Fear No Fear

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

“Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this time’? But I came to this time for this cause. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came out of the sky, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”
John 12:27–28 (emphasis added)

Why can’t we have this attitude? Here is Jesus at the beginning of the final stretch of the road that ends His physical earthly ministry. Not a gentle retirement, but a bloody and brutal death on the cross. He naturally didn’t ‘want’ it. Spiritually, He wanted it. Spiritually, He went happy to the cross (Romans 5:8). But His flesh? It didn’t WANT to die. It didn’t WANT to suffer. It did not WANT the bruises. It did not WANT the blood loss. It did not WANT the horror of the cross. It wanted Him to go the other way, take an easy way out, bow to the devil, anything at all. This shouldn’t surprise you. The devil offered a way out to Jesus right at the beginning (Matthew 4:1–11). It would not have qualified as a temptation if it wasn’t TEMPTING. But Jesus was in total, absolute submission to His Father and refused.

“What shall I say?” What? Should I say I’m tired and I want to go home? Should I say it’s too hard for me? Should I say that I changed my mind? Should I say that I just can’t bring myself to do it? These are all questions that come to our minds again and again and again and again, don’t they? It’s the standard human line. Why can’t I retire sooner? I have the sniffles. I don’t feel like working today. Oh, leave it for tomorrow. It is the laziness of the flesh. In fact, the only thing that the flesh isn’t lazy about is sloth. Anything that helps it to slack off what it should be doing, it is really energetic about. Don’t think that sounds right? Next time you have a deadline (bedtime, a project, needing to pray or read your daily devotions) and you don’t feel like you have the energy for it, log how much social media scrolling you do. It’s funny how many hours can be spent wasting time when we couldn’t make it through another ten minutes working.

Jesus shows us another way. He shows us a way of obedience. He shows us a way of persevering. Unlike Job, who persevered in suffering, Jesus persevered by turning suffering to an opportunity to glorify the Father. He turned things around and pointed directly at Yahweh Almighty: “But I came to this time for this cause. Father, glorify your name!” He declared that He KNEW this was His assignment and that He had accepted His assignment. Jesus declared that even though the assignment was getting difficult and that He KNEW it would be terrible, He was going to fulfil the assignment. Not on His own initiative. Not by His own strength. No, Jesus was going to fulfil what the Father put in front of Him to do BY the strength of the Lord, IN the strength of the Lord, and THROUGH the strength of the Lord. There were no two ways about it. Jesus needed to abide in His Father to succeed. Any other path would lead to failure. Jesus chose to walk out what had been already accomplished in the spirit from before the foundation of the Lord (Revelation 13:8).

How did Jesus choose? Adam also had a righteous spirit. Adam chose selfishness (Genesis 3). Adam chose to stop trusting that the Lord would meet his needs. That the bounty of food God had provided wasn’t enough. That God was going to keep knowledge from them — knowledge that sounded like it would be good to have. Adam stopped trusting that God would meet his mental and spiritual needs. He agreed with deceit. He envied the position of the heavenly court. What did the Last Adam (Jesus) do differently? “Putting away therefore all wickedness, all deceit, hypocrisies, envies, and all evil speaking, as newborn babies, long for the pure spiritual milk, that with it you may grow, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious” (1 Peter 2:1–3). Jesus renounced all wickedness, all deceit, all hypocrisy, all envy, and did not speak evil. Ever. Jesus had the SAME choice Adam did: will you trust that the Lord knows best in ALL THINGS or not? Jesus chose to trust.

This isn’t a small thing. Colossians 1:16 tells us that Jesus had all authority over heaven and earth. Jesus held (and holds) everything together (Colossians 1:17). Jesus laid that all aside. He obeyed the Father and submitted completely to His will. He did it in heaven — slain before the foundation of the world. He did it on earth. He was always pointing to the Father, not Himself. “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works’ sake. Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father” (John 14:10–12). If Jesus had a different attitude, He would have had a hard time doing what He did. But He had a choice, chose His path, and then stuck to it. He stuck to it by putting the Word first. He stuck to it by listening to the Holy Spirit. He stuck to it by praying and fasting, keeping His flesh under control.

Jesus studied the scriptures (John 7:14, Luke 2:46–47). He had been doing it all His life. Yes, Jesus IS the Word, but as a man He had to learn them. He had to get them into His head and through His mind into His heart. We know from His time on the cross that He knew the psalms (quoting Psalm 22 in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 — a messianic psalm of complete victory). It is obvious from His life that Jesus modelled Psalm 1 for us:

“Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in Yahweh’s law. On his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper. The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.”

Jesus was NEVER anything but victorious. He was prosperous in spirit and prosperous in His life. He worked at deepening and strengthening His faith. He submitted and walked humbly. When they said how great Jesus was, He told them He could only do what the Father showed Him and say what the Father told Him to say. He glorified the Father in everything. In every waking moment He talked the scriptures. This is the example He set for us. But we’re not Jesus, you say. No. No, we are NOT. But He gifted us His Righteous Spirit. He sent the Holy Spirit to guide, correct, and teach us. He paid the price for sin, reconciling us with the Father so that WE TOO can hear what He says and do what He shows us. In Jesus we can accomplish everything (Philippians 4:13). “We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 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 5:20–21). In Jesus, we are the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD.

To walk in faith is to understand that identity, claim that identity, and then work on our spiritual health until through Jesus and the renewal of our minds we embody the identity as He intended. “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be healthy, even as your soul prospers” (1 John 1:2). That is the ‘secret’ that God has proclaimed from Genesis to Revelation. The things that are not visible to mortal eyes are what brought about what is visible (Hebrews 11:3). Faith is how we access the spiritual and God gave us His faith to use for that purpose by Grace. “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” says the Lord Yahweh, “and not rather that he should return from his way, and live?” (Ezekiel 18:23). “Tell them, ‘ “As I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why will you die, house of Israel?”” (Ezekiel 33:11). “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony at the proper time, to which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle — I am telling the truth in Christ, not lying — a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth” (1 Timothy 2:3–7).

We need to follow the example of Jesus. We need to get our hearts full of the Word so that we will always in every circumstance glorify the Lord. So that we will accept all that the Lord has for us — be it blessing, teaching, correction, or instruction. THIS is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. To comfort us as we accept those things the Lord has for us. Because it doesn’t always go for us the way it should — we are, after all, flesh creatures. “Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say?” This was Jesus’ question. This too is ours. Will we say what the Word says about us? Will we stand on who the Word says we are? Will we say we are healed when our bodies (and maybe the doctors) say differently? Would you like to know a TRUTH? Whatever moment your heart FULLY and TRULY believes that you are healed, you will be healed. Whenever your heart FULLY and TRULY believes the Word, you will get what the Word promises you (Mark 11:22–16). The Lord spoke the Word and in that Word there is power. We cannot turn it to our own purposes. We can ONLY have what the FATHER declares. We can ONLY do what the FATHER shows us. Anything else is disobedience (sin — Romans 14:23). This is our struggle.

“This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie and don’t tell the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we haven’t sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:5–10). It is only through Jesus that we accomplish anything. We do not HAVE to sin. But if we do, we know that the Holy Spirit can help us to renew our minds, understand our behaviour is wrong, call it what God calls it, and change our patterns so that we gain freedom from our old self, our flesh, and by the Grace and guidance of the Lord walk His paths. Jesus did it. IN JESUS, we can too. “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). OUR teacher is the Holy Spirit (John 14:26).

May we truly discipline ourselves to walk in His ways. May we pray, fast, worship, and spend time in His presence. May we abide in the Word every day, getting it into our mind and into our hearts. May the Lord sanctify us in the truth — His WORD is truth (John 17:17). May we too point to the Father and glorify His name in every way, every day. It is what the Lord God Almighty deserves. Trust in Him and never let go of that faith, no matter what you see around you. It’s only temporary.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Nehemiah 9:20

The Father keeps His word. Always. Sometimes we THINK it’s taking too long (2 Peter 3:9). But the Lord does everything in the RIGHT time, not our time (Ecclesiastes 3:1–7). At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was given to us as our instructor (John 14:29, Acts 2:1–4). Jesus came to be our bread (or manna). He tells us that in John 6:32–40. He is our bread and our water. Luke 22:19, 1 Corinthians 11:23–26, and Matthew 4:4 shows us that in action. Sometimes when we come across a promise from the Lord, it seems so far away. We know in our mind that it is true. We believe it so hard it hurts. We cry out and pray and speak out declarations, but still it doesn’t come true. The fact is that if it’s a promise of something God has already released (baptism of the Holy Spirit, healing, victory over debt, etc) as soon as our HEART believes it, it comes to pass. As soon as the HEART accepts what God is freely holding out to us, we’ll receive it. When it comes to promises of action (deliverance from a situation, etc), as soon as our HEART believes it, we get peace over it and the time involved doesn’t phase us. Our heart will believe exactly as far as our spiritual life is renewed to the things of God. Our spirit is Jesus’ spirit, but our knowledge of that will determine how much of that freedom we walk in (3 John 1:2). The Word will renew us to His ways, His ideas, and His will (Romans 12:2). As we trust in Him, we gain expectation that our efforts to get the Word into us will not be in vain (1 Samuel 26:23, Hebrews 10:35). The Lord’s promises are trustworthy. He loves us too much not to watch over His words to us (Jeremiah 1:12). He WILL perform it.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.