Fear No Fear

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

See what sort of love the Father has given to us: that we should be called God’s children—and indeed we are! For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know him.
1 John 3:1 (emphasis added)

Identity is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. Seems simple enough, yet for hundreds of years we’ve gotten lost seeking our identity. It could be because it’s the characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is. We all want to know who we are and who others think or say what we are. In modern times the arena of identity has become clouded by adding to it the relation established by psychological identification (which as we all should acknowledge is a tenuous ground of shifting sand). At its core though, what all that really means is the search for identity is the search to belong. Because identity is also a close similarity or affinity with another thing. Belonging and identity are inextricably linked. Adonai has always known this and has always spoken to us about WHO and WHAT we are.

‘I was religious as a kid, but not anymore’. How often have you heard something like that? Or ‘oh yeah, I was involved as a teen but then I hit my twenties and re-evaluated my thinking and stopped that’? It’s the problem with lack of RELATIONSHIP. When Adonai becomes a religious formula, there is very little ‘real’ to hold onto when we encounter deeper rational thinking. I had a friend I knew for over thirty years. You could have told me anything you wanted with any kind of arguments or facts to back you up, but I would KNOW based on all those years of interaction, investing, and relationship whether you were correct, misinformed, or misunderstanding that friend. It is the same with Adonai. If we haven’t forged real relationship with Him, when other things get thought, brought up, or challenged, we may decide to change our opinion and interaction. Frequently, we end up ceasing ‘church’ instead of ceasing ‘Elohim’. Church here being the place we go to go through the religious motions of what we think we’re supposed to do as ‘Christians’. If ‘church’ were a group of like-minded people there to worship an encountered Lord and learn more about Him while simultaneously encouraging, uplifting, blessing, and strengthening the trust of the other people, it wouldn’t be quit. After all, how do you ‘quit’ family? You can stop living with them, stop interacting with them, stop talking to them, but in the end you are STILL connected family. That is what the church should be. Connected family. Maybe some different opinions, but the same DNA. Blessing and encouraging one another, none left behind and none preferred – yes, Ruach HaKodesh will be needed. Standing together, preventing bad falls and enabling lifting each other to their feet.

The average person grows up wanting to discover where they fit in the world. We call this ‘finding ourselves’. In the past, it was what happened in our twenties. The electronic connectivity that we enjoy (and that is forced upon us) has steadily lowered that to where we have middle-school children seeking who they are to be. It is no different on the spiritual plane. Who are we? Where do we belong? What is the place we are meant to inhabit? Adonai has not been silent about these things. To understand what and who we are, we need to understand the relationship between Elohim and humanity. “Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.” God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27). Adonai Elohim created us. He put His breath into us (Genesis 2:7). It is how we became a living creature. Elohim is the SOURCE and humanity is the RESOURCE. The re-creation of the source. Whatever the source was, the resource is. The properties of the source are the properties of the resource. They are the SAME.

I saw Dr. Myles Munroe (a Bahamian evangelist) give a demonstration of the principle during a meeting. He poured water from a bottle (the source) to a glass (the resource). If you looked, tasted, or touched what was in the glass, you knew EXACTLY what was in the bottle. There was more in the bottle. You hadn’t touched the bottle directly. But there was NO DOUBT you had sampled what was in the bottle. Resource means a supply from a specific source which is an available means of support or wealth/resource. This is why when Phillip asked Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus replied how He did. “Jesus replied, “Have I been with you for so long, and you have not known me, Philip? The person who has seen me has seen the Father! How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:9). Jesus, the Son of Elohim, was the resource from THE source, ABBA, the Father. “I came from the Father and entered into the world, but in turn, I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”” (John 16:28). Separate, yet the same. Jesus was the Word manifested, the divine becoming mortal flesh without diminishing the divine. “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30). Since Jesus is ALWAYS the same. Since the Father is ALWAYS the same, it’s as true now as it was when He said it.

Jesus put on flesh to die for us. Because man rebelled, a man had to pay that price. Jesus came here physically as an ordinary man to do just that (John 3:14-15). At the SAME TIME He was spiritually in Heaven. “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man” (John 3:13). Many manuscripts include the mystery of Jesus at the end of John 3:13: –the one who is in heaven. Not everyone thinks it is legitimate. How could Jesus come down while also being there? But I don’t find it mysterious anymore. Because this is EXACTLY how WE have been called to live.

“and he raised us up together with him and seated us together with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6-7). He HAS (past tense) raised us up together with Him and seated (past tense) us TOGETHER WITH HIM. Where? In the heavenly realms. So we are there, in Jesus. Right now. You are IN heavenly places when you are IN HIM. Because that is where Jesus put us–PAST TENSE. Look around yourself. Is that heaven? Does it look like a heavenly place? No, of course not. Just the same, you ARE there. In the same way Jesus came down, but was also, currently, right there in heaven. How could He do it? He was righteous. He wasn’t fallen. He had His Mother’s DNA (flesh), but He also had Yahweh’s DNA (spirit). This WASN’T Ruach HaKodesh because He came upon Jesus at baptism, just like He does with us (Luke 3:21-22). This was Jesus’ own spirit in heaven as He was on Earth just as OUR own spirit is in heaven IN JESUS as we are on Earth. “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27).

We were created perfect. Exact copies of Him. Clear water in a glass poured from His bottle. The devil got in there and we threw mud in our water thinking it was better. It was NOT. But Jesus strains out the dirt so we can be pure again. In JESUS we are filtered, fine, and completely see-through. In Jesus, spiritually, we are Him and He is us. “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). Us in Heaven, Jesus on Earth. Each in the other. What then is our place: Jesus. What is our place? The right-hand of the Father. What is our place? A Heavenly one.

If THAT is our place, WHO are we? Children of Elohim. “But to all who have received him—those who believe in his name—he has given the right to become God’s children—children not born by human parents or by human desire or a husband’s decision, but by God” (John 1:12-13). That’s WHO we are. That’s who we have ALWAYS been meant to be. Based on that WHO Elohim made a plan to save us out of His LOVE (John 3:16-18). He did it before the beginning. He did it for us. He did it from love. He did it because Elohim was–by example–choosing to live by the command He would give us through Jesus. ““I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34). He made a plan for Jesus to be the lamb for the slaughter for us, so that we could be to Him what He is to us. So we could be what we were in the Garden of Eden: samesies. Not on our own, but IN JESUS. “God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). That is what Jesus was modelling for Nicodemus that might–and by extension us. That is WHAT we are. His Righteousness IN HIM.

Who are we? The children, sons and daughters, of Adonai Elohim Most High. What are we? The Righteousness of Adonai in Messiah Jesus. Where are we? Heavenly places, which is HOW we know the WHO and the WHAT and the WHY we can trust it. It’s all there. Now since we KNOW that is true, we don’t HAVE an identity crisis in ourselves. We don’t have a NATURAL crisis, we don’t have a SPIRITUAL crisis. We have an IDENTITY that can be used to HEAL identity because once you KNOW who, what, and where from Adonai’s point of view, there is NOTHING that can shake it. The Word is TRUTH. His word about YOU is TRUTH. Believe it and LIVE by it. Nothing else makes sense from ANY point of view. “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, but it did not collapse because its foundation had been laid on rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, and it collapsed—it was utterly destroyed!” (Matthew 7:24-27).

He IS (Exodus 3:14), so we ARE (Hebrews 1:3; Romans 8:29). That’s your RIGHTEOUS identity. Now, forever, and ALWAYS.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Isaiah 53:5

“He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed.” The back of Messiah would be whipped. The Messiah as the Suffering Servant would be willing to carry the illnesses of the people (mankind, male and female). This willingness to bear would result in their healing. “Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified” (Matthew 27:26). Jesus took the stripes and bruises and wounds in order to bear our illnesses, spiritual and physical. It isn’t only a metaphor for the forgiveness of our sins (which it IS). It is also a very real reference to our PHYSICAL healing (mental, emotional, and bodily healing). “When it was evening, many demon-possessed people were brought to him. He drove out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick. In this way what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah was fulfilled: “He took our weaknesses and carried our diseases.”” (Matthew 8:16-17). Jesus bought us all of our health and wholeness by bearing and enduring for us the penalty that sin required (Genesis 2:17; Romans 6:23). Jesus IS Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b