Fear No Fear

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

He says, “Stop your striving and recognize that I am God. I will be exalted over the nations! I will be exalted over the earth!”
Psalm 46:10 (emphasis added)

Yes and Amen. Have you heard those three words before? I’ve heard them frequently in church. People agreeing with each other. People agreeing with what the leaders are saying. People agreeing with a point or promise from the Word that was pointed out. All smiles and back pats and hugs and walking out of the building feeling happy and content. But when you get home. When you get to work. When you get to school. When you deal with kids who want to do things in a way differently than you. When ‘life’ starts to happen around us. The smiles can become forces. The happy can become worry. The content can become discontent. Faithfulness to that ‘yes and amen’ can become faithfulness to ‘oh no and what now’. That rejoicing can becomes double-mindedness. Striving to fix what you used to believe was being fixed. Striving to patch what you used to believe had no holes. It’s an atmosphere and a condition where lack loves to live.

Lack brings to mind money. Finances. Bills. Taxes. But LACK is simply the state of being without or not having enough of something. Or to be without or deficient in something. That is a word that covers EVERYTHING that you SHOULD have, but do NOT have enough of. Whether it is 90%, 50%, 30%, or zero, lack is not ENOUGH. In this physical world, lack screams loudly. It screams so loud and so effectively that even when we have a LOT in multiple areas, our eyes will be glued to the area(s) where there is lack. When we see it, we want to fill it. Provide it. Earn it. Finagle it. Borrow it. Beg it. To STRIVE for it. That’s where we step off the path and into the weeds.

“But he must ask in faith without doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed around by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, since he is a double-minded individual, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6-8). These verses are referring to wisdom (vs 4-5). But they spell out an EXTREMELY important principle: the unstable individual will not receive anything from Adonai. Because Adonai doesn’t want to bless them? No. Because Adonai is teaching them a lesson? No. Because Adonai requires the right forms filled out, the right actions performed? No. It is because the UNSTABLE person doesn’t know what THEY want.

If you have or have been around kids, you know the truth of this. My youngest tells me about once a week, MAYBE once every two weeks, ‘I want that for my birthday’. They have changed cake designs three times. They have pointed out more books, stickers, toys, stuffies, activities, and types of food than they could possibly need. The kicker? The birthday is still about nine months away. And my response is always the same. The birthday is a long way away, you might change your mind, let’s talk about it again closer to the actual day. They are unstable in their wants. Kids are like that. They’re always going left and then right, jumping and then sitting, sparkly and shiny things are taking their eyes off the prize. Their likes and dislikes change based on what they’ve seen, read, and heard from their friends. The more things they are exposed to, the more they want. Social contagion is a thing (look at Beatlemania). It can happen with more immediate things. A trip to the grocery store usually comes with three or four requests for things without any real attachment to the object being asked for. Unstable.

“For this reason I tell you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). These are words of Jesus. Belief that you HAVE received it produces the things you’ve asked to receive – as long as you’re asking according to the Word of Elohim (1 John 5:14-15; John 15:7). That is stability defined. You don’t have it, but you KNOW that you KNOW that you KNOW that you have it. Stable. Simple words. Not easy though. Because before this verse Jesus is talking about something big. The ‘for this reason’ refers to that big thing. “Jesus said to them, “Have faith in God.I tell you the truth, if someone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. For this reason I tell you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:22-24). First off, ‘Have faith in God’ is better translated ‘Have the faith OF God’ or ‘Have God’s faith’ (https://www.hopefaithprayer.com/word-of-faith/the-faith-of-god-god-kind-of-faith-smythe/). This is the trust we receive from Elohim in order to have trust in the first place (Ephesians 2:8-9). And He gave us all – including Jesus when He came as a man – the exact same amount of trust. “For by the grace given to me I say to every one of you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think with sober discernment, as God has distributed to each of you a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3). ‘a measure’ is the Greek word ‘metron’ (met’-ron) which translated means a measure (the actual measure itself). It is the controlling basis by which something is determined as acceptable or unacceptable. What we DO with that is up to us (Matthew 25:14–30). We can strengthen and deepen it (Romans 10:17; Ephesians 3:14-19), or we can let it atrophy and become next to useless to us (Romans 14). We ALL have the EXACT same measure of Elohim’s trust that He gives to EVERY human being – including Jesus Himself. We’re ALL on the same page.

But Jesus was referring to a BIG THING, wasn’t He? A mountain. Mountains are solid. Immoveable in our understanding. Deadly to climb. They change weather patterns. They are impressive. They are solid. They fill our senses. They are demonstrably THERE. Everything about human reason and understanding points to these things (mountains) being in the same place for geological ages. That’s a LOOOOOOONG time. Yet Jesus speaks of trust in Elohim as being able to move them. This flies in the face of everything we ‘know’ as humans. It flies in the face of everything science would say, logic would say, and common sense would say. Yet Jesus said it was possible. With trust. And not a lot of it (Matthew 17:20). Combined with other verses about trust (such as Mark 11:22 and Romans 10:17), it would appear that Elohim has granted us a MINIMUM of mustard-seed trust. Jesus is saying that if we truly use the basic measure of trust that we have been given WITHOUT DOUBTING, it will work and work in ways our logical minds can’t even conceive of. The words of Jesus are a call to live by trust and what trust says, not what our minds and senses say. “Therefore we are always full of courage, and we know that as long as we are alive here on earth we are absent from the Lord—for we live by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:6-7).

How can we live this kind of trust? Two things need to click in our heads. First, Adonai is not here beside us to do it while we watch. That means we need to trust in Him because we aren’t physically SEEING Him and His hand at work. Second, we need to realise that distance and appearance do NOT matter with Adonai. He is just as able to do things now as He was when Jesus was walking the Earth and when the Israelites were being brought out of Egypt. We don’t need to SEE Him for Him to work. We’re not used to that. Since the Fall, we have taken to physical senses a LOT more than we should have. We lost our sixth sense of trust when we disobeyed and rebelled against the RIGHTNESS of Elohim. In Jesus, we are able to trust again the same way that Adam did the day he was created. In JESUS we are able to be who Jesus is. “Therefore, be imitators of God as dearly loved children and live in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2). We think of love as accepting people or squishy feelings. But TRUE love is obedient (John 14:15). Jesus was VERY obedient (John 5:19-20). We are to be the same. “The one who says he resides in God ought himself to walk just as Jesus walked” (1 John 2:6). Jesus LOVE was obedient to His Father, loving to people, and TRUSTING in both. This isn’t rose-coloured trust in people. This is trust in who they can be in Adonai. Sometimes we see someone and how they act, but Adonai knows who they can become with His help. Adonai is all about working WITH us. It’s the system He set up. Jesus TOLD us that. “Jesus looked at them and replied, “This is impossible for mere humans, but for God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

Stability, then, is achieved when we have our hand in Adonai’s in everything we do. Operating in large and minuscule ways with trust in Jesus. We called to this, with Ruach HaKodesh consistently and constantly convicting us of this. “And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong concerning sin and righteousness and judgment—concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned” (John 16:8-11). That means Ruach HaKodesh isn’t pointing a finger at what we have done WRONG. Instead, He is pointing His finger toward who we can BE and what we can DO in Jesus. He is showing us who we really are (2 Corinthians 5:21), not who we are in ourselves. We are shown what we CAN be in Jesus. We are shown how it would look to live, walk, talk, think, and inhabit true TRUST in Adonai. The fact is that outside of operating in trust, we operate in sin. Anything but total and complete obedience is disobedience (Romans 14:23). Yes, when we fail and truly repent He forgives us, corrects us, and get us on the right path again (1 John 1:9). But it is BETTER to not get off the path in the first place. It is better to remain in Jesus’ Covenant with His Father. It is better to remain in COMMUNION with Adonai Elohim.

It is ONLY when we are in communion with Adonai that we can truly SEE who He is. We can’t see it when we are consumed with trying to fix things ourselves. When we let our focus rest on our efforts, we are giving in to Self. We start viewing our confusions and efforts as rights and proper actions, rather than errors that need correcting. They become overvalued ideas – or ideas we hold intensely, often shared by others, but ideas that we are making a life of. We were NEVER meant to hold these ‘us’ ideas. We were NEVER meant to build our lives around them. We were ALWAYS meant to rely on Adonai, seeking Him to maintain closeness, so that we abide in His peace. “Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, in every situation, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, tell your requests to God.And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7). “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give it to you as the world does. Do not let your hearts be distressed or lacking in courage” (John 14:27). “You keep completely safe the people who maintain their faith, for they trust in you” (Isaiah 26:3). “Let the peace of Christ be in control in your heart (for you were in fact called as one body to this peace), and be thankful” (Colossians 3:15). Yahweh is a God of PEACE. He wants peace for you. Yes, life brings storms. But we are to be at PEACE in the boat, not at the whims of the waves (Matthew 8:23-27).

When we choose to stop striving with the issues, situations, attitudes, personalities, and conditions of this life and trust in Him. To trust, we need to acknowledge WHO HE IS. The best way to do this? To really get the information from our thinkers (minds) to our believers (hearts)? Praise and thanksgiving. Take a moment to slow down. Sit still. And then thank Him for what He has ALREADY done for you. Don’t wait until it is all over and done. Thank Him for the stuff you see. The little things. The biog things. Remember what He has done in the past. Remembering what Adonai has done is a KEY part of knowing who He is. It keeps us from forgetting or demanding to know what He’s done for us lately. Praise Him. Sing the Psalms if you can’t see past your own situation. Focus on the Goodness and Mercy of Adonai. It clears our hearts of the dust of this life. It clears our vision. It resets our hearts. It focuses our minds. It opens our ears. It puts us in the place that Jesus lives. When we are standing where Jesus lives, we are standing right there at the Throne. That’s the place where we are able to receive because that is the stablest spot in all of everywhere. The STABLE who KNOW who Elohim is are those who are able to receive – they are humble and obedient and submitted to His will by default. It is a choice to get there and praise opens the door. On the other side? Everything He says is ours. Everything He says is yours. It is a place where He heals because it is right under His nurturing wings (Malachi 4:1). It is the place we were meant to be WITH Him. It is ‘OUR’ place.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Isaiah 53:11

“Having suffered, he will reflect on his work, he will be satisfied when he understands what he has done. “My servant will acquit many, for he carried their sins.” Elohim would be fully satisfied with the suffering of Messiah. Sin came with a penalty: death (Genesis 2:15-17; Romans 6:23). Sin was a violation of the equity and justice of His Throne – which symbolises His absolute Kingship over all He created or set in motion (Psalm 97:2). Sin is an affront to His Holiness (Lev 19:2). It is corruption. And it is something that Yahweh HATES. He hates sin and He hates those who sin (Proverbs 6:16-19; Psalm 11:5). But Yahweh LOVES His children (Romans 5:8-9; John 3:16-18). In order to have peace between humanity and a Righteous God, sin HAD to be paid for. It HAD to be dealt with. Yahweh would pour out every ounce of wrath onto Messiah, the Suffering Servant, to satisfy the just and righteous penalty of sin. “Now my soul is greatly distressed. And what should I say? ‘Father, deliver me from this hour’? No, but for this very reason I have come to this hour” (John 12:27). Jesus came to enable us to experience the presence of Elohim again. Jesus came to be the bridge between humanity (male and female) and Adonai Elohim. It was why He came to suffer. To pay the price so that we would not have to. Jesus came to redeem us and He kept walking in humble obedience until He succeeded. “When he had received the sour wine, Jesus said, “It is completed!” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). Jesus IS Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b