Fear No Fear

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

Do not be led astray, my dear brothers and sisters.
James 1:16 (emphasis added)

If we’re told to NOT do something, it means that we CAN do that thing. Jesus warned about it. “For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24).It is POSSIBLE for believers to be deceived, but you will notice Jesus said IF. Since He said IF, it is NOT guaranteed that we will be deceived. It means that we have a CHOICE. Why a choice? Because we can choose to give place to the Word or give place to ideas. Ideas are great, but they are also dangerous. We can have all kinds of ideas about things. About theology, about doctrine, about the application of these things, about teaching, about Elohim, and about how we should react and act toward one another. Ideas can be great. But ideas can also be HUMAN. Good ideas are not necessarily God ideas. There is a HUGE difference. And that is why we have the warnings about DO NOT BE DECEIVED. We read it again and again and again. Some examples are Galatians 6:7; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Hebrews 13:9; and 1 John 3:7. These verses show us the issue we have: we don’t like restrictions.

“The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it. Then the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.”” (Genesis 2:15-17). Eat all the green seed-bearing plants. Eat all the fruit trees. 300,000 or 80% of living green plants fall into that category. There are over 2,000 types of fruit. Adam was not given a limited diet. All of the nutrition we need can be gotten from seed-bearing plants and fruit. There was ZERO desire for animal products. There was functionally no need for them. The real restriction was the knowledge of good AND evil. Adam had knowledge of good. There was no desire for knowledge of evil. There was functionally no need for knowledge of evil. The only evil at that time was the devil and his angels who were waiting to be tossed into permanent separation from Adonai (Matthew 25:41). Adonai had set things up so that spiritual beings could not do things on this earth without cooperation from living beings (Genesis 1:28-30). What good would knowledge of evil do? It is clear that Adonai wanted humanity to be focused on GOOD, not evil. He wanted GOOD in our hearts and desire for GOOD – just like Himself (Genesis 1:26). But the devil conned the serpent (I’ve always wondered what he promised) and used the gift of the serpent – which was GOOD (Genesis 1:31) – and called into question whether the prohibition on the fruit of that ONE tree was for humanity’s benefit or detriment. The question was: IS IT TRUE? If they had said ‘yes’, that would have been the end of it. The next question was were they restricted from ANY tree? If they had said ‘we have plenty upon plenty’ that would have been the end of it. After that, the devil split hairs. Would you REALLY die? Well, in Genesis 2:17 Adonai said we would DIE die. Die in the most serious way. First off, spiritually, and secondly physically. It would move us from WOULD die to WILL die. Death as a fact instead of death as a consequence. The WHAT IF YOU’RE MISSING OUT implication in the face of their actual existence is (in hindsight) ridiculous. All the things we are seeking, longing for, and promised in Jesus are the things Adam ALREADY HAD. But there was a restriction. It was a restriction to grant authority and a restriction to physically show (manifest) humbleness, but was still a restriction. Adam tossed off that yoke and we fell. We didn’t fall when one of the pair did it. We fell when (a) BOTH of them agreed and (b) the individual given the restriction face to face chose to rebel. From a partnership two-become-one point of view we rebelled, and from a chain-of-command-CEO point of view we rebelled. Adam could have corrected the words of the devil and pointed out to Eve AND the snake what Adonai said, meant, and laid down. They COULD have cited Adonai’s words and made it right. There COULD have been repentance. But there wasn’t and they didn’t. They CHOSE selfishness and paid the price, altering them at a cellular level. As their children, we share that altered DNA – spiritually, mentally, and physically. We do NOT like restriction as a concept. It rubs us the wrong way. As long as we have flesh made from the same elements of this fallen creation, we always will. It doesn’t need to rule us, but it is there all the same.

“Do not be deceived. God will not be made a fool. For a person will reap what he sows” (Galatians 6:7). We can’t avoid the system Adonai set up. We can try, but it won’t work. The devil knows this and doesn’t try to avoid it. He tries to change our focus from things of Adonai to things of flesh. Karma is an example. The Ethic of Reciprocity is another. It is not that these things are bad in and of themselves when we look with human eyes. But the TRUTH is that they are piggybacking on a principle of Adonai without anything of Adonai in them. We turn them into either a metaphysical force where the ‘universe’ hits you when you hit others and helps you when you help others, or a principle of every human thing (gender, job, religion, culture, relationship, etc) has exactly the same validity as every other – in other words, no OBJECTIVE truth or standards, only SUBJECTIVE that we all help to keep in place. Ultimately, nothing but the WORD will stand. “The grass dries up, the flowers wither, but the decree of our God is forever reliable” (Isaiah 40:8). Adonai laid down the principle for this world in Genesis 8:22 “While the earth continues to exist, planting time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.” This is a principle of this creation. It is HOW THINGS WORK. The devil wants to get our minds off Adonai and onto a physical process. It’s even BETTER if he can get us thinking about the universe or mystical/metaphysical tradition, because then we won’t put ANY thought into how GOOD our ‘seed’ is from Adonai’s point of view. Not everything we decide is good for us IS good for us (1 Corinthians 10:23). We are being told here NOT to let ourselves be deceived. There is seedtime and harvest, there are consequences to actions, ALL seed will produce, and ONLY ADONAI can tell or show us whether something is TRUTHFULLY good for us – regardless of what human feelings or human thinking says and shows. It is a restriction FOR OUR BENEFIT, if we have eyes to see it and ears to hear it.

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals,thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). Oh my, but these verses kick up so much. Yet the Word is clear about each and every phrase – including the word Paul made up since the word ‘homosexual’ didn’t exist until 1868. Men were not to have sexual relations with men, nor women with women. It was part of the Law (Leviticus 20:9-21) which dealt with MANY sexual restrictions. While I believe that Adonai creates no one as homosexual, you will notice that the restriction is not FEELING homosexual but ACTING on it – like ANYTHING that isn’t done in/from Trust in Adonai (Romans 14:23). There are a lot of things we will think or feel are correct and true because we live in a fallen world. Our bodies and minds have fallen from what they were supposed to be. Creation is fallen. They could all agree and it STILL might not be correct. They’re SUBJECTIVE. They are determined by OUR thinking and reason. They are not OBJECTIVE. Humans can’t BE objective. Not even A.I. can be objective because the base parameters and structure is formed in a fallen creation by fallen creatures. Only something that exists completely outside of creation can be objective. Only Adonai Elohim is outside creation, so only HE can be objective. This can cause issues for US because we don’t always LIKE His objective truth. We prefer to think of it as His opinion or His best or His anything but absolute truth. We don’t like to think that our experience, our collective decisions, and our learning could be wrong. We like to take advantage by being at the top of the earth’s structure by claiming our opinions/feelings/thinking/reason is ALSO the top of all things. But they are not. DO NOT BE DECEIVED. Adonai is above all things (Hebrews 1:1-4). If HE says they are wrong, we need to get into the Word and let Him train our minds until we can see His point of view (Romans 12:2) – HUMANS CANNOT DO THIS. Only Him and His Word. Your renewal is always between you and Jesus. But do not be deceived. Regardless of whether you let Him inform your opinions, feelings, and practices (mental or physical), the TRUTH of His point of view does NOT change.

“Do not be carried away by all sorts of strange teachings. For it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not ritual meals, which have never benefited those who participated in them” (Hebrews 13:9). There are a LOT of strange teachings that have come up, are coming up, and will come up. Every single one of them are developed because someone did not want to give Adonai His proper position and combine that with submitting to His view and mindset on a given issue. For example, they will find something that rubs them the wrong way. They’ll spend a LOT of time thinking about it, dwelling on it, and working out alternative interpretations and paths so that they don’t need to deal with what they don’t like. There is a version of the Bible that edits eight specific verses in order to promote their worldview. That isn’t submitting to the Word. Neither is cherry picking – where you take a single verse, look at it without regard to context where it is found, OR its context within the overall Word. The enemy is dedicated to the misunderstanding of scripture – he even quoted it incorrectly when talking face to face with Jesus (Matthew 4:6; Luke 4:10). The world ALSO wants scripture done away with, even when it bases itself on the Word (like the entire Western justice system values). Adonai tells us to test EVERYTHING (1 Thessalonians 5:21) and look for more than one witness (Deuteronomy 17:6 & 19:15; John 8:17-18). Teachings can be wrong. Ruach HaKodesh is with us to correct us, inform us of what Jesus ACTUALLY said, and to confirm interpretation of the Word (John 16:13). Do NOT let yourself be deceived. Test everything against the Word, grab ahold of the truth, believe the Word as it is written, and flee from evil. The Word is objective and true. Never let yourself lose sight of that – even if you need His help to accept what it says.

“Little children, let no one deceive you: The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Jesus is righteous. The one who practices sin is of the devil because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was revealed: to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:7-8). Everyone has sinned because we were born with a sinful nature (Psalm 51:5; Romans 3:23-24; Ephesians 2:1-3). But there is another class of person who sins on purpose. Sinner because they love to sin. These are people Adonai HATES (Psalm 5:4-5). Adonai LOVES everyone (John 3:16-18), but HATES those who love sin (Malachi 1:2-3). Once we are saved, that love of sin departs (Romans 5:1-5). In Jesus, as saved believers in Jesus, we are NOT sinners (1 John 3:9-10). We do NOT have to sin. We have to CHOOSE to do it. It doesn’t mean we love it, but we stop looking to Jesus and the Word to inform our decisions and actions. We think about it, imagine it, and then decide to do it. “But each one is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires. Then when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death. Do not be led astray, my dear brothers and sisters” (James 1:14-16). Do NOT be deceived by worldly opinions that some things are ‘needs’ or ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ or that you were ‘made that way’. Do NOT be deceived by the devil that ‘it isn’t working’ or ‘you don’t deserve that’ or ‘it isn’t for today’ or ‘you have to work for it’ or ‘that is the universe telling you’. If we let the Word change our thinking and Ruach HaKodesh inform our thinking, then we will start acting like Jesus did, thinking like Jesus it, speaking like Jesus did, thanking like Jesus did, worshipping like Jesus did, and glorifying the Father like Jesus did (Philippians 2:5). Do NOT be deceived. If we intentionally and purposefully act like Jesus from the inside out – impossible without the Word and Ruach HaKodesh – we will become more and more like Him day by day. If we do not, we will be practising the opposite which is SIN (Romans 14:23). Everything we do needs to come from our trust in Elohim and in His Word. It is the foundational principle that builds strength of that trust and enables us to quash the doubt that rises against our belief. It is a choice and an assignment for which we have been anointed. “Children, it is the last hour, and just as you heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. We know from this that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us, because if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But they went out from us to demonstrate that all of them do not belong to us. Nevertheless you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you that you do not know the truth, but that you do know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but the person who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This one is the antichrist: the person who denies the Father and the Son. Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either. The person who confesses the Son has the Father also. As for you, what you have heard from the beginning must remain in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. Now this is the promise that he himself made to us: eternal life. These things I have written to you about those who are trying to deceive you. Now as for you, the anointing that you received from him resides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, it is true and is not a lie. Just as it has taught you, you reside in him. And now, little children, remain in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink away from him in shame when he comes back. If you know that he is righteous, you also know that everyone who practices righteousness has been fathered by him” (1 John 2:18-29).

Jesus is the Creator who Sets Us Free from our broken (human) ways. The devil is the accusing trickster who fathered lies. Anything we hear that comes from ANY source but the Word or Adonai (who NEVER contradicts the Word) is a lie in some form or another. Nothing that has been made is permanent. Everything we see can be changed. The material world is subject to the spiritual Kingdom of Yahweh. The unseen trumps the seen. Do NOT be deceived by human doctrine or demonic doctrine. Stick to the Word and what Yahweh says can be. He is objective and true. He can be trusted. Let HIM define your reality. Don’t settle. Don’t struggle against Him. He is our Shepherd who will ALWAYS guide us into GOOD THINGS from His point of view (John 10:11-18). Trust Him. Always.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Isaiah 61:1-2

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has chosen me. He has commissioned me to encourage the poor, to help the brokenhearted, to decree the release of captives and the freeing of prisoners, to announce the year when the Lord will show his favor, the day when our God will seek vengeance, to console all who mourn,” Messiah would be called by a new name. No longer Suffering Servant, He would walk into His new name because of His submission to Yahweh and the faithful obedience to His mission. “a light, for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:32). “The one who conquers I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will never depart from it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God (the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from my God), and my new name as well” (Revelation 3:12). Jesus was given the new name Light of the World and there is another name waiting for when He returns as the Conquering King. Jesus will be called by a NEW name. Jesus IS Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b