Fear No Fear

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

Cease from anger, and forsake wrath. Don’t fret; it leads only to evildoing.
Psalm 37:8 (emphasis added)

Why are these three concepts connected? Anger and fretting? Fretting and evildoing? Is it a ‘connect the dots’? What about fretting then? It means to become vexed or worried. To be agitated. Sounds pretty standard. Sounds like anxiety. Fear. But it can go deeper. It also means to corrode. To wear away. To chafe. And that means something quite different. In fact, it is the tool most used by the enemy to get us to do what we don’t want to do. “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do” (Romans 7:14-15). Isn’t that a verse for the modern era?

We tend to start strong. We get rid of things we know are wrong or shady. We go to church with enthusiasm. We spend time in prayer. We spend time reading the bible. It’s great. But time changes that. We start to get tired of getting up and leaving the house on what is essentially our only day off – because we do the chores on Saturday, right? We stop praying and start bullet-pointing it. Or panic calling out. We read the bible when we’re in the mood. We take that time we WERE spending and instead scroll social media. Watch a show. Check out a movie. Or find another way to chill out. We let our practices erode. Sooner or later, we’re warming a seat on Sunday, hoping things turn around, and sure that all will be pie in the sky once we get to heaven.

What all that means is that we as human beings go the path of least resistance. The route of comfort, not of trial and hardship. I came across a verse in Isaiah this week that came to mind when I got to today. “For you shall not go out in haste, neither shall you go by flight; for Yahweh will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard” (Isaiah 52:12). If you study out the verse there is a deeper push in Hebrew. You shall not go it in haste means that you shall not go out hastily like you had to do when you left Egypt. The Israelites didn’t have time for their bread to rise. They ate the meal standing. They ate and then dashed out the door. Now, Yahweh had just delivered them. With miracles and wonders. Why did they have to rush away? In a little bit the Lord saves them with a pillar of fire and parting the Red Sea. He could have stopped anything, right? Why the haste?

When they got to the Red Sea, they saw the army of Egypt coming after them. They didn’t turn to the God who just saved them. They didn’t turn to Moses and ask for guidance or help. “When Pharaoh came near, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them; and they were very afraid. The children of Israel cried out to Yahweh. They said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you treated us this way, to bring us out of Egypt? Isn’t this the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, ‘Leave us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness”” (Exodus 14:10-12). Brutally enslaved for decades upon decades and they’re ready to run back to the lash. I’m thinking they had to leave Egypt in a rush or they would have chosen to stay.

It didn’t end there. They went through the desert. Given water. Given food. They came to where the Lord called them and they saw the glory of the Lord. They saw the fire and saw the smoke and saw the power shaking the mountain. They heard Him speak to them. Audibly. They felt the power of the Lord in that voice. They felt the Righteousness of it. Their response? “All the people perceived the thunderings, the lightnings, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled, and stayed at a distance. They said to Moses, “Speak with us yourself, and we will listen; but don’t let God speak with us, lest we die”” (Exodus 20:18-19). They knew this was God and He was powerful and they could not stand before that majesty. Moses told them why God did it this way. God wanted to inspire in them reverence for Himself so that they would not sin (verse 20). Within forty days they were worshipping a golden calf.

They could not sustain it while Moses went up the mountain. Moses passed on the basics of God’s moral code. The basics of the Law. The Do this and be blessed, avoid that it puts you under the power of the curse. It is clear and laid out with precision. It starts in Exodus 20:22 and ends in Exodus 23:33. Moses went up the mountain to get further instructions and was up there forty days and forty nights. They didn’t make it. They looked back to Egypt (again with the brutal abuse). They made idols to worship. To look to. Idols that they claimed brought them out of Egypt – the position the Lord occupied. They sacrificed to it. They worshipped it. The movement was led by the men and by tradition the women refused to give their jewellery for it. The people fell away. Over those forty days they didn’t hold to what Moses had written down for them to learn (Exodus 24:4). They had guidance. They had the words of the Lord. They could have done something about it. What they did was erode. They wore away. And in the end, made a STUPID decision.

This is the connection with anger. “He who is slow to anger has a great understanding, but he who has a quick temper displays folly” (Proverbs 14:29). “An angry man stirs up strife, and a wrathful man abounds in sin” (Proverbs 29:22). “Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools” (Ecclesiastes 7:9). Anger blinds us. We don’t see our faults. We don’t see our issues. We don’t see that maybe we’re wrong. That maybe they have a point. That maybe there’s a reason for what is happening. But anger blinds you to that. When you make a habit of anger, you’re making a habit of poor thinking. You’re making a habit of closed mindedness. You’re making a habit of poor decisions. Any decision made from anger is a bad one. Anger will start to corrode you. Because an angry mind is much like a drunk mind: you’re a legend and can do no wrong.

When you think you can do no wrong, you’re not looking for the Lord to be right. An angry person is a proud person. “Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright in him, but the righteous will live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). When you don’t follow the Word, you’re not following sound words. Angry words are not sound words. Following unsound words is a terrible mistake. “If anyone teaches a different doctrine and doesn’t consent to sound words, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is conceited, knowing nothing, but obsessed with arguments, disputes, and word battles, from which come envy, strife, insulting, evil suspicions, constant friction of people of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. Withdraw yourself from such” (1 Timothy 6:3-5). Anger will corrode your doctrine because the message of the cross is GOD DOES IT ALL. If you’re proud, that’s a hard message. If you strive against the world in order to fight it, win in spite of it, and be victor over it then you’re not being humble, letting God call the shots, and kneeling broken before Him. That is the message of the cross. Let God do it because God had already done it.

We don’t fight this world. We don’t fight the people in it. We wear the armour of God and stand on the Lord Jesus against powers and principalities in the spiritual realm. We wield the sword by declaring the Word of the Lord when the Lord tells us to. We fight the good fight by holding to our faith and being obedient to the Father. Not our will, His will. Not our way, His way. Not our fight, His fight. Not our anything, His everything. You can’t do that angry. When you do that there’s nothing to be angry about. How can YOU be angry when HE is doing it all? How can YOU be worried when HE is carrying the burden? How can YOU get all fretted out and worn down when HE is taking on everything that could chip away at you – except your own thoughts.

Our thoughts are OUR battleground. Keep the Word in front of you and you will NOT fail. That’s the message God had for Joshua (Joshua 1:8-9). We’re to pick up the sword of the spirit and put it on EVERY DAY (Ephesians 6:13-18). That is what separates you from anger. From worry. From anxiety. From stress. From failure. From poverty. From everything bad. It will keep you turning to Jesus. Seeking Jesus. Asking Jesus. Praising Jesus. You know what that does? It puts your attention on the Father because Jesus ALWAYS points to His Father. The Word strengthens us and develops us and builds us up until we get to further and deeper understanding of the revelation of Jesus that is in the Word. The Spirit corrects us when we have it wrong or when we’re hanging onto something we shouldn’t. The Spirit guides us, teaches us, comforts us, encourages us, and points us to where we can be connected to Jesus. Jesus loves us, works with us, walks with us, talks with us, sings over us, and leads us proudly to His Father whom we worship, adore, and kneel before in perfect, broken humility, and truth. Does that make a picture in your mind? Is there ANY fear in it?

I tell you I see the throne-room of heaven in my mind. All the time. I see the pillars, the roof, and glimpses of the throne. When I picture myself there, I have NO FEAR. I’m never anxious. I’m never worried. I’m never stressed. Sometimes I am a child. Sometimes I’m not. But always the Righteousness of God is there and I am very aware of the Righteousness of God that is on me in Christ Jesus. I am very aware that the little peeks I have would kill me without Jesus. I NEED Christ. I NEED Christ like nothing else in this world. I need Jesus. Bad. I can’t do ANYTHING without Him. I acknowledge that. I need Jesus. He is my strength. He is my focus. He is my everything. Thank you, Jesus. Thank. You.

I always had a temper. I’m saved now, but my temper tries to stay. It isn’t part of me. I don’t want it. It’s sad and lonely. Likes to hang around in the bushes and jump me when I’m not paying attention. When I’m not holding up the shield. When I don’t have on the breastplate. When I am not girded with the armour. When I am NOT thinking on the Word. That’s the opportunity that it waits for. And it tries to grab me. I don’t count to ten before I respond. That does nothing but delay the anger. What I strive to do is pray for the words before I speak. When I do, everything goes well. When I do not, I either join the strife or start some strife. When I give sin a place, it takes it. It sits at my door waiting and if I do not watch myself it will jump me (Genesis 4:6-7). We are meant to rule over sin, not for sin to rule over us.

“Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace” (Romans 6:12-14). Jesus paid the price for sin. Because the Father resurrected Him to life, we can be resurrected into Jesus. If we are resurrected into Jesus, we are resurrected into life. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness. You were healed by his wounds. For you were going astray like sheep; but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (2 Peter 2:24-25). We have been reset in Jesus to where Adam and Eve started. Sin is outside of us. It isn’t our nature, it’s our habit. You can break a habit. Easy for a good one. Harder for a bad one. But they will all fall before your willpower. Jesus lends us HIS willpower when it comes to things of the spirit. “For God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7).

Anger is a habit. Fretting is a habit that if held onto will corrode the impulse to the finer things you’re working to strengthen. We are beings of willpower. Will you turn it toward the impulse of the Lord’s Kingdom? Or will you turn it toward the impulse of flesh habits? It will start you on a slippery slope that ends only in evildoing. It’s inevitable. Because sin won’t stop until it has a foot on your neck. Stand on the ROCK. Stand on the Word. Stand on and in Jesus. Let Jesus do the work in you that He wants to do in you. Don’t stand in His way. Don’t strain against the yoke. Lean into the Spirit. Lean into Jesus. Obey the Father. Humbly, with joy, and in His peace. Stand in the place the Lord overcame for you: your foot on the neck of sin and the kingdom of darkness now and always. Victorious in Jesus. Always winning, NEVER EVER losing.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Ezekiel 37:1-3

Can we do it? If you start in on the Word sooner or later the Lord is going to ask you to do something. Small or big, it will be out of where you thought you were going to be that day. It will be something you weren’t prepared for. It will come right out of left field and the Lord will say ‘Can we do it?’ What will you say? Ezekiel had that said to him. God took Him out to a valley full of bones. Dry ones. Old ones. God asked him, ‘Can these bones live?’ I haven’t had many dry bones moments. I certainly haven’t been taken to see real bones. I don’t know what I would say. Do I have the faith to say ‘live’? Do you? I don’t know. But I know we can develop that kind of faith. The Word retrains our very thinking until we end up with something that is impossible before us but excited about it. Eager to see what the Lord will do when we say, ‘Yes Lord! They CAN live! There’s nothing YOU cannot do!’ God loves us. God can trust us to work with Him. Deepen your faith and wait. Your dry bone moment is coming.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.