Fear No Fear

(All scripture from Lexham English Bible, Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software)

“Therefore become imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, just as also Christ loved us, and gave himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God for a fragrant smell.”

Ephesians 5:1-2

There was a song awhile ago, perhaps you remember it, whose chorus went: ‘What is love?/Oh, baby, don’t hurt me/Don’t hurt me, no more/Oh, baby, don’t hurt me/Don’t hurt me, no more’. It’s a classic song by Haddaway from his debut album The Album from 1993. It makes a clear message: love does NOT hurt. I don’t know where Haddaway got the message, but humanity had had that message on repeat from the dawn before time. Adonai has ALWAYS been clear that He is LOVE and from Him comes ONLY goodness (James 1:17). The difference is that with Adonai it is not a physical/pleasure love or a relational love. With Adonai it is an ALL CONSUMING love. A love that touches all aspects of human existence. A love that is the power behind all things. It is the conduit through which the BLESSING flows. Turn off love, turn off the BLESSING.

Of course, that means the opposite is true. Turn ON love, turn ON the BLESSING. These are not FORMULAIC things. They are EXPERIENTIAL things. Take Hebrews 11:6 “Now without faith it is impossible to please him, for the one who approaches God must believe that he exists and is a rewarder of those who seek him.” This verse will prove the existence of Adonai to anyone. This verse should have our very best scientific method applied to it. If you believe in your heart that Adonai exists, and if you believe in your heart that Adonai rewards those who seek Him, then you WILL have trust in Him and you WILL please Him, so you WILL know that He exists. Anyone at all who is willing to do the believing will generate the trust which will generate the pleasure which will confirm the validity of your believing. It is EXPERIENTIAL. It can be tested and PROVED to be true. Love works the same way. When we are walking in His love, we WILL obey His commands. When we are walking in His love, we WILL experience the BLESSING. These are TRUTHS that ARE. Period. They are objective truth. Period.

When we look at our hearts and our thinking, we might not think it is possible to walk in His love. And in our own strength that is absolutely true. He doesn’t call us to walk in His strength, though. He never has. He never will. ANY TIME Adonai calls you to something, He is calling you to do it in and through Jesus. Period. On our OWN we are nothing, but in JESUS we are overcomers – because He has done all the overcoming that we are ever going to need or want. When it comes to love, the same thing proves true. Through Jesus, we have been given Adonai’s love. It is inside us. It is available to us. “and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5). The love is THERE. We only need to access it. To engage it. To consciously CHOOSE to use it. Our flesh will HATE it, but we CAN access it through Jesus.

Our flesh does NOT want to walk in love because it never learned how to. It can walk in a selfish kind of love. It can also walk in a selfish sacrificing kind of love. We sacrifice for our loved ones, but we do it because WE want to or WE feel good or WE decide it’s our duty. That is good because those are values Adonai has. But we aren’t choosing them in our flesh. When we choose to sacrifice, we are going AGAINST our flesh – but at the same time, back there in our minds, we log a point. If we survive the sacrificing, that point shines. To our flesh that point means we are OWED something. And if we don’t get what we think we are owed, we start pointing out our sacrifice. Look what I did/do. I DESERVE this. Same thing with human love. We love people, we get into relationships with them, and we DESERVE things. Some may be things we really do deserve (like good treatment), but they will frequently be mixed with what we THINK we deserve or maybe we will withhold what our PARTNER deserves because we don’t think we’re getting what WE deserve. It’s all fleshly thinking. It’s all selfishly motivated. It’s broken thinking by broken people trying to emulate what our deep inner selves know to be a TRUTH: we should love and be loved (John 13:34-35). Outside of Jesus, it can only ever be partially successful. It’s a testament to Adonai’s avid love for us that we manage to love at ALL (John 10:10; Luke 4:6).

We need to PRACTISE love. We need to study what love IS. We need to look at clues in the Gospels as to how Jesus acted. How He spoke. How He went about going about this life. He’s the ONLY ONE to EVER walk in perfect love. We HAVE that love. Ruach HaKodesh poured it into us. He FILLED us with it. It is the FUEL for this walking of the Way. We need to turn the key. We need to have the engine on (our hearts). And then we need to apply the pedal and put the fuel through it. Out of our HEARTS come our words, thoughts, and actions. It isn’t enough that Adonai’s love is THERE. We MUST engage it. We HAVE to DRAW on it. There’s no other way. You can starve to death with a fridge FULL of food. It does you no good if you don’t eat it. Ruach HaKodesh is our GUIDE and TEACHER. He is our CORRECTOR when we get it wrong. He can show us where we need to activate Adonai’s love AND bring to our minds the words of Jesus (the Word) so we can study out the HOW TO.

Adonai doesn’t want us to fail at this, but EXCEL at this. Walking in love is the way to stay on the Way. To keep from stepping off what He has designated for us. To keep from getting out there in the weeds so that we can’t see the Way and don’t know how to get back and are at the mercy of all the broken thinking that’s all around us. Ruach HaKodesh is one of the BEST resources for us to know what to do and HOW to do it. HOW to keep from cussing out the other drivers. HOW to keep kindness at the forefront when we deal with our children. HOW to keep gentleness and understanding as the core of how we treat and interact with our spouses. Head knowledge isn’t enough. We need EXPERIENTIAL knowledge and Ruach HaKodesh will be there beside us pointing out in the Word where we can put our feet. One after the other. Practising LOVE.

Daily Affirmation of the Goodness of Elohim: Ephesians 3:18-19

“in order that you may be strong enough to grasp together with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, in order that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” The love Jesus has for us is the foundation of all knowledge about love. We can’t walk in it if we don’t know how to walk. Paul’s prayer for the saints (the ones then and the ones now – you and I) was for them to realise that they had it within them (placed there by Adonai) the ability and the right to know the length, breadth, and depth of Jesus’ love for us. We have the RIGHT to know the totality of Jesus’ love for us. It doesn’t come overnight. It doesn’t just HAPPEN. We need to LEARN about it. We need to LEARN it hands on. Adonai gave us Ruach HaKodesh for just that purpose. He is our GUIDE. Our TEACHER. Our LEADER. If we step wrong He CORRECTS us. We have only to listen and let ourselves be guided by Him. He’s there to show us the stuff of the Kingdom. Jesus’ love is the foundation on which everything is built. The more we know of that love, the more we are able to comprehend about the rest. Knowing breeds more knowing, which breeds more knowing, and then even more. It is never-ending because Jesus’ love never ends. If we will embrace the practise of learning and then doing according to Jesus’ love, there is no end to the depths, the heights, and the breadth that it will take us. Hand in hand with Adonai, learning and experiencing the FULLNESS of Adonai. What a GOOD God!

Your Daily Confession of Elohim’s Goodness:

I taste and see that Yahweh is good; I am blessed because I take refuge in Him.

Psalm 34:8