Fear No Fear

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

Even the youths faint and get weary, and the young men utterly fall; but those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31 (emphasis added)

The world categorises fear as a primal emotion. A universal biochemical response with a high individual emotional response. It can stem from real threats or imagined dangers. They call it a natural response that ‘can’ lead to distress and disruption when extreme or out of proportion to the actual threat. The enemy has spent an enormous amount of effort to get that attitude cemented in the minds of people. Whether they truly think the evidence points to it or not, everyone from behavioural scientists down to kindergarten teachers think this is the case. That everyone has fear, that it is normal, and that we all need to learn to manage it.

Even the youths faint. In olden times, that word (faint) meant to lose courage or spirit. To fail or become weak, especially in hope or courage. Essentially, to give into fear. Fear is an external force. It is a feeling that can rise up against us. It is NOT part of the human psyche. There is NO REASON for fear. Oh, fight or flight, you say. Humans had no need for fighting or flight. We had total and complete dominion over this planet with a mandate to subdue it, replenish it, and caretake it and all its resources in the service of God and humanity (Genesis 1:26–28; 2:8). We are all descended from those who were given those charge. Of course, the flood COULD have changed that. But it didn’t. “God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you will be on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the sky. Everything that moves along the ground, and all the fish of the sea, are delivered into your hand. Every moving thing that lives will be food for you. As I gave you the green herb, I have given everything to you” (Genesis 9:1–3). We have the authority given by God to command everything non-human that can harm us to stand down and leave us alone. From mosquitoes to lions. We only need to believe it and stand on that Word in total heartfelt belief.

Why would we need to fight or flee? No. That is totally external. It is a learned behaviour. It is a spirit that we accept into ourselves and feed over and over again in all sorts of ways. It isn’t always about survival. We pick it up over creepy crawlies we don’t like. Or clowns. Or sock puppets. We pick it up over trauma and bad experiences, fearing that they will occur again — and almost nothing is worse than with abuse because it is a repeated behaviour in the first place. We celebrate it in the entertainment industry, making those feelings of shock and horror ‘fun’. We have holidays that altar to it. We have traditions and cultures and educational ideals to make us friends with it. All of it is foreign. All of it is of the devil in one way or another. And all of it is a lie. “For God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7). If we have fear inside us and God didn’t give it to us, who do you think started the ball rolling our way? Yes, our flesh reacts to things but our minds CHOOSE whether to process it as fear or brush it off like a fly off potato salad.

This doesn’t mean we can just say a few nice words and make everything go bye-bye. No. It must be KNOWN in your mind. BELIEVED in your heart. Not the concepts, but why we have the opportunity to make a change in the first place. Because without Jesus we are NOTHING. We’re a mobile pile of dirt complaining about the twigs, rocks, and moss mixed up in ourselves. But in JESUS? We are overcomers. We have victory. We have a new spirit. We are new creatures. And we have a mandate to use the authority that Jesus got back for humanity, wielding it according to the Word and the Will of the Father. The Father’s Will NEVER includes fear. It does however include good stewardship, so don’t be taking the authority to heart and run through the jungle covered in tabasco sauce while commanding meat eaters to stay away.

“For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”” (Romans 8:15). We were set free by Jesus (Galatians 5:1). Yahweh God is a God of forward motion. Go forward, not back. There is no retreat in the Lord. There should be no retreat for us. No going back to Egypt (Deuteronomy 28:68, Numbers 11:3–5, Exodus 14:13, Jeremiah 42:15–19), which for us is our sinful selves. The lifestyle and thinking that we had before we were born again. We are NOT to become slaves to sin again. We are NOT to throw away our boldness (Hebrews 10:5), freedom (Galatians 5:13), or courage (Joshua 1:9). Youths faint. Young men utterly fail at this. Why? No stamina. No determination. No lesson that we CANNOT DO IT ALONE. Young people ALWAYS think they can do it themselves (whether they are 4 or forty). You know it. You’ve felt it and thought it and thrown fits over it. But that is not the way of the kingdom of God.

‘Wait for the Lord, whose day is near, Wait for the Lord: be strong, take heart!’ Have you heard that hymn? (“Wait for the Lord” by Communauté de Taizé). The word ‘wait’ means to hope, to anticipate, and to trust. That eager expectation which is faith. That eager expectation that births manifested obedience. That impulse full of smiles that says, ‘Any day now. Any day now, God is going to do it.’ Faith that means it won’t matter if it takes a day, three days, five years, twenty years, or never. Faith where the ‘Thank you, Lord. I KNEW you were going to do it’ will happen with the same enthusiasm five minutes after praying, several decades, or when you see Him in heaven. Full trust that what the Lord says He will do, He is able to and will do. Period. Total confidence. THAT is waiting. That is the waiting that renews your strength because that expectation looks forward to God’s good work which creates sheer joy and JOY is our strength when it comes from and is centred on the Lord (Nehemiah 8:10).
Funny thing about renewal. It can mean a restoration of the original. It can also mean (and shopping malls around the world will attest to this) a total renovation creating a new thing that looks almost but completely different than what came before. Eagles know about that. Bald eagles have over 7,000 feathers. They grow right out of the skin like a hard follicle does on a human. Prior to reaching sexual maturity at five years of age, they go through four different plumages. Then they moult again into their adult plumage. Moult is affected by biological and welfare factors like food supply, how many other eagles are around, and not all of the moults are complete full-body moults. Matched feathers are almost never lost at the same time so that flight is enabled at all stages. At almost any time of the year some evidence of moulting can be observed. And after they are adults? They moult their flight feathers about once a year. Moulting for a bald eagle is intense in the first five years, but it is a process that never finishes.

“but those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles.” The Hebrew Tanakh (Tanach) includes Isaiah (or Yeshayahu) in the Nevi’im or Prophets section. If you look it up, you’ll see it reads “But those who put their hope in the Lord shall renew [their] vigor, they shall raise wings as eagles” (chabad.org) or “But they who trust in GOD shall renew their strength As eagles grow new plumes” (Sefaria.org, The JPS Tanakh). Youth don’t know what’s going on. But those who are older, moult. They know there is a process, that it can be uncomfortable, that it never seems to end, and that in the end they will be stronger. They know it by the example of their parents and the other eagles around them. They know it by their own soul that speaks to them with instinct saying ‘this is okay this is okay this is okay’. This is a POWERFUL spiritual principle that we need to get inside our hearts.

We do NOT have a spirit of fear. But we grew many, MANY feathers that were not born of a seed of faith (Romans 14:23). We have spent years to decades training our mental selves one way. If we continue that way, we will get weary. We will faint. Our strength will profit us nothing. Our flesh gives us NOTHING to go on. NOTHING to sustain us. Our physical selves are totally, completely, USELESS. “It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life. But there are some of you who don’t believe” (John 6:63–64a). Those are the words of Jesus Himself. Faith builds. But it cannot be seen. It cannot be felt. It builds us up, not itself — the WORD builds up faith. It simply IS. Fear can be seen. Fear can be felt. Fear builds up itself to tear us down. It wants us empty, abandoned, and passed out. We can’t hurt the world that way. We can’t shine that way. We can’t do ANYTHING FOR THE KINGDOM THAT WAY.

Expect great things from the Father God Almighty. He promised. He is able to do what HE said that HE can do and WILL do (Hebrews 10:23). If you are expecting good things from God, you will find good things from God reach you. Why? Because you’re not fighting His goodness. You’re not struggling to do it yourself. You are trusting the process of John 17:17 and letting HIM sanctify YOU with the WORD. If we trust, we will renew. If we trust, we will renew. If we trust, WE WILL RENEW! Then we will walk where He wants — no loss of courage. We will run where He wants — no loss of spirit. We will go forward, ever forward — no loss of hope. We will NOT be weak. We will NOT be faint. We will NOT yield to flesh. We will NOT yield to fear. We will MAINTAIN our trust in the Lord. We WILL remain smiling, looking around, talking faith, and telling everyone who asks ANY DAY NOW, ANY DAY. Sanctified by His Word. Justified by His Spirit. Renewed, restored, redeemed, and faithful in our expectation of His promises. No fear. But so much faith, the world will see it shining everywhere we go. It will resonate for miles and miles and miles and miles.
It will be finished, completed, and ours. When? Any day now. Any. Day. Amen.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Hebrews 10:23

We have a unique ability. It is one of the things that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are not animals. That we are not part of the animal kingdom. We are not part of a food chain. We are IN this world, but the human species (male and female) are NOT part of it. We have the unique ability to speak words and believe them. Nothing else on this planet does this. Name something that uses language. ANYTHING. They do not use words. They do NOT believe them. They parrot things. They communicate. But always they have to have action to go along with the communication to get the point across. There are those who believe chimpanzees are very close to us. They climb their way to the top and overthrow their leaders. They ostracise them. They become prey for other groups. And if they come back, they can actually be killed. Humans are not like this. We speak to each other. Tell each other we’re fired. And that person leaves. Later, they might come back and buy the company. They might get re-hired. But it is all done with words — unless we are intentionally being barbaric. Words. Words that we believe. We say money has value and we then believe it. So money has value. Even made up money no one crafted or based on anything of real value. We can say words and believe them. We can confess the words that our minds have decided to believe, and those words will go into our hearts and become the thing that we do — in fact — believe. That is a gift unlike anything else that has ever been given to anything with a soul. Why did God give it to us? So that we can look into our hearts and into our spirit and confess that He is a GOOD GOD, He does GOOD THINGS, and He will do BETTER THINGS in the future — all while being by our side and helping us both develop and prosper spiritually in all our trials, rests, and labours. He gifted us with the one thing that we require to do the thing that He desires. He does NOT leave us hanging, alone, or unequipped. THAT is love.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.