Fear No Fear

(All scripture from Lexham English Bible, Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software)

“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept complete, blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.“

1 Thessalonians 5:23

Adonai did not create broken things. Adonai ONLY created GOOD things. And by the time human beings were formed and given His breath, everything He was going to do was COMPLETE and VERY GOOD: “And God saw everything that he had made and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, a sixth day” (Genesis 1:31). It is always sad to see people decide to accept LESS THAN when we serve a God who is MORE THAN. Yet, one of the WONDERFUL things about Adonai is that He lets us choose. He lets us choose, He honours our choice, and He meets us right where we are. He doesn’t stop telling us about what is possible in Him while He uses us where we are. He is a GOOD God.

When we look at this prayer for us, we can see a few things. First, ‘blameless’ doesn’t have to do with GUILT. Instead, it has to do with FAULT. Not our fault, your fault. Fault as in a broken part or weakness in a machine or system (Cambridge definition). In order for us to defeat brokenness, we need to be fixed. It is the process we ALL go through. “And we all, with unveiled face, reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory into glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Second, the way we get fixed is by being sanctified. The way we are sanctified or made acceptable is by Grace through His Word. “Sanctify them in the truth—your word is truth” (John 17:17). Through HIM (Jesus IS the Word – John 1:14), we are made HOLY. Through HIM we are sanctified. NOT because we deserve it, but because HE decided that He WANTS us to be with Him. We can’t be with Him unless we are righteous, so He made a Way to fix what WE can’t fix. In JESUS we are sanctified (2 Corinthians 5:21). That’s salvation. An on-going fixing of our brokenness. That process is the third thing we can see. It starts with our SPIRIT.

“Dear friend, I pray you may prosper concerning everything and be healthy, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 2). Wholeness is healthiness. The best healthiness. The ultimate healthiness. Being whole with nothing missing or broken is the goal of pursuing health. It’s true in the natural world and it is true in the spiritual world. When we are whole, everything works as it is supposed to. That’s health: our systems operating as they are supposed to. It’s the whole point of everything. Who wants to function in a way we weren’t designed to? It doesn’t mean we can’t. Even the world knows that we can. That’s why we have so many coping mechanisms out there. They can’t make us whole, so they teach us how to function with our brokenness. It doesn’t matter if you’re depressed, have anxiety, have neurodiversity, have a disease, have a broken or missing limb, or have a cold. When your body is not one hundred percent functioning as it was designed to function then you are dealing with some kind of brokenness and the world will teach you how to manage the systems so that you can live life without feeling LESS THAN. Which isn’t a bad thing. But it is NOT Adonai’s BEST. Adonai’s BEST is for ALL of us to be whole.

The GOAL is to be WHOLE. The goal is to finish the race whole. Unbroken. Will we all get there? Who knows? What we CAN do is to get into the Word and start getting HIS Way of thinking. We change OUR thinking by seeing HIS thinking and aligning with it. “But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With human beings this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). It is with HIM, operating to give Adonai glory, abiding in JESUS, that all things are possible. We experience them as we align our thinking with His. It isn’t overnight. It might not be complete when Jesus comes to us (or we choose to go to Him). But it is POSSIBLE and it was Paul’s prayer for us all: for us to be in health. Spiritual health. Mental (emotions/personality/heart/mind) health. Physical health. It all starts with Adonai. How do we know what we’re supposed to be dealing with? Ruach HaKodesh.

Since humanity is broken in so many different ways, and since we’re taught what humanity believes is possible from an early age, there is a myriad of ways in which we can be broken and a myriad of areas of opportunity to be fixed. Guess what? Only Adonai knows what needs fixing and when it is best for you to be fixed. We’re all on the same journey, but we’re all at different places. If there’s something you don’t like, seek Him about it. He gives wisdom FREELY (James 1:5). Listen to Ruach HaKodesh. If you don’t think anything needs fixing, listen to Ruach HaKodesh. If you think too many things need fixing, listen to Ruach HaKodesh. Adonai ALWAYS knows what we need to deal with and He ALWAYS talks to us about it. He corrects our course. He advises. He teaches. He leads. He guides. He brings to our remembrance the scriptures that will retrain us. He brings to us new scriptures to read, digest, think about, and meditate on. He KNOWS what we need to work on, in what order, and when it will be most effective. If we listen to Ruach HaKodesh, we’ll never be lost. We’ll always know what the today plan is for our walk with Him. We’ll consistently be feeding our spirit on the Word and seeing our relationship with Adonai grow. Through that, we’ll see the growth and development of the rest of us. Becoming more like Jesus every day in every way.

Wholeness isn’t about fixing what others say is wrong with us. Wholeness is about believing what Adonai says and trusting Jesus in and with every area of our lives one after the other. It is a constantly shifting pattern all heading in the same direction: Adonai. To pursue wholeness, then, is to pursue HIM. What did Jesus say to us? “But seek first his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). If we seek Adonai FIRST and FOREMOST, then the ALL will be added. The ‘all’ is anything and everything HE says that we need. Ruach HaKodesh will show us the steps to take if we lean into Jesus and refuse to let go. Then one step at a time, we will get closer and closer to Adonai, getting less and less broken and more and more whole until were right there, face to face, and perfected before Him (1 Corinthians 15:52).

Daily Affirmation of the Goodness of Elohim: Matthew 6:8

“Therefore do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Adonai knows what we need. He knows before WE know. Adonai has the solution to the situation. He has the equipment we need. He’s given Ruach HaKodesh the manual for the equipment. And Jesus test toasted it before we needed it. That is GREAT news. All WE need to do is to check in with HIM whenever we don’t know what to do (and it is wise when we THINK we know what to do) and rest in Him until we receive the answer. It’s so simple! Who knew? Well, Jesus did. The Father did. Ruach HaKodesh did. And they’ve been telling US about it since we first breathed His breath. We need to start believing them. We need to start believing them and doing it their way. Because all they want for us is GOOD THINGS. The roads will be bumpy – Jesus warned us about that. But they will be spiritually smooth. They’ll give Adonai the glory – which is what our lives are supposed to be about. Everything will work out. Everything will end up GOOD. We may be here, we may be with Him in Heaven, but in the end of endings, it WILL be GOOD. We have His WORD on it. What a GOOD God!

Your Daily Confession of Elohim’s Goodness:

I taste and see that Yahweh is good; I am blessed because I take refuge in Him.

Psalm 34:8