Fear No Fear

(All scripture from Lexham English Bible, Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software)

“So then, brothers, we are obligated not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself confirms to our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer together with him so that we may also be glorified together with him.” (Romans 8:12-17)

In chapter six Paul revels in the Grace God has given us. Not a get-out-of-jail-free card. Not an opportunity to sin because you know He will forgive you if you repent. But a Grace that ignites such a love for God that you seek to NEVER sin and ALWAYS humbly submit to God. Just to see Him smile. Just to please Him. Not forced, but freely choosing to embody all that Jesus is as a sacrifice of love. This is such an important thing to know, Paul mentions it three times in Romans (Romans 3:8; 6:1-2; 6:15) and twice in Galatians (Galatians 2:17; 3:21). We all need to understand this. Salvation is TRANSFORMATIONAL, but there is also FREE CHOICE involved and we need to ALWAYS choose LOVE (which by its nature is abhors sin). Once we are saved, we are DEAD to sin. We’re not living holy lives in order to be accepted by God. We seek to live holy lives because we are changed. Why resist sin them, if there is Grace? Because sin is an inroad of the devil to enter our lives and cause trouble (Genesis 4:7). We abhor sin and avoid it only by actively living in Jesus. And when we do, we prevent a lot of ways that the devil has to cause us problems. We no longer have a sin nature, an innate propensity to sin (1 John 3:9). But we CAN choose to rebel, not trust in Jesus, and sin. We can go along with our old broken thinking and muscle memory patterns of sin. If we fail to renew our minds to the possibilities God presents to us, we are doomed to repeat them. We have been liberated from what made us sin (our old nature). It is DEAD. We have been resurrected into the possibility of holy living, if we will retrain our minds (or reprogram them), we will destroy the old thinking and the old muscle memory, creating NEW thinking and NEW muscle memory based on the moral character of Jesus – which will result in us no longer choosing to sin (2 Corinthians 3:18). Once we KNOW this truth, we will start to see the resurrection life (the Spirit Life of Jesus) begin to manifest in our hearts and minds. Understanding this also helps us because we know we are free FROM sin and therefore when we do sin, we are free to fun to God for help instead of hiding it or running away fearful of what God might do. Understanding God’s grace and our freedom from the law of sin and death is the key to breaking the dominance of sin in our lives and the Word is the key to renewing our minds to this revelation. Scripture is consistent from front to back on God’s Grace, the purpose of the Law, and our freedom in Jesus to live holy and reject sin.

We need to choose who we are going to submit to. The power of God or the influence of the devil. Our actions either release the power of God in our lives or join the devil in his rebellion – which is our authority given to him by us and perverted to our detriment. He has no power in and of himself beyond words, so he is always seeking to usurp our authority (given to us by God) and then use it to kill us (2 Corinthians 2:11; John 10:10). The devil is not God’s counterpart or a brother to Jesus or in any way on their level. He is a disgruntled employee that tried to kick out the CEO and is trying to burn down the building/break as much stuff as he can as he is dragged out by security. This is not a contest. It isn’t even a battle. The devil tried that and couldn’t keep his place (Revelation 12:8). It’s over for him. But it is NOT over for us. We are either going to be slaves to righteousness and rejoice in our Spirit Life, OR we are going to be slaves to rebellious thinking and go down with the devil in true death. It’s one or the other. Jesus or not-Jesus (since ANYTHING not based on trust Jesus is sin – Romans 14:23). The battlefield is our mind (Matthew 6:24). We will either submit to God and become a servant of His will or we will give ourselves over to sin and become a servant of the purposes of the devil (stealing, killing, and destroying anything he can). If we serve righteousness, we are servants of Jesus. This should be the goal of all believers because this is what brings the BLESSING (abundant life) into our lives. We need to choose – daily – to obey with all our hearts, the Lord Jesus (Matthew 16:24-26). Holiness is a byproduct of our relationship with God in the same way death is a byproduct of sin. Sin brings death (Romans 6:23) but God brings eternal life in Jesus.

In chapter seven, Paul makes it clear that since our old nature is DEAD and GONE forever, we are freed from the Law. The purpose of the Law was to show us what sin was. It was designed to expose the sin nature we had for what it was. A sin without the Law is a mistake. But when we KNOW the law, then it is SIN. God gave the Law to show up sin for what it was, to make it ‘come alive’ so that no one could profess holiness based on their own behaviour. It covered actions people could see, words people could hear, but also every thought in our hearts or in our heads. Things done in secret as well as things done in public. It was a ministry to death and it strengthened sin in the lives of those with a sinful nature in order to FORCE them to see the TRUTH: they NEEDED a saviour. They could NOT do it on their own. The Law wasn’t the thing that drove us to sin. The Law was the thing that clearly showed us we had a depraved nature. We could no longer be deceived into thinking that we could produce salvation on our own apart from God. It was THIS revelation that would allow them to be saved once Jesus did His work. It was THIS revelation that was not far from them and reachable by all who were exposed to the Law (Deuteronomy 30:11-14). This was how Abraham was counted righteous: submission to God being the ONLY one who could save and obedience to what God said in heart, mind, word, and deed (Romans 4:9; Romans 4:22; Galatians 3:6; James 2:23; Genesis 15:6; Titus 3:8).

We were in bondage to the Law as long as we were alive in our old nature. It was until death we were parted – death being the consequence of sin. We get that death through Jesus’ experience on the cross. We die in Him so that the old nature is dead and we are freed from sin – forever. We are then resurrected in Him so that we gain a new nature of SPIRIT LIFE from which there is NO death (or Law) – EVER. This is the marriage we have with Jesus, our bridegroom (Isaiah 61:10; 2 Corinthians 11:2; Revelation 19:7). The Law had no trust. It was works to prove works alone are not enough. Spirit Life is based on trust in Jesus, and when we have that trust we can’t HELP but also do works – but works prepared for us to walk in (Ephesians 2:10). The trusting in Jesus produces the fruit of works, not to get salvation but to show our love of Jesus and our trust in Him. We weren’t freed from the old nature to do whatever we wanted. We were freed from the old nature in order to ‘marry’ Jesus and serve Him in our new nature – Spirit Life. Our marriage to Jesus is intended to produce fruit (Genesis 1:28; James 2:26). Which it CAN do, but ONLY when we rely on Jesus.

Chapter eight answers what chapter seven points out. Chapter seven shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that anyone attempting to provide salvation from their own resources were doomed to failure. Anyone trying to live out the life of a believe in Jesus from their own resources were doomed to failure. We can NEVER elevate our flesh to the place there it can fulfill the Law of God. When we try, we will find ourselves doing that which we DON’T want to do: breaking the Law of God. But JESUS did it. JESUS kept the Law. So what the Law couldn’t do and wasn’t meant to do (provide us with salvation), Jesus DID do and was meant to do (Revelation 13:8). We only need to accept it by believing Jesus and trusting in what HE already did. It is Jesus in us that manifests holiness in our lives. In us, Jesus accomplishes what WE could never do. The Law condemns us and brings us to the end of ourselves so that we can then lay down our lives with Jesus and let Him pick us up to new life in Him. In this new life we have NO CONDEMNATION because it is based on the merits of Jesus, not of us. It is based on Jesus’ strength, not ours. It’s ALL about Jesus. In Jesus we are new creations and have a new identity (2 Corinthians 5:17). We have a new nature: His (2 Corinthians 5:21). We are living Spirit Life or life IN Jesus.

Since we have a new nature, we need to follow the dictates of that nature. We are IN Jesus, so we need to walk AFTER Jesus – this is the natural desire of those who trust in Jesus. But we are still able to rebel and walk AFTER the broken thinking we used to be in. When we do that, our own consciences and the devil condemn us. We are NEVER condemned for it by God. Instead, God convicts us of trusting and not trusting in Jesus through Holy Spirit (John 16:8). God is ALWAYS about reminding us of WHO WE ARE IN JESUS. And it is that reminder of who we are really IN that brings us into repentance when we choose to sin (1 John 1:9). God CONVICTS out of love solely for our benefit. CONDEMNATION is always from some other source and includes punishment. It is only by leaving the protection of walking AFTER Jesus that we can expose ourselves to the condemnation of walking after the flesh. Walking after Jesus doesn’t mean we’re perfect. It means we are truly seeking to follow Jesus’ example. We are truly seeking to engage our new nature and take real joy from doing the things that align with Jesus’ moral character – because we love Him. So in our perfected, sealed, and righteous spirits we can rejoice that we have the righteousness of Jesus completely and totally. In the rest of us (soul and body) we can, through Holy Spirit, engage what we have in our spirits outwardly, day by day living more and more holy lives as we submit to what we find in the Word and as we follow (obey) the guidance and correction of Holy Spirit. It is a process moving ever forward until one day we will be face to face with Jesus and are totally spirit-soul-body transformed and renewed into a carbon copy of Jesus (minus the divinity). When we give ourselves over to humble submission to the Spirit of God, we will have our minds stayed on spiritual things (John 6:63) – which brings us God’s peace (Isaiah 26:3). It is what we THINK ON that we are going to become and do (Proverbs 23:7; Matthew 12:34; John 4:24; Hebrews 4:12). When God is our SOURCE, we are able to live Spirit Life. Jesus connects us to that Source (John 15:5), our Father (we are in Jesus, children of God). And ANY attempt to live separate from Jesus or without leaning into God as the Source of EVERYTHING we need, will fail. It is only in, through, and by Jesus that we have LIFE and that abundantly (John 10:10). The life of a believer in Jesus is impossible outside of Jesus’ strength and power. We are joint heirs with Jesus, and Jesus will never back our bad decisions. All our good decisions are always us backing His (Matthew 19:26). Jesus’ promises are in the Word. It is our responsibility to cooperate with Him and receive them – which is not always easy (Matthew 26:41). But we are the children of God in Jesus and as the children of God we have a share in the inheritance that the Word says is ours. This is our eager expectation which will be fulfilled in Jesus when our whole selves are renewed in Him (spirit-soul-body). Not just us, but all of Creation with us. Jesus was THE firstfruit of the Kingdom. In the same way, we are the firstfruits of the renewal of all things. We do not see it yet, but we do see it in spirit – and wait for eagerly. Holy Spirit helps us as we trust over time that it will come to pass and we will reach it because we get there by the love Jesus has for us. And nothing can separate us from the love Jesus has for us – not occult powers or human endeavours or persecutions or sufferings or our circumstances and situations. Nothing and no one can separate us from Jesus’ love. And our love is returned to Jesus as we walk according to the calling of God for our lives – living according to His purpose. When we are loved and love in return in this way of obedience to His will, nothing can stop His design and He will turn everything to our good because of our walking after Jesus.

Summary

Key Players: God, Jesus, Paul

Key Verse(s): Romans 6:1-14; 7:4-6; 8:14-17, 31-39