Fear No Fear

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

Cast your burden on the LORD and he will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be moved.
Psalm 55:22 (emphasis added)

Have you ever fished? Put bait on a hook and then launch that sucker out over the water? Far from the boat so that your shadow and activities don’t scare the fish? That is casting. That is the kind of thing we’re to do with our burdens. We aren’t supposed to keep them close. We aren’t supposed to snuggle with them at night. They aren’t supposed to be where we can grab at them if we start to change our minds. They are supposed to be off of us, onto Jesus, and cast far from where we can get at it again.

That is an obvious application of do not fear. A direct command to cast your burdens on Jesus. We obviously cannot fear if the things that we fear are in Jesus’ arms. If we are relying on the sustenance of the Lord for all our needs, we won’t be able to worry about those needs being met. Fearing is what we want to avoid, right? It is the language of the kingdom of darkness. It is NOT part of what we have as believers. It is NOT what we have been given by the Lord (2 Timothy 1:7). It comes down to what you believe and what you do with that belief.

Jesus often said he who has ears, let him hear. It could also read let him who has charge over hearing, hear and understand. It is a pay attention thing. A stop, pause, and take this moment in. It was important in a way more important than most important things. A game-changer. It wasn’t enough to hear it. It wasn’t enough to hear it and kinda get the gist of it. It wasn’t enough to sort of, kind of, think about it next time you have a long drive ahead of you. It was believe it, receive it, and apply it or walk in it. It isn’t enough to know that God died for sin. It isn’t enough to know that your sin was part of the sin that was paid for. It isn’t enough to know that Jesus is the Son of God and that He was raised again to life by the Father. It isn’t enough. There is no confession in that. You can admit it without confessing it. Anyone can admit that a given political agenda has merit, but only those who are part of the political party pushing for it will confess their belief in it.

We need to do more than just admit Jesus is God and Saviour. You see that again and again in the Gospels when evil spirits spoke out about Jesus’ identity. “You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe—and shudder” (James 2:19). What are you going to do with what you hear in the Word? True abiding in the Word isn’t about reading words mechanically. It can get to be a chore that way. Or a notch in your reading plan. But you won’t get fed that way. You won’t get your mind renewed. And you won’t abide. In order to abide and get all the other benefits that the Word has for us, all we need to do is read it on purpose. To read it determined to see something, understand it, and submit to it. It doesn’t matter if you like it or not. The Lord is Righteous and Holy. Outside of Jesus NONE of us are, so we won’t always like what we read. But we have a great gift. The ability to look past what our flesh sees to what the Lord sees. To accept what the Lord says is important and right. To be able to call something sin and receive cleansing from it in repentance instead of making an excuse or claiming that it is just a weakness. To submit to Yahweh’s morality. To take it and walk in it. To HEAR it. To believe it and receive it.

God says that He will provide for us (Genesis 3:21, 2 Corinthians 9:8). Not just physically, but spiritually, mentally, and financially. The whole package. God CAN do it. But do you believe it? Let’s leave all the possible blessings aside and focus on the basics. Do you believe God can meet your needs? The basic requirements of life. Food, clothing, shelter, bills paid. Not even frivolous bills. Let’s stick to the basics. Only those things we need to survive. Do you think God can handle it? Because if you do, then you need to believe it. Not just think it, believe it. Find the scriptures in the Gospels where Jesus tells us that the Father is a GOOD Father and will meet our needs. That He knows our needs before we even ask. Once you have them, read them. Every day. Declare them. Thank the Father that He provides for your needs. Get it so into you that you don’t have to think about it. Get it into your heart so that no matter what anyone else says, no matter what circumstance you are facing, no matter what is going on you KNOW that you KNOW that you KNOW that God meets your needs. When you truly believe it, nothing and no one can convince you of anything else. THAT is hearing with your ears.

That is important because it is a pivotal part of the second half of our verse. The Lord God Almighty will NOT let the righteous be moved. He will NEVER allow it. That is firm and clear language. Now, we know that we are not righteous in ourselves (Romans 3:10-12). But we also know that in Jesus, we are made righteous through Jesus’ faithfulness (Romans 5:1). That’s the Good News that we are to share with all creation: “We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21). When we are baptised we are symbolically putting to death our flesh and being raised into His resurrection, thereby becoming children of God (Romans 6:5). Gaining back an eternal righteous spirit (Jesus’ Spirit). If we abide in Jesus, we will abide in righteousness. In Him we are everything. Away from Him we are nothing (John 15). We need to cast our burdens so we can catch His blessing.

Not fearing marries the idea of never letting the righteous be moved whenever we read the scriptures of what is coming or hear the words of a prophet – and believe me, they are both saying the same thing. Change is coming. Big change. Shaking the world change. The kind of stuff that sends financial markets reeling, governments into shutdown, revolutions into start-up, wars into overdrive, and the public into panic. Recently there was a pandemic and people beat each other up trying to get toilet paper. Toilet paper. Think about that. For thousands of years humanity didn’t have this product but now we’re going to fight each other in the aisles for it? Like we have no other options – no matter how much we might not like them. But perspective, you know? I can understand fights over life-sustaining needs like water, but TOILET PAPER? The world is perilously unprepared for what is coming.

“Behold, Yahweh makes the earth empty, makes it waste, turns it upside down, and scatters its inhabitants. It will be as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the creditor, so with the debtor; as with the taker of interest, so with the giver of interest. The earth will be utterly emptied and utterly laid waste; for Yahweh has spoken this word. The earth mourns and fades away. The world languishes and fades away. The lofty people of the earth languish. The earth also is polluted under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell therein are found guilty. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left. The new wine mourns. The vine languishes. All the merry-hearted sigh. The mirth of tambourines ceases. The sound of those who rejoice ends. The joy of the harp ceases. They will not drink wine with a song. Strong drink will be bitter to those who drink it. The confused city is broken down. Every house is shut up, that no man may come in. There is a crying in the streets because of the wine. All joy is darkened. The mirth of the land is gone. The city is left in desolation, and the gate is struck with destruction. For it will be so within the earth among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive tree, as the gleanings when the vintage is done” (Isaiah 24:1-13).

These are powerful words. A powerful picture of what is ahead of us. There’s a lot there and this is NOT isolated scripture. We find it throughout the Word. Jesus warns us that this kind of tumult will come upon the world without specific warning (Mark 13:32). We might be told a season or an epoch, but not an exact day and time. We are called not to watch for a moment and run out to scream ‘Look there it is!’ We are called to be ready for anything at any moment of any day of any year. When the Lord moves, He moves fast. We know this because of Revelation 18:10 when it is prophesied that a city will be destroyed in an hour – and this a city of world-wide acclaim and size. Or Revelation 18:19 where an entire monetary system goes topsy-turvy in an hour. Think the stock market crash of 1987. On Monday, October the 19th the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged almost 22%. It was the biggest single-day decline in the stock market in history. The crash in 1929 took more than a day but kicked off the Great Depression – the Dow Jones ending 89% below it’s peak, not recovering until 1959. I have a feeling that was a hiccough compared to what’s coming, but that is opinion.

What isn’t an opinion? The Word. The Lord saying that He is going to move and move mightily. The thing is, He doesn’t want to lose anyone (1 Timothy 2:3-6). The problem is that people don’t want to hear that message. They don’t want to hear ANY message that has them in the wrong. They want their wants, their desires, their preferences, their ideas, their feelings, and their moral sense to be the absolute lodestone foundations of the universe. Which is ridiculous when you consider all the people in the world. How can all of them get all those things to function as truth and not implode? People are always believing things that other people are not. We are often at loggerheads over issues. Everyone has an opinion and everyone wants their opinion to be right. That isn’t the way the Lord is. Yahweh God lives in a place of total righteousness and utter goodness. That is where His throne is. That is His atmosphere. An atmosphere He wanted to share with the world – but we chose to rebel. He is leading us toward that and has been leading us toward that since we fell. Since we said no to His Righteousness and yes to our own feelings.

When the Lord moves, He is going to bring a bit of that Righteousness to this world. That doesn’t sound like a big idea, but the reality is that unrighteousness cannot survive righteousness. A little bit of righteousness will utterly disrupt this world that is teeming with unrighteousness. Why do this? I have to be honest, I am NOT going to try and second-guess ANYTHING the Lord wants to do. I don’t need to understand, I will just obey. But in my human thinking it seems that one of the ways the Lord can force the hand of humanity is to do something that no one (believer, unbeliever, other religion believer, or atheist) can say is anything but the Lord God Almighty. Faced with worldwide change and upheaval from a smidgen of a bit of the Lord’s Righteousness and power would set humanity up to once again make a choice. A choice they will have to make and one they won’t be able to pass off as a ‘nutty religion’, ‘another path to truth’, or ‘unscientific nonsense’. I’m also sure it won’t be the last chance we as humanity will have to make the choice. But it is going to be a doozy of a first step.

I am not proclaiming fear and famine. I am proclaiming the Rock upon which we stand. If we are abiding in Jesus, we are the Righteousness of God in Jesus the Christ. If we are righteous, the Lord God Almighty will NEVER let us be moved. That means that whenever the upheaval happens. Whenever the world is thrown into turmoil. Whether it lasts for hours, a day, or more. Whatever occurs, whenever it occurs, WE will be fine. We will be unmoved. The world will be panicking and flying about. Weeping and possibly hating on God for being real. But we will be rejoicing in the One who is our Strength. Worshipping the Lord. Enjoying His bountiful peace. It will be beyond human understanding. What will we be doing? “These shall lift up their voice. They will shout for the majesty of Yahweh. They cry aloud from the sea. Therefore glorify Yahweh in the east, even the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel, in the islands of the sea! From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs. Glory to the righteous!” (Isaiah 24:14-16).

What a witness. The world in a panic. Everything going belly up but in neighbourhoods, homes, and churches all over the world: singing. Not mournful dirges or piercing keening, but joyful. Expectant. Full of love and warmth and peace. Smiles on faces, no creased brows, and a peace shining out of their very pores. A ‘something-ness’ to them that can’t be explained, reasoned, or accounted for. More than happy people. Loving people. Ready to welcome the weary, broken, and sad. Ready to lend a hand. Ready to help pass out food (Matthew 14:19-21). Ready to share from stores laid up in the Lord (1 Kings 17:13-16). Ready to lay hands on and bring healing. Ready to cast out evil spirits. Ready to do all that Jesus has commanded us (Mark 16:15-18), and all that the Father desires to do (John 5:19 and 14:10-21).

We are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). The time is coming when we CANNOT be hidden. It will be obvious to all around us who we are and who we serve. Not in fear. Not in bondage. In freedom and blessing and love. Abide in Jesus. Rest within His Righteous Spirit. Listen to Him. Read the Word and be obedient to what you find there. It might be annoying that “Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). But it is the very mechanism by which we are shown where we lack righteousness. Get more light on the parts of you that still need work. Let the Lord renew you, and train you, and prepare you to shine like you’ve never needed to shine before. The Lord will be revealing Himself to the world in a new way. We will also not be hidden. But we WILL be steadfast and unmoved.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Isaiah 24:13

Have you ever seen a nut tree shaken? By modern methods? They get this machine thingy with giant prongs and grab the trunk. Then they vibrate that sucker so hard you think it is going to split into kindling. And when they are done, there is nothing left. Zip. Nary a nut and barely a leaf it seems. This is NOT what I would like done to myself or anyone I know – and that goes for my country as well as my neighbourhood. As far as THAT goes, all I can do is pray. As we all should. Not that the event be turned aside per se, but that the people get prepared and into the collection basket of the Lord before they are shaken to kingdoms here. I take heart though. The Lord loves us so much. So very much. He loves us too much to leave us where we are going to fall to the ground without giving us a way home to Him (Jeremiah 3:13-15). He loves us too much to let us delude ourselves that our feelings matter most. He loves us too much to leave us lost. Step into His repentance. We’ve all fallen short. There is ALWAYS a corner where we can use righteousness. Step into HIS Righteousness. It may bruise your ego. It WILL break your pride. But humble, broken, and obedient, you will be free-er and more able to stand in the Overcoming Victory of the Lord of Hosts than you can possibly imagine. Yoke to Jesus in everything and be obedient to the goad of the Father. He is a GOOD Father. He won’t steer you wrong.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.