Fear No Fear

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

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:1 (emphasis added)

Jesus came and suffered. Jesus was beaten. His beard was ripped out. He was slapped. He was impaled with thorns. He was beaten with a staff. He was whipped until He was almost dead. He did that to save us. He did that to cleanse us. He did that to redeem us. When we condemn others, we are right there. Right in the middle of His suffering. Pouring salt into His wounds. There is NO CONDEMNATION in Jesus and therefore there is no condemnation IN HIS BODY. Anything else is dancing with transgression: the deliberate, premeditated, conscious, and ON PURPOSE rebellion against Adonai Elohim Most High.

I’m not sure when it was that we as a body of believers started condemning those who weren’t like we are. I suspect that it was when we changed the message of the Gospel to be about our In-Heaven-Before-The-Throne life instead of our Starting-Now-Abundance-In-Jesus life. When we stopped discipling and started focusing on salvation alone. While I never think a ‘you are going to hell’ approach is the best way to witness (Jesus never used it), salvation is the START of the journey, not the destination. Why would anyone WANT to take a journey with someone who brow beat them into accepting their condition? Trust in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour is just words if it doesn’t change you (James 2:26). True trust will do a work in us and enable us to do the works of Jesus (John 14:12). We have to be renewed to it. We have to be discipled in it. But it is inevitable. Fruit WILL come out of a connected vine (John 15:5).

Condemning people is what gives the world and the enemy the chance to hinder us. If we condemn them, we are attacking THEM. We’re not speaking to sin. We’re not showing love. We’re not being kind and there is doubt that it is being delivered in love. Nothing good comes from condemning others. First of all, we were told directly by Jesus not to. “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). Second, when the government passes laws to inhibit hate speech and speech that attacks them and their lifestyles, those same laws will inhibit the speaking of Jesus because the message of condemnation will be against the law of the land. It’s just a foolish way to try and reach people. There is little to no sense to it. These are PEOPLE. Yes, they are lost. Yes, they need Jesus. But WE are no better. We were lost too. We needed Jesus. Samesies. It doesn’t matter WHAT the sin IS. It doesn’t matter what the religious affiliation IS. It doesn’t matter what the lifestyle IS. There is NO CONDEMNATION that should be coming from US to THEM. We should be LOVING.

Jesus spoke quite firmly to some people. That’s saying it lightly (look at the woes in Matthew 23). But WHO was it He spoke to? The RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF JUDAISM. Essentially, it would be like Jesus coming now and speaking to the Pastors of the Christian churches. He was speaking to those who were to be leading the people in coming to Yahweh. He wasn’t speaking to unbelievers. Jesus NEVER berated OR condemned the lost. He didn’t even NEED to. “For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God” (John 3:16-18). Jesus came to bring the Good News to the lost children of Israel (and by extension after His resurrection the Gentiles). Jesus did not come to give them a slap upside the head. Jesus did not come to make them FEEL bad. He did NOT come to condemn but to HELP. To SAVE. To ASSIST. To make them feel FOUND. He came to let them feel LIFE, not a slightly less dead DEATH.

There is a DESPERATE need to feel belonging. Belonging is a feeling of being happy or comfortable as part of a particular group. This comes about by having a good relationship with the other members of the group because they welcome you and accept you AS YOU ARE. This is WHY Jesus told us to love (John 13:34). This is WHY loving one another sums up half the Law. “Jesus said to him, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”” (Matthew 22:37-40). We really need to understand this. If we loved Elohim with ALL we have, putting Him first place over EVERYTHING and ANYTHING; and if we loved other people in the same caring, nurturing, building up way we try to survive and thrive ourselves; we would NEVER sin and keep the WHOLE of the Law in deed, word, and action. In other words, this is exactly what Jesus did. This is also what we can do IN JESUS and THROUGH JESUS. Notice that in ALL of that, we aren’t condemning ANYONE. Adonai is not up there waiting to kill us off for stepping wrong. “Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but prefer that the wicked change his behavior and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil deeds! Why should you die, O house of Israel?’” (Ezekiel 33:11).

There is a need for us all to understand HOW people sin. “But each one is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires. Then when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death” (James 1:14-15). The word ‘desire’ here comes from the Greek ‘epithumia’ meaning a longing, especially for what is forbidden. So we don’t have money for something and we want it. We DESIRE it. And maybe we work and save and get it. But maybe we cheat and steal and take it. Or kill someone who has it and take theirs. Or defraud the elderly. Take advantage of the young. Or we start a war so we can take the territory and claim it. Wanting something we don’t have is fine. DESIRING it? Not fine. Because WANTING has boundaries. But DESIRE is lust. It has no boundaries. There are no taboos. And we justify it because we DESIRE it. How often do we give into that lust and IMMEDIATELY upon completion or attainment, we are disgusted. By ourselves, by the thing, and by what we did for it. Yet this DESIRE still shows up. For one thing or another. Whatever programming we let in. Whatever peek we took to get a thought started. That was the seed. Thinking about it again and again? We conceive DESIRE. We fan the flame until it is too big to ignore and we do it. We do it with small things. We do it with large things. We do it with forbidden things. We ALL do it. How are we supposed to deal with unbelievers about this stuff? They may not acknowledge whatever their thing is as bad. They certainly will refuse to call it forbidden in a negative sense because NO ONE wants to feel guilt or shame. How do we help? We don’t scream about it being forbidden. We acknowledge it by showing HIS point of view on everything. If we show the LOVE, they can understand His POSITION. When we recognise Elohim AS Elohim, we accept His point of view. We help position people to realise He will fill the longing with GOOD so they won’t desire the forbidden. Anytime and any place we desire the forbidden we have just identified a place we are not allowing Jesus to walk. We’re not even letting Him VISIT. We’re sitting in the back of our closet with all the lights in the house out pretending we’re not hearing the doorbell.

Jesus doesn’t enjoy judgment. “For judgment is merciless for the one who has shown no mercy. But mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13). Jesus is ALL about Mercy. Mercy is FOUR attributes of the character and nature of Elohim. But Jesus is RIGHTEOUS and JUST. You can’t get mercy on a whim or because you giggled and said ‘whoops, sorry!’ We MUST turn from our sinful ways–all the ways in which we are not doing His way. “if my people, who belong to me, humble themselves, pray, seek to please me, and repudiate their sinful practices, then I will respond from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). Once we turn, we need to put our trust in Adonai. In Jesus. “For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). Grace is mercy that we don’t deserve. NONE of us deserve it. If we want an open and healthy heart, we need to show Grace. We need to have a mindset of Mercy. We need to realise that these people out there who are lost are just the same as we were before we were found. Instead of condemning them, we need to be loving on them. Loving them and helping them to understand how Adonai Elohim sees them. How He loves them. What he’s done for them. To help set them free in Jesus. To refuse to judge them because Jesus refused to judge us.

Condemning them doesn’t help. Saying stop it doesn’t help. Ostracising them doesn’t help. Ignoring their sin doesn’t help. Going along with them doesn’t help. Modelling Jesus helps. Showing His love helps. Showing and teaching the mindset of Adonai about it helps. They need the WHY behind the NO. They won’t listen to His WHY if they don’t know who He IS. And we are here. Right in front of them. Able to shine the light on Jesus or fester behind the bitterness of our holier than them. In the Light is an atmosphere of healing. Blessing. Love. The other? The atmosphere of hell. Which atmosphere will attract them? Which atmosphere will help them feel like they BELONG? Which one will be HOME? FAMILY? Take the time to be renewed to Adonai’s mindset so you can help others do the same. We are ALL sinners who were saved by GRACE (Romans 3:23-24). Just like them. We ALL belong because Adonai SAYS we belong. Let’s heal our atmosphere so Yahweh can heal theirs.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Isaiah 53:6

“All of us had wandered off like sheep; each of us had strayed off on his own path, but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him.” It would be the will of Adonai Elohim for Messiah to bear sin for all mankind (male and female). Not from twisted desire to torture, but for justice. Sin REQUIRES the death penalty. Messiah would take it for us. It is why He would come. The Suffering Servant preparing our Way. “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Jesus loved us. Jesus bore our sin. Jesus died for us. Jesus IS Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b