by us. If we are calling with all that we are, He will answer us. Is perhaps one of the reasons we don’t see as much healing as He wants to perform is that we are not calling with all we are? Oh, we may cry out honestly and sincerely from the bottom of our hearts, but is it temporary? Has the cancer scare made us reverent? If we got healed (by Elohim or mankind) would we be staying with Him? Or would we be going back to whatever life we were leading before? Are we crying out in our desperation, but not in our ease? If we are going to take our miracle and go back to doing sin, why should He give it to us? We’re asking for it, but we’re not being exclusive to Him. We’re mixing trust in Jesus with pleasure in the world. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, because all that is in the world (the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the arrogance produced by material possessions) is not from the Father, but is from the world” (1 John 2:15-16). “The eye is the lamp of the body. If then your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:22-24).

We can’t expect Elohim to answer a drive-by praying. We can’t give Him lip service a day a week or a few holidays a year and then expect Him to show up for us whenever WE need something. He doesn’t say in His Word that’s how it works. It DOES say He is merciful (Psalm 145:8-9). It DOES say He Blesses us inspite of ourselves (Psalms 67:7). It DOES say Elohim shows us Grace (James 4:6; Ephesians 2:8). But humanity likes hard and fast rules. Something we can count on to be true EVERY time. Well, like it or not, if we seek Him with our WHOLE heart and soul, He WILL be found. So the rule? It is when we are seeking with ALL we are with CONSISTENCY that He shows up and meets with us.

If we want healing today just the same as when Jesus walked the Earth as a man, WE CAN HAVE IT. Put away the world and walk in Him. Seek Him. Don’t go back to how it was. Stick with how it IS. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways. For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:11-13). Being a child wasn’t wrong. It is time not to be a child. It is time to grow up. Put down the world and SEEK Him. With your soul. With your heart. Seek Him. He isn’t playing hide and seek. You’ll find Him. He promised.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Isaiah 53:3

“He was despised and rejected by people, one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness; people hid their faces from him; he was despised, and we considered him insignificant.” Messiah would experience great sorrow and grief. They would not be strangers, but just like us He would experience them. “Now when Jesus approached and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you had only known on this day, even you, the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:41-42). Jesus grieved over His people. Over His nation. Over His cities. Jesus felt for them. He was like us (Hebrews 4:15–16). He grieved with sorrow over them. Jesus IS Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b