Fear No Fear

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

Others are those who are sown amongst the thorns. These are those who have heard the word, and the cares of this age, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
Mark 4:18-19 (emphasis added)

If there is a single word – other than deception – to describe the modern world, it is ‘lust’. While lust is usually defined as intense or unbridled sexual desire (lasciviousness), it can also be defined as an intense longing or craving. Enthusiasm and eagerness. Pleasure and delight. Lust covers everything for which we have an intense desire or need – or believe that we ‘need’. And that is everything that the world is all about at the present time. Any amount of time online will tell you that, if a walk through your downtown core doesn’t.
It is a very simple principle that in the Word goes back to Deuteronomy 6:6-9 “These words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates.” God is not leaving a lot to our imaginations here. Which is good because when we are given a centimetre we take a kilometre. It’s repeated in Proverbs (4:21), Psalms (16:8, 119:18-19), Ezekiel (20:7), Ephesians (1:18), and Hebrews (12:2-3) among others. This is a big concept. If we look at it, it gets in our hearts (Matthew 6:22, Psalm 101:3). If it gets in our hearts, it will come out of our mouths and deeds (Matthew 15:17-19, James 3:10). What is before our eyes matters.

This is of course the basic foundation of advertising. Visual consistency is consistently rated as the number one principle of advertising. There’s also repeated taglines, consistent positioning, and simplicity. Drink this beer and be successful with women. Buy this perfume and be irresistible to men. Wear this lipstick. Cut your hair this way. Eat this food. Exercise on this machine. Drive this car. Don’t eat this particular thing. Diet this way. Listen to this music. Watch this show. Buy this brand of socks. This toilet paper is the only one for you. We’re all familiar with the refrain. Yet, it remains remarkably effective. How often are you exposed to advertising and then suddenly desire that thing which you saw? Sometimes for the first time ever? It is so effective it’s scary.
Take the idea of sex. Biologically and psychologically it has only two purposes: procreation and intimacy. It makes babies and it brings two people into an intimate emotional and mental connection. That’s it. The Lord designed it to be between a male and a female within the bonds of a monogamous covenant relationship (we call it marriage). That’s it. We, as the societies of the globe, have not kept it that way. As a result, we have a bunch of stuff we shouldn’t have to deal with. For example, why are we so adamant about having sexual education younger and younger in schools? Sexual education is useful and important, but why go so young? The reason is that people are becoming sexually active younger. Why is that? Because we have sex outside of marriage. Which we do because that message is promoted in advertising, entertainment, and literature. If we viewed it as something only within a marriage (but with education about it and its dangers/benefits for both parties), it wouldn’t be something every couple does. Because not every couple would be married.

Really think about this. We say it is a part of EVERY healthy relationship. We’re pressured to do it when we are dating. When we are not sure this is the person for us. If we don’t do it we’re considered strange and weird – especially the older we get. We say it is a ‘need’, but you wouldn’t know what the ‘need’ was if you didn’t have it in the first place. You’d have hormones and attraction and desire, but it wouldn’t be sexualised and frenzied to the point that you have people claiming they are celibate against their will. Why are we so sexual as a society? How did we get so pitiful as a group that our sexual preferences become the cornerstone for our entire personality? It’s ridiculous – no matter where on this issue you stand. Everyone capable of taking a step back can see that it is ridiculous. Sex is everywhere, so it has a weight it does not deserve, and there are huge decisions and actions being taken because it plays such a huge role.
No, I do not accept that it is a pillar of the human psyche. We are NOT animals. Remember science is our attempt to codify and rationalise what we SEE. We see animals, we share characteristics, so therefore we MUST be because the alternative is… well… you can’t SEE it. But the fact is we are not animals. We are not bound to animal passions. We have the ability to choose to be better. And when we do we can see sex as a powerful impulse, a source of great joy, a tool for procreation, and something that enhances a healthy relationship in amazing ways. All around good stuff. But does it need to be the driving force it is? Does it need to be entered into for recreation? No. That demeans it. Debases it. And turns it into a cycle of lust and temporary satiation of that lust.
Lust is really the manifestation of unnatural desire. You weren’t meant to have hormones controlling your thinking. You weren’t meant to have cravings ruling your life — remember lust isn’t always sex. We have lust toward alcohol. That’s what alcoholism is. Cut that out, did you? How are your eating habits? We lust toward food too. And shopping. And exercise. And socialising. We can have it over anything. It is any intense and unbridled craving for something that then unbalances your self. The only thing in the human existence we are not to bridle in some way is our feelings toward the Lord. He exists outside this world, is bigger than we can conceive, and therefore no amount of love we have for Him can be too much. But everything else? Including the manifestation of our love for Him? It must be bridled. We have been given self-control for a reason (2 Timothy 1:7).

If we fast for forty-five days because WE decided to (instead of being led by the Lord) it’s unhealthy and unbalanced and wrong – especially since we start starving after forty. If we forgo our relationships and spend all our time in the church – negative and unhealthy. If we demand everyone around us hear us proclaim the message of salvation – unbalanced and unhealthy. We’re to be yoked to Jesus (Matthew 11:29) and driven by the Father. Not racing around pell mell like a thoroughbred on crack. Self-control in all things means being led by the Lord in all things. That’s what Jesus did. He had the same passions and drives we do, but He submitted them to the Father and the Word. In Jesus, we can too. Held back until we are doing the appropriate things at the appropriate times in the appropriate ways. It’s what Jesus did (John 12:49-50). We’re to be like Him.

It all comes down to the Word. The best intentions in the world aren’t enough to conquer the flesh. It is only the Word that is able to renew our minds (Romans 12:2). Why is renewal important? Because it is how we learn to repent. Repenting is when we decide to change our minds. It isn’t instantaneous. There needs to be something behind it. The Word. The only thing that can tune us into the Lord’s will in every possible way. It is what the Lord uses to sanctify us into His ways (John 17:17). Any christian life lived without the Word underpinning it is a christian life lived with a huge handicap. Without the Word before our eyes again and again and again and again, how are we going to understand what the Holy Spirit is saying to us? How are we going to translate the still, small, voice of the Lord? God never speaks contrary to His Word. He gave it to us to test everything by (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

That means test everything we see, everything we hear, and everything we are shown – regardless of the source. We KNOW the voice of the Lord (John 10:27-28). We’ll KNOW when it is truth and worthy of a listen. The more you dwell on righteous things and good things (Philippians 4:8), the more you are going to want to. No, it doesn’t mean that you have to read the Word and nothing else. If you do, though, there’s nothing wrong with that. I often go to do something and then change my mind because I want to read Nahum. Or Nehemiah. Or read about David. Not for entertainment, per se, although I enjoy them. No, I read them because I want to see something I haven’t before. And add to that the joy there is in looking up that new thing and reading all the thoughts other people have had about it in the past. It is always encouraging when you think of a ‘new’ thing and see that other people are also being told this ‘new’ thing, which is really expository by the Holy Spirit about principles that have been there in that story since they were written down millennia ago.

Take David. He looked where he shouldn’t and invited in the lust that sprung up to take advantage of the look he shouldn’t have been giving. He rode that lust through two technically legal things and discovered the Lord doesn’t look at deeds but at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). David was called on the carpet for his heart sin – and he took responsibility for it. He went all the way, changed his mind on it, dealt with the consequences, and never did that thing again because he now agreed with the Lord that it was wrong, immoral, and a sin. That is how powerful a look he took and we should do the same. Look at sin, and see how far you can end up falling. Look at the Lord, focusing on the Word, and see how high He will lift you up.

When we get cravings, we need to filter them not through our minds or feelings but through the Word. It will guide you in every area of your life. Ask the Holy Spirit for revelation, for a word. He can bring to mind everything that you have read and heard of the Word. He WILL guide you. If you listen, and you’ll hear, you will NEVER be steered wrong. You won’t feed the lust. It won’t derail you. It won’t make a nest in your heart. You will walk free of it and not have it choke the Word. Because what we give our attention to again and again and again will grab us. Those thoughts scream so loud they drown out everything else. How can you hear about the delicious healthy food the Lord had in mind for your meal if your mind is screaming about ultra-processed crap designed to hit all those endorphin buttons on its way down your gullet? How will you ever decide to spend a half hour looking at the Word and thinking about what you’re reading if you’re staring at blood and gore or the latest curvaceous and muscular forms on the cool new programming they’re showing?

The answer is that you cannot. You have to choose to look at the Word. You have to choose to look toward the Lord. You have to choose to keep it before your eyes and to mull it over in your mind every chance you get (even in bite-sized pieces throughout the day). You have to do it willingly and consistently. Job 31:1 says “I made a covenant with my eyes; how then should I look lustfully at a young woman?” We need to make a covenant with our eyes. A serious covenant (Genesis 15:9-21). If you don’t, you WILL get distracted by all the shiny, sparkly things the world and the enemy have devised to distract you. If you look away from the Word, you’re going to choke it. If you let it get choked, you won’t be fed and you won’t grow. That is NOT what the Lord wants.
Choking the Word feeds fear. Looking at the Word with intent fosters peace. Don’t fear. Look to the Word. Study it. Ask the Holy Spirit about it. It makes for great conversation. And it will change your life like stepping from black and white to life-like colour by Deluxe!

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Job 31:1-4

There is so much in this universe – and the possible many other universes as well – and yet God spends His time looking at us. Not all of His, but all of ours. The Lord God is beyond time. He isn’t hampered by the four (or more) dimensions that we are. He is not the created but the CREATOR. Yet, from a place of His perfect love, He sees our ways. And counts our steps. What are we to Him? (Psalm 8:3-7). Why the fascination? We are in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). He made us like Himself. He loves us. THAT is the fascination. He built us to work like Himself. He looks at us, sees us, counts our steps, and where are we? In His heart (Song of Solomon 7:10, Isaiah 46:4). We work the same way. What we see gets into our heart. What are you looking at to see? Job declared and made a covenant with his eyes that together they would look at no bad thing. That they would focus on the good things of the Lord. We need this same covenant. We need to focus our eyes on the Lord. Don’t take your relationship with Him for granted. Take time to re-set, re-new, and refocus your eyes. The ones in your physical head, the ones in your heart, and the ones in your imagination. Make covenant with your eyes and choose to look at the Lord. Make Him your focus and return the love that He has toward you. It will guide you and keep you. In these times of tumult, it would be the height of folly to do anything else (Psalm 139:10, Isaiah 41:10).

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.