Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

Do you intend to reprove words, since the speeches of one who is desperate are as wind?
Job 6:26 (emphasis added)

Job was not feeling well. He wasn’t feeling his friends were empathetic. In fact, he thought they were being kind of harsh. Job felt that his diatribe of Chapter 3 shouldn’t have been taken seriously. That it was a rash speech brought upon by Job being so travailed. He is here demanding or whining at his friends that they shouldn’t take his words seriously. They were like the wind. Wind is a theme in the Word for vain words – that’s unsuccessful, useless, idle, worthless, foolish, or silly words.

“He who troubles his own house shall inherit the wind. The foolish shall be servant to the wise of heart” (Proverbs 11:29). “Should a wise man answer with vain knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind? Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches with which he can do no good?” (Job 15:2-3). Speeches of the desperate. Full of sentiments. Turning words from something useful to mere speeches. Words are great. They are so useful for getting across what we mean. They are descriptive. They touch lives. They change hearts. They inspire. They impart confidence. But they can also be nothings. Nothing but hot air. Empty circles trapping our minds in gobbledygook that profits no-one and accomplishes nothing.

Desperate words. We as a species are good at desperate words. Desperation is defined by Merriam-Webster as loss of hope and surrender to despair. A state of hopelessness leading to rashness. This is absolute, utter, and complete loss of hope. We don’t think about it much, but hope is a part of the human experience. It was a piece that was created in us and we all have it to one degree or another. The world has tapped into that to give us the power of the weekend, the vacation, the new job, etc.. Hoping that it gets here soon. Hoping that it will be the break from the work that we want it to be. The change of scenery that will revitalise our lives. It’s optimism, cheerfulness, exhilaration, gladness, joy, and merriment. Or the promise of those things that we are wishing will show up. From the cold beer after work to the party on the weekend. We hope.

The world has taken it to the marketplace too. Hope for presents. Hope for holidays. Hope for security. We have mascots and images. Fictional figures and well-placed cartoon characters. All pointing us to the idea that we keep wishing, wanting, and working to achieve those goals and things that we have decided that we cannot do without. We see advertisements about them. We talk about them all day. We hear about them from TV and from the radio. Social media is awash in them. We’re hit with them again and again and again and again. Have you ever wondered why? I wonder if it is because it keeps our expectations grounded in what we can do. What WE can provide. We all know that as good as we can be, there will always be areas that we don’t succeed in.
When we don’t succeed. When we don’t get what we have told ourselves that we want. Our mood plummets. If it keeps going, it hits the bottom. That is when distress, anguish, torment, recklessness, misery, torture, agony, and disappointment sets in. Desperation. Desperate to get what we think we need. Behaviour that typically results in rash or extreme behaviour. If we don’t exercise careful consideration of the possible consequences of an action or a set of behaviours, we will inevitably get into a bad place. We make poor decisions. We make and do the most foolish plans and things. Assuming that it will help us. Desperate for them to help us. Desperation never helps our words. “If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).

When we are desperate, we have given into fear. When we love, we have given into faith. Today’s verse in Job isn’t a command. It isn’t one of the Don’t Fear verses. But what it is, is a warning about a set of behaviour. It is a demonstration of the end result of fear: desperation. How many crimes are committed by desperate people? How many political decisions are made by desperate people or representatives of desperate people? What about military action? Violence? What about the words we spout at other people? The words that cut. That hurt. That bruise others on the inside. Are they carefully thought out, or are they quick spur-of-the-moment desperate blathering? Nothing good comes from desperation in the natural. Not really. When it does, it is always because of the Grace of God – whether we admit it or not. The same is true of things of the Kingdom.

We teach that desperation has value. That desperate prayers result in answers. That when God is sought in desperation, He responds. That we need to pray desperately because it is necessary to understand how desperately we need the Lord. Now if you look at the definition of the word ‘desperately’, there is a small portion of it that means extremely or terribly without any further explanation. Desperately important in that sense can be extremely important. Yes, it is important to understand how extremely we need the Lord. We need to understand that our efforts will do squat outside of Jesus and more than that, we need to understand that all the important things are done by Jesus in us and not us.

But that is the minority definition. The majority of the associations are negative. And you know something? The Kingdom of God doesn’t work on desperation. The Lord doesn’t respond to desperation. The Lord responds to faith. “Yahweh is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous” (Proverbs 15:29). “But your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). Negative thinking is nothing but wind when it turns into words. Look at this prayer that I came across online:

‘Heavenly Father, I am desperate, please hear my prayer. With man, this may be impossible, but with God all things are possible. Please make all my plans succeed, clear away these obstacles and make my path smooth. Thank You for answering all my prayers, and taking action to bring me victory with Your great power. I boast in the name of the Lord my God. Amen.’

Sounds good on the surface, right? But look at it closely. A desperate praying person who is almost begging to be heard by the Lord. 1 John 3:21 tells us that if our heart doesn’t condemn us, we can have confidence before the Lord. Confidence, not desperation. ‘Please make all my plans succeed’?? That is not a righteous prayer. Why? Because we are to pray the will of the Father. “Pray like this:“ ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. Let your Kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”” (Matthew 6:9-10). I don’t need to be desperate in prayer. I KNOW He is listening. I don’t want all MY plans to succeed. I’ve had a taste of His plans coming to pass, and THAT is what I want. The battle in our minds is one of changing our thinking from what WE want, to realising HIS point of view is RIGHTEOUS (Romans 12:2). When we pray the Will of the Father, according to the Word, that Word brings with it the empowerment of victory. When we do what He wants done, we always win. He’s THAT good.

We should be humble and broken before the Lord. We are NOT able to do it. We NEED Him. But I am not desperate, I am confident. As I forgive others, I am forgiven. As I treat others, the Lord will treat me the same. THAT is a humbling verse (Matthew 6:12). Jesus is the vine. I am a branch. My job is to make fruit (John 15). Fruit rooted in Jesus. How am I supposed to get desperate if I am relying on Jesus? How are we supposed to pray? “Always rejoice. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). This doesn’t sound very desperate to me.
The Lord loves joy. And honesty. We read the Psalms and we see David and others crying out to the Lord. At the end of their ropes. Hassled from every side. They’re distressed. Suffering. In pain, torment, wretchedness, sorrow, unhappiness, sadness, and full of angst. But each and every one of those deep prayers and cries to God are full of confidence. They KNEW the Lord. They KNEW He would answer. They KNEW He was ready whatever their circumstances. They cried out in FAITH and so should we. Every time.

Jesus never ONCE cried out in desperation. You might remember the time on the cross, right near the end, when He cried out (Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34). In agony He cried “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That sounds like desperation, doesn’t it? Possibly even confused at what is happening to Him. But it isn’t. He wasn’t surprised, confused, despairing, or desperate. He was quoting a psalm. In Jesus’ day, when one quoted the first few lines from something it was assumed by all hearers that you were referencing the entire thing. Jesus quoted Psalm 22. A Messianic psalm and one of total victory. It describes many things that happened to Jesus. It describes the feeling of having God not answering prayer. But it looks beyond those circumstances to extol the Lord and how He is the Deliverer. That He answers our cries. That He doesn’t hide His face. That the earth will turn to the Lord. That the kingdom is the Lord’s and He rules over the nations. That everything will serve Him. This is a psalm of victory. And THAT is what Jesus was crying out. Unhappy in suffering, but looking beyond it to what the Lord God would ultimately do. This is while He was nailed to a hunk of wood. That is confidence, people. Total, utter, confidence.

Desperate people pray desperate prayers. And their words are like wind. Rash. Foolish. And ultimately, unheard. God always hears the prayers of those who are repentant. The prayer turning your heart to Him. But prayers in general? The prayers of a lawless man are an abomination (Proverbs 28:9). He doesn’t hear the prayers of the wicked (Jeremiah 14:11-12, Isaiah 1:15, Proverbs 21:13). I thank the Lord that we are the righteousness of God in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). Because in 1 Peter 3:12 Peter quotes Psalm 34 and affirms to us: “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears open to their prayer; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” He hears the prayers of the righteous. The prayers of faith. The prayers of those who are confident that the Lord hears them, answers them, and will lead and guide them through whatever it was that they are facing.

Why settle for being a whistle of wind when we can be a trumpet of triumph? Triumphing over our troubles and tribulations because we know they are but for a moment (2 Corinthians 4:17). We know that Jesus has overcome the world (John 16:33). We have the victory in Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:57). No weapon forged for the purpose of harming us can prosper against us. By the declaration of Yahweh God the victory over all who gather against us is our legal right of inheritance (Isaiah 54:14-17). “Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7). If we keep the Lord first and foremost, we will have no reason to despair. No reason to ever get desperate. The desperate believer is a believer who doesn’t believe everything Jesus says. There is something they have missed. A piece to the puzzle that’s still in the box. The answer is to get into the Word and start reading. Read the New Testament and then read it again. Read it until it has renewed you into the Lord’s promises. Until it has strengthened you into obedience and reverent submission to what the Lord wants.

Our words matter. Our prayers and declarations shouldn’t be what we want, but instead should be based on the Word. The Word is the Will and the Heart of the Father. It will renew us. It will revitalise us. It will wash us over and wash us out. Enter His gates with thanksgiving. Approach with the boldness born of our abiding in Jesus. We abide in love, we refuse fear. Be confident. God can do what He says. He will NOT leave you alone. He will NOT fail to illuminate your path. He loves you, He values you, and He wants to hear your words. If He didn’t, He wouldn’t encourage us to come to Him as hard as He does. Rejoice in Him and kick desperation out of your prayers forever.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Hebrews 13:8-9

In the Aramaic, this verse takes on a shade of meaning that is lost in English. Jesus is the FULFILMENT of yesterday, today, and forever. He is the Alpha-Omega. He takes all that there is and fulfils it. He brings it into being. He is trustworthy and can be a comfort to us. He was raised from the dead. He was given the seat of kingly authority at the right hand of God the Father. He puts everything in the universe in subjection to himself, which includes every form of evil power and every being which is not or will be in the future. He has been given to us – the church – to be the head of the church, which is his body. He is above all rule. He is over every name. God put all things under his feet. He is the head over all things. Every sphere of influence. Every place. Every purpose. Every problem. Every everything. The glory of Jesus the Christ will pervade everything in every way that the wisdom of God ordains for his maximum renown and splendour – if we let Him. If you let Him in, there will be no place where His power will not hold sway to accomplish exactly what he wants for the dissemination of His all-filling glory. It can happen and it will happen. Don’t get left behind the moves of God because you’re blind to the fact that it is a choice to let Him into every area. Read Ephesians 1:15-23 and let it encourage you to believe it. It can transform your life if you let it.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.