Fear No Fear

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

He is the reason you have a relationship with Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
1 Corinthians 1:30 (emphasis added)

To replace something is when one thing or person takes the place of another or takes another’s place, they replace the other thing or person. To be more specific, to take someone’s place is to take up the physical position or status in society that is correct or due for that someone. It has NOTHING to do with who YOU are and everything to do with who THEY are. To change places, then, is to be placed in another person’s situation as they are placed into yours. It is to exchange places or roles. You start being in their situation or role, and they start being in yours. It is like in the 1951 animated film Alice in Wonderland by Walt Disney. In essence, Jesus rose up in Heaven and shouted out, ‘Change places!’ and then scrambled to do just that (Revelation 13:8). He ended up on a cross so that we could end up at the throne.

Was it a one-time deal? Or is it a continual shift? Well, the Word tells us about things that are in Heaven. “For our momentary, light suffering is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison because we are not looking at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen. For what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if our earthly house, the tent we live in, is dismantled, we have a building from God, a house not built by human hands, that is eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 4:17-5:1). Heaven is eternal. Those things which reside in heaven are eternal. When we change places with Jesus in an area, it ends up in an eternal place. Take our spirit. When we let Jesus kill our old self on the cross, we are given His living spirit. This is part of salvation. Our new spirit is sealed by Ruach HaKodesh (Ephesians 1:13). It is placed in an eternal state only alterable by a freely chosen rebellion as great as that of the devil (Isaiah 14:12; Luke 10:18). It is in an eternal place. Our names in His book (Revelation 20:15). Our names engraved into the very palm of the Eternal One (Isaiah 49:16). It is hard to think of something more eternal than the hands of the One who birthed eternity (Isaiah 9:6).

Whenever we have an area that we submit to Jesus and listen to His words on it, accepting correction and redirection as we repent of our point of view and embrace His point of view, it becomes an area that we let Jesus inhabit as Lord. This is what we should do with every area, of course, but it can take time to renew ourselves to His thinking on everything. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. Acknowledge him in all your ways, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6). “Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—alive, holy, and pleasing to God—which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God—what is good and well-pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2). “Therefore, be imitators of God as dearly loved children and live in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2). It is a mindset shift. It is a worldview shift. It is an intellectual shift. It is an emotional shift. And it is a CHOICE to put more weight on what Jesus says to us than what humans say to us – no matter who they are, what relation to us they are, or how intelligent/learned they are. A psychologist might tell us that we need therapy and learn to cope with a particular event that happened to us, manage a behaviour set we have, or learn to deal with some kind of condition. In the natural world, that is not bad advice. By becoming aware of how we think and process things, by learning how we are choosing to move things from feeling to emotions, by learning how we get triggered by things, we can learn to cope and develop behavioural patterns to improve our quality of life and our interactions with the world around us. But Jesus says that He can INSTANTLY transform us, INSTANTLY redeem us, and INSTANTLY release us from any kind of bondage that we are subject to. “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). “Then large crowds came to him bringing with them the lame, blind, crippled, mute, and many others. They laid them at his feet, and he healed them” (Matthew 15:30).

It is like someone coming to your house and taking out furniture, books, dvds, computers, appliances, or even curtains and bedding. They leave with them, and go burn them at the dump. They are eliminated. Destroyed. Ashes. Then this person goes to their multi-million dollar home and selects replacements for the exact same things that were taken. They return to your house and put inside of it furniture, books, dvds, computers, appliances, and even curtains or bedding. They are top quality items. Worth thousands upon thousands of dollars. Built out of the best materials. Having all the bells and whistles. State of the art. Antiques. Whatever us brought is completely to your taste, it is just of a quality that you could not possibly afford on your own – not in a million years. And while this is GREAT, it also shows how drab the rest of your stuff is. But this generous person isn’t rude or uppity. In fact, they encourage you to ask for more. To start choosing what you want replaced, even as they point out things here or there that you might want to get rid of. Between the two of you, sooner or later you’re going to have everything replaced, won’t you? Especially if nothing is out of bounds? You could get walls replaces, pipes, structural features, or anything at all changed from average to spectacular. If this was all free, legal, and not a scam in ANY way, wouldn’t you take advantage of it? Even if it got messy. Even if it took time. Even if you had to adjust. You’d do it, right? Because in the end your own home and your own possessions would be new, quality, and worth many millions of dollars too. Who wouldn’t do that?

This is the kind of swap, replacement, and change of place that Jesus and His Father had in mind when they cooked up the plan of salvation. The plan of total and absolute renewal and redemption for each and every one of us. We might see ourselves as unworthy. We might see ourselves as maybe hired help at best. But our Father in Heaven has chosen to view us through what Jesus did. We are being looked at through cross-shaped glasses. We are being seen as Jesus is seen. Prodigiously blessed: “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Given the family signet ring of authority: “Then Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). “Look, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and on the full force of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you” (Luke 10:19). Given a family robe of richly woven material: “For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand. Stand firm therefore, by fastening the belt of truth around your waist, by putting on the breastplate of righteousness, by fitting your feet with the preparation that comes from the good news of peace, and in all of this, by taking up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God)” (Ephesians 6:13-17). Invited in to partake of the best food: “But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4). “Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who consumes me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread your ancestors ate, but then later died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”” (John 6:53-58). Celebration and an elevation position – definitely not one of the staff: “and he raised us up together with him and seated us together with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). This is what we have when we swap with Jesus through salvation.

Is sickness part of who Jesus is? We can swap. Is depression? We can swap. Is identity crisis? We can swap. Whatever our issue, we can swap. We can give Him what we don’t like or want about ourselves. “by casting all your cares on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). ‘Cares’ means it is a care, it is an object of anxiety, it concerns us. We can give that to Him. Not for fun. It isn’t dumping stuff over the neighbour’s fence and pretending we didn’t. The full offer is this: “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). We humble ourselves under HIM and THEN cast our cares. We MUST submit to HIS point of view and take it as our own. THAT is the swap. It is one thing to have ACCESS to a blessing, but it is something else to appropriate it. To reach out and take it. All our blessings are in Heaven to begin with (Ephesians 1:3). We ONLY have access to Heaven because JESUS gives us His righteousness (Ephesians 2:8-9). So it is in JESUS that we can reach out and take the blessing He is offering. We MUST be in Jesus to do it. Jesus ONLY does what His Father tells Him, so He will never go for anything selfishly or for personal benefit. He will ALWAYS submit to the Father and do it His way, to glorify the Father. When we try to do things differently or outside of Jesus it doesn’t work (James 4:3) – in fact, that’s as bad as witchcraft, because it is going against Adonai’s Will (1 Samuel 15:23).

In Jesus we have “wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption“. Outside of Him we have nothing (John 15:6). If we want to walk in all the freedom that Jesus paid for through and on the cross, then we need to get our minds fully invested in His promises. Not just the promises themselves, but also the restrictions of the promise – the submission, the humbleness, and the choosing His point of view for our own. The Word is the greatest tool we have for that. It is the way the Father sanctifies us and renews us (John 10:10; Proverbs 3:8). Submit to Adonai Elohim and let Him be your Shaddai, the All-Creator, All-Nourisher, All-Protecting, and All-Prevailing, Almighty God of your entire life.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Ezekiel 34:23-24

“‘I will set one shepherd over them, and he will feed them—namely, my servant David. He will feed them and will be their shepherd. I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken!” Messiah would be a descendant of David by bloodline and by profession – spiritually. Messiah would be a shepherd for the people of Adonai. The children of Yahweh. Just like His ancestor, He would care and watch over Israel. “This is the record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep and runs away. So the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them. Because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep, he runs away. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not come from this sheepfold. I must bring them too, and they will listen to my voice, so that there will be one flock and one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me—because I lay down my life, so that I may take it back again. No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down of my own free will. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it back again. This commandment I received from my Father” (John 10:11-18). Jesus is our shepherd. Jesus is descended from David. Jesus IS Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

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

Matthew 16:16b