Fear No Fear

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

And God will exalt you in due time, if you humble yourselves under his mighty hand by casting all your cares on him because he cares for you.
1 Peter 5:6-7 (emphasis added)

Humbling oneself is not a negative act of self-denial per se, but a positive one of active dependence on God for help. I’m not sure which commentary I read that in, but it is a good way of looking at it. At its core, being a disciple of Jesus is impossible by ourselves. We cannot do it on our own at all. It isn’t a toil-based system. The WORLD is a toil based system. If you do nothing, you get nothing. If you toil you ‘can’ get something – I say it in quotes because the type of toil, the amount of toil, and the quality of the something depends on which part of the world and which system you operate under. The Kingdom isn’t about toil. It’s about work. The work JESUS did so we wouldn’t have to toil. The work Elohim laid out for us before creation so we wouldn’t have to toil while achieving it. It is an exchange of US for HIM, and because of that humbleness is positive and not negative.

Anxiety finds a lot of its roots in stress. The stress response system of our body – useful in an unbeliever in many ways – kicks into gear when stress occurs. It often hijacks the body and creates motion before your mind can catch up as it tries to keep you from the danger of the stressful surroundings. It recognises – or thinks it does – elements of situations that in the past were dangerous, and creates a response to match. Since it accesses memories to do that, anxiety is often a trauma response. The brain and its pathways are where anxiety runs. It has its circuit and it kicks our fannies running it. Nothing about anxiety is good. There is no way to flip it to a positive, because it is almost always based in some kind of fear and fear is totally useless. There are no circumstances that cannot be met, learned from, and avoided without fear OR anxiety. But we cannot do it in ourselves. WE have no perspective. What we need is a neutral third party. Someone truly objective who doesn’t have anything to gain from us doing things any particular way. Enter Adonai. The ONLY truly impartial judge.

We therefore depend on Adonai, because we need Him. We feel safe expressing that need because we trust Him. We trust Him because we love Him and KNOW He loves us. Not everyone has that as their baseline. Not everyone accepts their worth in His eyes. Or the eyes of other people. When are we going to realise as a collective group that fellow humans are a bunch of Funhouse mirrors walking free? When are we going to stop picking an action, a feeling, or a fragment of our full self and decide that IT is our identity. IT is the lynchpin that holds the rest of us together. That IT is what gives us worth? Human worth based on human ideas is NOT effective. It is NOT healthy. And it has ZERO return on our investment. Sure, you may look different and feel different on the surface, but inside your heart nothing has changed. You’re YOU, but with a different shader on. Hardly the stuff of dreams, but we are selling that hotcake for all it’s worth and more.

Believers will say stress is normal because we live in a fallen world and sometimes a stress response – an anxious response – is the proper response. That is ONLY true if you are ignoring the words of Jesus and approaching life the same way as the unbeliever. “So do not be overly concerned about what you will eat and what you will drink, and do not worry about such things. For all the nations of the world pursue these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, pursue his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well” (Luke 12:29-31). Do not be overly concerned about who you’ll bump into. Whether your phone rings or not. Whether overly interested people push into your business. Whether the landlord visits. Whether the bills seem too large to handle. Whether you promotion will come through. Whether that person will say yes to a date – or a marriage proposal. The Father knows we need these things. These exact things (whatever is looming in your life) or things like these (Maybe a different job instead of a promotion. A different mate. Etc). Seems easy, right? Just don’t worry. Just stop being anxious. We’ve heard that a lot, haven’t we? And it does not just GO AWAY does it? The world certainly says it doesn’t. The Word says the same. It DOESN’T go on its own. There is only ONE circumstance that it goes. When we truly trust in Adonai.

That is more than lip service to an idea. It’s more than a pat phrase or a pretty verse found during devotions. It is real trust. Honest, heartfelt trust means that we KNOW Him. We have sought Him out. We’ve read the scriptures expecting an encounter of thought and revelation – not necessarily angels in your living room, but don’t count ANYTHING out when dealing with Adonai. Honest, heartfelt trust also means eager expectation. When you order something online, you have eager expectation. You expect it to arrive within the 7-10 business days and you look for that to happen. Maybe you check the tracking number daily. Maybe you check the mailbox. Maybe you check the order status. But you never stop expecting it to arrive. Any impatience is more of a ‘when will it get here’ than a ‘it is never going to arrive’. We trust that it will show up. Even past the delivery estimate. Sometimes far past it. We expect until it is absolutely and positively certain that it will not arrive. And still we look up when we hear a truck outside. We have a LOT of trust in the package delivery systems we have developed. Why are we trusting Adonai LESS than that?

The Word says that He will TAKE our anxieties and fears if we will GIVE them to Him. Yet there we are hoarding them like the last nuggets at a toddler party. Why? Because we DON’T trust Him. Not like we should. We don’t trust because we don’t believe that He really will. Because who would? For me? Insignificant me? The one who failed to…. The one who didn’t… The one who… etc etc etc. Works. What WE did. What WE didn’t do. Never looking at ourselves because we don’t believe that we have any real worth. At the end of the day, we are afraid people will take away what we have. We are afraid that we don’t have the strength to make it through. We are afraid that we will lose. The world is cold, hard, and scary. What are WE in comparison to all of that? Truthfully? Nothing. That’s why Jesus came. That’s why Jesus offered an exchange. Our worth for His. “He was despised and rejected by people, one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness; people hid their faces from him; he was despised, and we considered him insignificant” (Isaiah 53:3). His significance for our insignificance. “Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory—the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father. . . No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known” (John 1:14 & 18). We were dirt (Psalm 103:14). We became insignificant among the rest of this fallen creation when we rebelled (Genesis 3:17-19). What was Jesus? The glory of the one and only … who came from the Father. What else was Jesus? The one in closest fellowship with the Father. Which means Jesus is offering to exchange with us. He becomes who we ARE through the cross, and we become who He IS through His resurrection. We become – in Jesus – in closest fellowship with the Father as we shine with the glory of being His Children (male and female). “But to all who have received him—those who believe in his name—he has given the right to become God’s children—children not born by human parents or by human desire or a husband’s decision, but by God” (John 1:12-13). That’s huge. Did you miss it?

Your identity is not just what Jesus is in relation to you (2 Corinthians 5:21). Your identity is the one who is in CLOSEST FELLOWSHIP with the Father. Why are we worrying about ANYTHING if the Father is the one backing us up? He’ll have a solution for any situation that comes our way. He’ll have ideas about what we can do. He’ll correct our missteps. He’ll grant us wisdom in a situation to avoid traps and pitfalls. He’ll open our eyes through the Word to revelation (commentary) about what He said in it and why. This is a huge list of plusses atop plusses atop plusses. But we’re still going to let our limbic system hijack us? How about we let our SPIRITUAL amygdala take over? What if when the record of experiences in the spiritual hippocampus tells the spiritual amygdala that it is in a fight, flight or freeze situation, then the spiritual amygdala triggers the SHPAW (spiritual-hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal-Word) axis and ‘hijacks’ or overtakes rational brain function with the WORD in our hearts? What if we ignore what the natural mind tells us and stand on spiritual truth? What if we DON’T have to have mindless stress responses? What if we DON’T let our bodies shut down? What if we speak WORD to the stimulus? What if that Word goes out coated in our full trust in Adonai that He will perform it? What if the words Ruach HaKodesh gives us to say are exactly how we should approach the situation? What if we let our trust in Adonai Elohim rule our decision-making systems? On a deep and meaningful level? What if instead of being at the mercy of a reptilian brain we’re in the Grace of a divine one (1 Corinthians 2:16)?

“I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). We made the exchange when we became believers. We were killed with Messiah. We DIED. Past tense. Already happened. Nothing to fear. We DIED with Jesus. Dead things stay dead, right? Not Jesus. The Father resurrected Him to life. He IS the Living One (Revelation 1:18). If Jesus hadn’t come into us, we’d still be dead. But Jesus DID come into us (John 14:23). Because He did, the Living One is Living in us (Romans 8:11). He promised He would, and He did. Because of THAT, we live. We live because of JESUS’ faithfulness, not OURS. His work, not our toil. His life, not our death. His love, which we respond to. HIS identity, not ours. HIS worth, not ours. Just imagine what you look like to our Heavenly Father? You look JUST LIKE JESUS! Not one of these funhouse fakers desperate to validate their feelings so that they can have some semblance of peace. JESUS! The one who EMBODIES peace. Anxiety dies in the face of that revelation. It’s laid out clearly in scripture.

Never settle. Never cope. DESTROY those thoughts by dragging them to the cross and leaving them there (2 Corinthians 10:5). Let the cross have them like today’s verse recommends. Not because you have to. Not because if you really think hard about it, it will happen. No. Because Jesus cares. Because Jesus loves. Because Jesus says you have WORTH and living at any other standard than total freedom is NOT what He came for (John 10:10). We can’t stop anxiety, but Jesus can heal us of it. Heal us by showing us who He and we really are. Why not let Him start today?

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Isaiah 59:15-16

“Honesty has disappeared; the one who tries to avoid evil is robbed. The Lord watches and is displeased, for there is no justice. The Lord Intervenes He sees there is no advocate; he is shocked that no one intervenes. So he takes matters into his own hands; his desire for justice drives him on.” Messiah would come to provide salvation. Humanity (male and female) were doing NOTHING to help themselves. Sure, there were moments of goodness. But overall the selfishness of humanity was rampant. No one would sacrifice for another. No one would pay the price… but then… no HUMAN could. All had fallen (Genesis 3). Only a SINLESS man could undo what a sinful man had done. Messiah would come to be the Suffering Servant for us. To pay the price. To become sin so that we would be able to become something else. “For this is the will of my Father—for everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him to have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40). “God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). “For the love of Christ controls us, since we have concluded this, that Christ died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). Jesus came to save us (John 3:16-18). Jesus DIED to provide salvation. Jesus IS Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b