Fear No Fear

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

Don’t fret yourself because of evildoers, neither be envious of the wicked; for there will be no reward to the evil man. The lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out.
Proverbs 24:19-20 (emphasis added)

We have a choice as to what emotions we entertain. Of what we let affect us from the world. Envy is painful. It is a resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another with a desire to possess the same advantage. It can lead to holding a grudge. To malice. When we wish that we had a quality or possession that another possesses, but don’t see a way to acquire it for yourself – or not wanting to do the work to acquire it – that is when envy can set in. According to the Word, it is closely associated with strife and conceit.

“If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit. Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another” (Galatians 5:25-26). “But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and don’t lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition are, there is confusion and every evil deed” (James 3:14-16). As you can see, envy doesn’t stand alone. It is one slimy leech in a bag of slimy leeches. Left on their own, a lost person will sink lower and lower into that bag of emotions and behaviours that fight against God’s righteousness. It isn’t the PEOPLE who are horrible, it is the behaviour that they participate in. For example, it isn’t just alcohol itself that is the problem. When someone drinks it the real problems arise. The alcohol isn’t a problem when it is in a glass or bottle – it’s still poison, but it isn’t harming anyone. Take it out, and you have to deal with the fumes, but not much else. Drink it? Then you have behaviours, impacts on your health, and how you impact others. Sin works the same way. Bad in and of itself. Bad to consider and expose yourself to. SO MUCH WORSE to act on.

“For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural function of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another, men doing what is inappropriate with men, and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error. Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them” (Romans 1:26-32).

When we engage in sin, we receive in ourselves – our thinking, our emotions, and our spirit – the due penalty of our error. It is NEVER a good thing, but we can be deceived into believing that it isn’t the sin itself that is causing us our issues. Or worse, deceived into thinking that the sinful acts are normal, natural, and simply part of life. If we dwell on them too much, if we participate in them too much, we can start to base parts of our identity on the sinful acts themselves. As if THEY were what propped up our personalities. As if an action, hobby, or behaviour made us who we are. It’s funny. We tend to criticise people who define themselves by a hobby or job (housewife, plumber, video game player, etc). We tell them that there’s so much more to life. But take someone who has decided that an aspect of sin is their identity, and they’ll fight you tooth and nail to keep that as their main – and in some cases ONLY – personality attribute.

God wants so much more for us. “Jesus therefore said to them again, “Most certainly, I tell you, I am the sheep’s door. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out and will find pasture. The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly” (John 10:7-10). Abundant life is more than possessions and ease from work. Those CAN be aspects of an abundant life in a natural sense, but a TRUE abundant life is a life FREE FROM BONDAGE.

Can you imagine a life where you aren’t lying to make yourself look better – because you honestly have no care about what people think about you? A life where we don’t stab each other in the back to get ahead or get back at each other? Where we are kind and considerate because it makes things go smoothly? Where our elders help us out with things and we help them out with things without it being an obligation or a chore? Where we don’t feel a need to keep secrets or be cruel to each other? Where we aren’t arrogant, insolent, rude, or envious? THAT is an abundant life. A life filled with positives and not negatives. A life full of the riches of the Lord’s goodness, forbearance, and patience. It may not SEEM like a lot, but you have to remember how we are designed to work.

We all have feelings. They rise up because of external stimuli or learned experiences. Feelings can manifest as conscious thoughts of unconscious negative emotions. Your environment can influence your feelings. Family, social circles and media, culture, and even your faith. They can be subjective in how they come up to us – whether we experience a run-in with a spider with horror or happiness. They are an automatic mental response to the situations that we encounter every day. Emotions, though, are different. Emotions are conscious, not unconscious. We can choose to experience them or we can change the ones that we do feel. Will you decide to experience anger when you feel aggression, vengefulness, or resentfulness? Or will you choose to respond to those feelings with a DIFFERENT emotion? Like goodness? Or gentleness? Or self-control? That’s right. God gives us emotions that are different from the natural emotions of the world.

The world has eight basic emotions: joy, sadness, anger, fear, happiness, disgust, trust, and anticipation. The Lord gives us nine spiritual emotions: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Whether you are dealing with basic emotions or spiritual emotions, emotions are a CHOICE. We do NOT have to listen to our feelings. We can choose to do something out of type. We can choose to do something against type. Take love. We think of love as passion, infatuation, happiness, excitement, nervousness, sexual attraction, and lust. It can also be pleasure, giddiness, or euphoria. The problem is that feelings change and fade over time. When those feelings fluctuate, we can assume that we are no longer in love. Or we can choose to go looking for those feelings elsewhere. But love is an emotion and not a feeling. It is a choice to feel love, to nurture love, and not to rely on feelings to tell you if it is successful or not. When we choose to love and choose to maintain that love, then regardless of what our ‘feelings’ are telling us, we can keep our love warm and alive through it all. We can strengthen it, deepen it, and mature it far beyond our circumstances. All of our emotions work the same way.

Why would we choose to fret if we didn’t have to? Why would we WANT to choose to envy someone or something? It makes no logical sense. And in light of the Word and all it teaches, choosing to view the wicked of this world and then envying them makes even less logical sense. Yet it is something that we do again and again. Oh look at that house. Look at that vehicle. Look at those clothes. Look at that property. Look at where they vacation. Look how much money they have. Yet in the end, their light will be snuffed out. It means to extinguish rapidly, putting a sudden end to. Like when you put out a candle by pinching the wick. Rapid, inevitable, and final. This is where the wicked are going. Are you really going to envy that?

“Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom” (Galatians 5:19-21). Doesn’t sound as pretty as the world paints it, does it? Affairs, preferences, personal truth, the heart wants what it wants, cultural beliefs and spirituality, manifestation, and the list goes on. They always have a label for things. They always have a spin for things. They always have a reason or explanation of how this thing is just another aspect of a normal life. An animalian response, if you will. You see, if we are just animals that have crawled our way up the ladder a tad more than the rest of the animals, then there is no ultimate morality that might require us to behave in a way that means we don’t just do whatever we want whenever we want. That whole if it feels good do it because we all have our own truth thing.

The Word does not agree. We are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). We do NOT need to be conformed to how the world thinks (Romans 12:2). We can strengthen and deepen our faith (Romans 10:17) to help us with our emotions. “Yes, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence; and in moral excellence, knowledge; and in knowledge, self-control; and in self-control, perseverance; and in perseverance, godliness; and in godliness, brotherly affection; and in brotherly affection, love. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to not be idle or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:5-8). It all comes back to Jesus and our identity in Him. We are to abide in Jesus and stay connected to Him (John 15) because in Him we are made complete (Colossians 2:9-10). In fact, when Jesus lives in us and we live in Him, then He becomes our identity. Not a feeling, not an emotion, not a lifestyle, not an action. The Lord God Himself: “For him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

That is better than envying the wicked. That is better than relying on a given behaviour to inform us of who we are as people. That is better than letting feelings dictate who we are, what we think, and what we emote. We were NOT given a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control (2 Timothy 1:7). In Jesus, by Jesus, through Jesus, and for Jesus, we can become what the Lord designed for us to be. Livers of His abundant life. Reject fear, and grasp this truth hard. We are NOT slaves to fear or to the world. The wicked have NOTHING on us. Jesus overcame the world (John 16:33) and we overcome the world in Jesus (1 John 5:4). Don’t envy, love. Because the light of the love is desperately needed by the lost who inhabit this world. As Jesus sent people to help us when we were lost, we too need to stand and shine out Jesus’ light for all the world to see. Overcomers. Livers of abundant life. Those who love. More than conquerors through Him who loves us ALL (Romans 8:37).

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: 1 John 3:9

Jesus plants something inside us that no one else does. The world plants seeds of obedience to the powers that be. The education system plants seeds of unreasoning adherence to the rules. The scientific system plants seeds of faith in the tools, observations, and calculations of man. The banking system plants seeds of debt. The commerce system plants seeds of uncontrolled desire for material goods. But the Lord God Almighty plants seeds of righteousness. His righteousness. Not based in works, but in Grace. Not based in the Law, but in Grace. By Grace we were saved. By Grace we were redeemed. By Grace we are renewed into His thinking, His behaviours, and His righteous ways. Those seeds produce two things: good works as the fruit of faith and the inability to sin. That’s right. The inability. Sin for the born again individual is a choice. We have to FORCE ourselves to ignore everything that we know to be true in order to pick up a sin and commit it. Kind of jarring when you realise that. We like to think that it is unconscious or our nature. But that is NOT the case. The WORD SAYS we are unable to commit sin because we are born of God. That is a POWERFUL seed. A totally renewed nature. Breaking the hold of sin – which is a strong hold. We are again on the inside of the door and sin is on the outside (Genesis 4:7). What a great act of love. We are free. Free indeed (John 8:36). Let’s revel in that freedom and give worship for it where worship is due: at the feet of the Most High before whom we humbly bow.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.