Fear No Fear

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

Trust in the LORD, and do good. Dwell in the land, and enjoy safe pasture.You shall observe to do therefore as the LORD your God has commanded you. You shall not turn away to the right hand or to the left.
Psalm 37:3 (emphasis added)

It is hard to do good while you’re cussing someone out. You can take my word for that one. All that kind of attitude gains you is strife. More anger. More frustration. More problems. Probably a lot of hurt feelings. And a ball of ‘I can’t BELIEVE THAT’ travelling around with you for a loooooooooooong time to come. Who would want that? No one. No one EVER thinks it’s going to turn out that way. No, we are just expressing our feelings. ‘Venting’ those emotions so that they don’t turn toxic. Keeping it from festering inside. What a load of empty promises that is.

We can choose what comes out of our mouth if we put the right stuff in our hearts. The tongue is… well… It is not pleasant. “For every kind of animal, bird, creeping thing, and sea creature is tamed, and has been tamed by mankind; but nobody can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (James 3:7-8). Sounds bad, but there is a really, REALLY simple solution. The tongue is simply a delivery system. It will vomit out ANYTHING that exists within your heart. That’s it. It doesn’t think on its own. It has NO PLAN. Nada. Zip. Zilch. It is an automated device that forms words and syllables on autopilot. “But the things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart, and they defile the man” (Matthew 15:18). That’s Jesus talking. What we put in comes out. When we enter a stressful situation (whether a flash-point or a slow burn), our mind brings up what is in our heart thinking that it will help us. If we have been putting trash in, trash comes out. When stress dances through our mouths, peace flees. Fear LOVES strife. It’s like giving ants sugar.

When we work from a place of fear, there is NO doing of good. There is only selfishness. We mask it as many things, but ANYTHING that isn’t done in the manifested obedience of the Lord (faith) is done with our own selfish interests at heart. THAT is the evil inclination: self. Flesh. Fear. The anti-God attributes we inherited from our progenitor Adam. When he willingly rejected the blessings of the Lord by choosing selfishness, he got twisted by that into what we are. BUT WE CAN BE SO MUCH MORE. We do not have to stay this way. God does not want us to stay this way. No, no, no. He destined us to be so much more and He destined us before He created anything at all (Ephesians 1:3-14). He doesn’t want ANYONE to stay dead (2 Peter 3:9). Because without Jesus, that’s what we are.

This isn’t a question of the Lord deciding who gets to go where. We are dead. Period. And we died diseased with sin. We walked around a lot doing stuff – dead humans walking – but we were dead. The Law was given and it could give us the realisation we were dead, but it also showed us all the other dead things that we think are pretty good and neat because we’re dead. Sacrifices cleared the air a bit, but eventually our dead stank came back. We needed someone not dead to die instead of all of us dead people stopping moving. We’re dead, so we SHOULD stop moving, right? But a live person should run away from our rot. Instead, Jesus died. He stopped moving so that WE didn’t have to. Now, if we accept His sacrifice we can be raised to life in Him. We won’t have to be dead anymore. What GOOD NEWS!

If we’re alive, we should do live people stuff, shouldn’t we? Live people do good things. Dead people do bad things. Yes, this is very simple. But it IS simple. You have to try really hard to get it wrong. Live people also need fuel. If you want to keep being alive, you need fuel that doesn’t hurt. You need fuel that will help and nurture. If you eat dead food, you’ll be hurt. You will NOT prosper. When you accepted Christ, you became a new creature. You are ALIVE spiritually. You need spiritual food. You need FAITH. You get it, by hearing the Word. Not listening to it, HEARING it. Jesus said so many times that if His audience had ears, they should hear His words. He did that because you have to hear the Word with INTENT. You have to do it on purpose. It can help by accident, but it will truly help you only when you are hearing it on purpose. Seeking the Lord. Seeking His will. Seeking His heart. Seeking His face. Seeking His commentary on His Word. We’re not seeking new revelation apart from the Word. We’re looking for deeper revelation OF the Word. It is important and vital and it will get you fed.

What you feed on heads down into your heart. Whatever your eyes and ears are on, THAT is what you are feeding on. Whatever is in your heart, that is what is going to come out of your mouth. If you are putting God inside you, you will witness God coming out. You will witness yourself doing good. It is the fruit of faith. Good works don’t give you faith. But if you have faith, you WILL do good (James 2:26). You can’t help it. It is literally one of the proofs that you are in fact saved. But if you feed on this world (dead things), you aren’t going to have any fuel in you for good. You can want to do right, but spew filth. You can want to eat right, but gorge on junk. We need to be picky eaters. It is SO IMPORTANT.

Faith is manifested in obedience. We deepen it and strengthen it by hearing the Word. By hearing the Word of Jesus preached. By hearing the Word spoken out by our own mouths. We can trust it and we NEED to trust it. If we do not trust it, we won’t really believe it. If we are not believing it, our body will reject it. We need our body to accept it as viable food. We need it to get into our hearts. We need to make sure it gets there and stays there (Proverbs 4:23). When we trust in the Lord, good follows. His toward us (Psalm 145:8-9). And ours toward each other (Galatians 6:9). It is so important that we do good that James warns us in James 4:17 “To him therefore who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.”

That is a heavy thing if we are not building and exercising our faith, our obedience to the Lord big and small. When we are trusting, reliant on, and obedient to the Lord in humble submission, we will have peace. God brings peace to our hearts and lives through His Word. The Word is part of God (John 1:1) and God IS peace (1 Corinthians 14:33). When we have peace, we are NOT in fear. We are not living in faith if we are exercising, watching, listening to, building up, and tolerating the things of fear in our lives. It doesn’t matter if the program is well-produced with excellent actors. If it promotes things of fear, turn it off. It doesn’t matter if you love the mystery, if it promotes death put it down. Oh, I just like my murder stories. No. Your flesh does. Your spirit is crying because you are starving it. There is no middle ground here. It’s a hard line and it is in a different place for all of us because we are all in different places with the Lord God. But you know what? As time passes, our lines move closer to Him and align one with another more and more – unless you’re pushing it the other way. Be firm. Don’t regret. What we get from the Lord is worth SO MUCH MORE than ANYTHING in the Word (Psalm 145:1).

Our safe pasture isn’t a nation that loves us. Our safe pasture isn’t a social medium. It isn’t a safe place. It isn’t financial security. It isn’t divine health. It isn’t material possessions. It isn’t a full belly and food in the cupboard. It is better. It is the WORD. Our safe pasture is the safe food for us. The food giving us all our spiritual nourishment. The food giving us all the vitamins our bodies need. The food giving us the nutrients to strengthen our faith and deepen it. The food that feeds our heart and enables our tongues to say things that God says, not what WE want to vent. The food that chokes fear and enables us to make the devil flee (James 4:7). It is our safe pasture, our good food, the rich food of Yahweh God (Isaiah 55:2).

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: 2 Corinthians 9:10-11

We are blessed in order to bless. We are fed so that we can feed others. We put the Word in our heart so that the Word comes out of our mouths. This is the cycle of the Kingdom. God gives. We receive. We give. Looking at the blessing God placed on Abraham in Genesis 12:2, Rabbi Berekhya taught: God is saying ‘until this point I was required to bless My world, from now on, the blessings are passed to you; whomever you deem worthy to bless, bless him’ (Bereshit Rabbah 39.11). This is dominion in action. Taking dominion over the earth, subduing it, and then using all the resources of the world at the direction of God to the betterment of the world and humanity in all ways. We haven’t done well, true. But a calling from God isn’t the past. It is our ever-present future. Jesus told us to love everyone (John 13:34). To bless everyone (Matthew 5:16). Because the Lord wants us to bless, He blesses us. He loved us first (1 John 4:9). He gives us faith (Acts 3:16). We have the Word to put before our eyes and into our hearts (Proverbs 4:21-23). This is the blessing that we bless others with. If we seek Him first, we will get all the other beneficial stuff we need and want (Matthew 6:33). WHATEVER He blesses you with, bless others with. If we get fed by Him, we’ll get to help feed others. He gives us seed. We sow. He grows. He harvests. It’s a pretty good deal. He loves us too much to let us do all the work. But He CALLS us to do our part. Now and always. He loves us forever forward. Let’s love each other the same way. Sow what He gives, and be a blessing to everyone you meet.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.