Fear No Fear

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

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
Matthew 6:13 (emphasis added)

This is NOT saying that Elohim tempts us. He NEVER tempts us. This verse is asking for guidance so that we do not fall into temptation. Temptation being a longing – especially for the forbidden. It is always a lust. Not necessarily lust in a sexual sense. But desire for something that isn’t for us. That isn’t ours. This covers EVERY kind of sin and a surprising number of mindsets. All of them are trust killers.

“When you are tempted to do wrong, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God cannot be tempted. He will never tempt anyone. A man is tempted to do wrong when he lets himself be led by what his bad thoughts tell him to do. When he does what his bad thoughts tell him to do, he sins. When sin completes its work, it brings death” (James 1:13-15). Sin MUST be thought of. If we do not conceive of a sin, we will not be tempted by it. The sins we commit aren’t from the outside. They are choices. We conceive them, think about them, and then we perform them. It is NEVER the spur of the moment. But it is not always preplanned. Like with many things, it is all about what we have been putting before our eyes. Entertainment is full of images, sounds, and ideas that are not compatible with Adonai’s point of view. Whenever we watch a show or read a book or listen to something, we are putting those ideas into our minds. We are planting seeds that then we can act on suddenly because we have already put the idea into our heads. It is far easier to conceive of a sin we would never normally think of when we’re exposed to it in entertainment and are mulling it over in third person. For example, when you watch a lot of shows that feature characters who cheat on each other, you start to consider the idea that cheating is normal – whether you admit it to yourself or not. It’s in there because as you watched the behaviour you were accepting of it. You didn’t turn it off, you didn’t speak against it, you didn’t pull out the Word and give Adonai’s opinion on it. You accepted it. So in your brain you are accepting of it – in the right circumstances, of course. And if the chance comes across your path you might give into the temptation that is ONLY a temptation because you’ve accepted it previously. Your brain cannot tell the difference between real and make believe. It simply sees behaviour, hears or reads words, and accepts them if you don’t counteract them.

Sounds exhausting, doesn’t it? But the reality is that we have ALL the tools we need to defeat temptation. “May grace and peace be lavished on you as you grow in the rich knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord! I can pray this because his divine power has bestowed on us everything necessary for life and godliness through the rich knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and excellence. Through these things he has bestowed on us his precious and most magnificent promises, so that by means of what was promised you may become partakers of the divine nature, after escaping the worldly corruption that is produced by evil desire” (2 Peter 1:2-4). Our peace in any given situation is based entirely on our knowledge of Adonai Elohim. If we don’t know much about Him, we are unable to have much peace. If we know a lot about Him, we are able to have a lot of peace. Our knowledge of Adonai CAN be experiential and that is important, but we learn a LOT more from the Word, seeing all His interactions with all those people, nations, and groups. Also, we see all the promises of the Word which reinforces the lessons of His character that we see there. But all of that is useless to us without our knowledge of it all. It isn’t good enough to HAVE it. We need to KNOW it. The Word enables us to partake of the knowledge of Adonai AND the promises found therein, IF we will submit to what we find as Adonai retrains our minds to acknowledging His point of view as righteous.

“The Spirit is the one who gives life; human nature is of no help! The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63). All human nature does is hold us back from the spiritual nature and spiritual being that we need to focus on. Which is where temptation comes back up. This is mindset temptations and we are all VERY susceptible to it. It is all the natural thinking that we have as creatures making our way in a physical world. We know hot things hurt. We know ice is cold. We know gravity works. We know the rough limits of our bodies. We know basically how the world around us works. We’ve been learning these lessons and being taught these lessons since we were babies. But we are NEW creations in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are subject to the same rules when we are dealing with Adonai. Anything is possible FOR Adonai (Luke 1:37). Everything is possible WITH Adonai (Matthew 19:26). Jesus took stripes, bruises, and wounds to release healing for you. That means you do not have to get sick or stay sick. Ever. While there is some common sense stewardship of our bodies (running it down, feeding it healthy, exercising, not hanging out in the dead of winter in a swimsuit), we don’t have to accept sickness. We are NEW in Him. If we are seeking Adonai, if we are humbly submitting to Him in obedience, we WILL be BLESSED (Proverbs 8:32; Luke 5). But what have you been putting before your eyes and ears?

We WILL be tempted to be sick. It won’t be sickness out of the blue. It will be sickness that is ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ for living beings here on this Earth. A cold ‘making the rounds’ until you catch it. Flu symptoms cropping up during the time of year that the flu tends to take hold. It will be that advertisement about headaches. It will be a comment from a friend about how you look ‘worn down’. That thing you learned about the human body in biology or science class. That thing you’ve had since you were a kid. It could be a hundred different things. When you hear them and see them, you’ll realise you’ve already conceived of them – because the message from humans in this world is relentless. You’ve been told about it from several sources. Many of whom have your best interests at heart because of what THEY see as natural. But in Jesus, we don’t HAVE to be natural. We will ALWAYS be tempted to go back to how we thought, accept what we’ve always been told, and live like all the freedoms Jesus promised us are either purely spiritual or for when we’re in Heaven. We will always be tempted to accept these things are not for this life, not for this time period, or not really what the Word is saying. It’s a LYING mindset. Do NOT accept it. Get the Word out and get into conversation with it. Find out what JESUS says about it.

The Word changes us without effort. It happens from the inside out. Adonai retrains us with it, often without us realising it at the time. It happens because the Word is seed and there WILL be growth if we will plant it in our minds and hearts – which is EXACTLY where Adonai wants it (Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26; Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10). If we will read it, listen to it, hear it get taught, and submit to what Ruach HaKodesh reveals to us, then Adonai will do the rest. We will be FREED from the ideas that we thought were natural. We will be ALIVE to the ideas that Adonai put down in the Word. If we will seek Him, we’ll know Him. “I pray that according to the wealth of his glory he will grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person, that Christ will dwell in your hearts through faith, so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love, you will be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you will be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16-19). If we are full of the fullness of Elohim, there will be no room for mental nonsense. If there is no room for mental nonsense we will begin to conceive less and less sin. When we have knowledge of Adonai inside us, He takes that and responds with power (Ephesians 3:20-21).

We will not be tempted to be like everyone else in the world if we will use the Word properly. We’ll see Adonai and His works as normal and natural. We’ll stop seeing the world as normal. We’ll stop seeing the world as natural. We’ll stop allowing the behaviour to slip by without challenging it. Not rudely or by being insensitive. But standing on what we KNOW is true and backing it with the Word spoken. Every word is a seed, no matter what its source is. The more we focus on Adonai, the more we’ll let the Word engage His promises. The more we will conceive HIS thoughts, desires, and morals. Ruach HaKodesh will guide us, correct us, and keep us headed in the right direction, walking His paths, the ones paved with our trust on Him.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Jeremiah 31:22

“How long will you vacillate, you who were once like an unfaithful daughter? For I, the Lord, promise to bring about something new on the earth, something as unique as a woman protecting a man!’”” Messiah would be born of a virgin. The word ‘virgin’ is the Hebrew word ‘almah’ (al-maw’). It means a maiden: a young woman not yet married. It means a young woman: marriageable age and sexually mature, but not yet married. It means a maid: someone who has not yet had sexual relations. Messiah would be born of a young woman who was sexually mature and of marriageable age, but not yet married and who had not yet had sexual relations. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband to be, was a righteous man, and because he did not want to disgrace her, he intended to divorce her privately. When he had contemplated this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18-20). Mary, mother of Jesus, was a young woman. She was engaged, but the marriage process had not yet been completed. She was sexually mature and able to bear children, but had not yet had sexual relations. Mary could have been any ONE of those meanings and fulfilled prophecy. The mother of Jesus was all THREE. It had never been in all the time the Earth had been around. It HAS never been since. It was a UNIQUE happening. Jesus IS Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b