Fear No Fear

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

For yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more. Yes, though you look for his place, he isn’t there. But the humble shall inherit the land, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
Psalm 37:10–11 (emphasis added)

This is a great theme that we tend to forget about. It is a theme that has been latched onto before throughout human history, but we tend to forget the salient fact: the difference in points of view. The human perspective is the factors and experience we use in formulating ideas, solving problems, and making decisions. Our human factors. Our human experience. It is a pragmatic way of thinking (remember that). For example, our community perspective affects our rationality. Our culture is shaped by the emotions we choose. We are biased by our need and the sense of human scale. They affect our idea of our limitations or errors and our perception of what goes on. Our institutions are based on our languages. Our motivations inform our lifestyles. Our opinions affect what we see as the ‘norm’ of life. And on it goes. There are dozens of examples of human perspective, the aesthetics of them and the biases that help mould them.

This becomes important when you start to try and figure out what’s going on in our lives and the lives of those around us. Barry Stroud wrote a paper called Knowledge from a Human Point of View in November of 2019 (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-27041-4_9). Here are a few sentences from the abstract: ‘Everything that is known by human beings is known from a human point of view. There is no other point of view from which human beings can know anything. Is there something distinctively ‘perspectival’ about human knowledge or the study of human knowledge? Explaining how such-and-such has come to be known by human beings involves explaining how those who know it came to get things right. Those who explain that knowledge are thereby committed to the truth of what is said to be known.’

Remember that human perspective? The human perspective is a pragmatic approach to thinking where human beings fundamentally perceive things based on our nature. Right there is the single important point of all of that. We FUNDAMENTALLY perceive things based on our NATURE. All those people who are against religion? They are committed to the truth of what is known by them because at a fundamental level they are perceiving the world around them by their nature. Flawed nature, flawed perception. It isn’t their fault. This is the world we live in. A world fallen. A world twisted from its original purpose and existence. Therefore, any and everything that we observe (which is what science is — the observation of the world around you and the attempt to understand what you are seeing); everything that we observe is fallen and twisted. It doesn’t work the way it is supposed to!

“For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:19–23). If creation is groaning because it KNOWS that it isn’t what it should be or where it should be, how can we hope to understand what is REALLY going on? Short answer: we can’t. We can figure out only what is going wrong. If we want to know what is REALLY going on, we need the perspective of someone who has NOT fallen. We need the perspective of someone OUTSIDE of the system.

Interestingly, this means the devil and evil spirits cannot tell you what is really going on. They’re fallen. They are not outside the system. God is the only one outside the system who has perspective on what is really going on. But angels, you say. Angels say and do ONLY what the Lord God tells them (Psalm 91:11). They have no emotions connected to us. There is no nuance to them. They are black and white/God and not-God. They do not give colour commentary. We need to look for God. He warned us about that thousands of years ago. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says Yahweh. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9). “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He has taken the wise in their craftiness.” And again, “The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that it is worthless”” (1 Corinthians 3:19–20). God knows things we CANNOT know. The nature of God is NOT the nature of humanity (remember this too).

What is God’s perspective? Eternity. Outside the Arrow of Time. He is not bound by any of our dimensions. He is not bound by any of our rules. He is only bound by the rules that HE sets down. He NEVER goes against His Word. He CANNOT lie. This is the Lord. The Mighty One. Creator of all things. If we want to know what is really happening, we need to speak to the One who was BEFORE creation started, is watching everything that happens DURING creation, and is also there AFTER creation. He knows the ending from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9–10). Who else is going to have that kind of knowledge? Who else is going to see the things behind the things that are behind the things that we can’t quite see? Who else can put things into perspective? From OUR point of view things happen in an unending forward moving timeline where we cannot stop, cannot go back (except to view memory), and cannot jump ahead (except to envision things that will be affected by billions of other people and circumstances and could alter what we see by the time we catch up to what we saw). A Christmas Carol is a fictitious story not without its problems, but it is a perfect time traveller story. When he goes to the past, he cannot change it; they are shadows. When he walks in the present, he cannot affect it; he is a shadow. When he steps into the future, it is shadowy because it can be changed by the present alone. God has a thousand times thousands times more ability to figure it all out than we can possibly imagine.

God has given us our perspective. We face trials. We wait for blessings. We want miracles. We believe. But why not now? Now? NOW? God tells us. It isn’t a secret. “For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory, while we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18). Which is for a MOMENT. It is a moment. It is all a moment. From an eternity point of view Methuselah’s entire nine hundred and sixty-nine year lifespan was BUT A MOMENT. That can be daunting. We have trained ourselves to be instant people. But faith isn’t instant. Faith is eternal and we can take heart that the Lord isn’t slow. He is eternal and will bring what He will bring when it is time for the bringing to be brought. “But don’t forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but he is patient with us, not wishing that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:8–9). If the Lord isn’t slow in such an important thing as redemption, He won’t be slow in ANYTHING. When then? But a moment.

“For a thousand years in your sight are just like yesterday when it is past, like a watch in the night. You sweep them away as they sleep. In the morning they sprout like new grass” (Psalm 90:4–5). Time does not mean to the Lord what it means to us. Take heart, though. This is NOT a bad thing. He is able to see the end from the beginning. That means He also knows where we need comfort. Where we need strengthening. Where we are going to fall. He can arrange a way out. He can bring help along our way. He can start a meteor spinning in the far reaches of the universe to travel untold distance to hit our atmosphere at just the right time to come down and hit the earth and cause a small disaster in the wilderness that makes a flood of unexpected water which closes a bridge which keeps you from getting to work on time which gets you fired which enables you to be able to take that other job that is suddenly brought across your path and makes you more money over time than the first one. The Lord has a UNIQUE perspective. WHY are we not availing ourselves of it?

Yes, I know it is hard when He says wait. Yes, I know we’re impatient. Yes, I know we’re only human. But… guess what? You know what He did? He bridged the gap. Remember that the nature of God is not the nature of humanity? “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). “Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and virtue, by which he has granted to us his precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust” (2 Peter 1:2–4). We have been given GOD’S NATURE. We are NEW creations in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are hidden in Him (Colossians 3:3). More than just a spirit that imbues us and nothing else, His Holy Spirit speaks to us! It comforts us, corrects us, instructs us, and everything in between.

“Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:6–7). We walk in the faith of God (Mark 11:22). We use that faith to communicate and interact with the Holy Spirit on a FAITH-LEVEL on our own AND when reading the Word in order to ensure that we are getting the full picture (the parts we can understand and will not harm us) of God’s perspective on any given situation. God’s ways are above ours, so He gave us a translator. We are here for a little while. Our trouble is a little while. The wicked often gain supremacy on earth for a little while. THAT is God’s perspective. It will all be over in a SHORT time. BUT A MOMENT. What awaits? The ETERNAL God talks of the ABUNDANCE of His peace. If an eternal being says something is abundant, my friend it is an ABUNDANT thing.

Walk by faith, kick fear out the door, and rest in Him. Rely on Him for everything. Believe what He says. Period. Don’t waver. Don’t flinch. It doesn’t matter if you can see it or not. It doesn’t matter if you hear it or not. BELIEVE THE LORD. Have faith. Ignore everything else. Wait in Him. Wait on Him. It won’t be bad. It’ll be a long praise service and then home to the mansion to be with Him. BUT A MOMENT is not a long time at all. It’s only a little while.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Colossians 1:21-22

Once we were separated from God Almighty, but now in Jesus we are changed from enemy to friend. We were washed clean and presented with the greatest of finery. We are able to stand holy before the holiest of holies. That is AMAZING. And we didn’t even earn it. We didn’t deserve it. We did nothing for it. Yet it is ours to take. That is love. Providing without payment. Offering without compensation. Giving to someone who doesn’t deserve it something that they could never, ever achieve on their own. It takes real love and care to do that. We do it in small ways. We are able to because He did it first. He showed us the way. It is by following in His footsteps that we are able to be loving. To be self-sacrificing. To be better than we are. Every parent wants the best for their children. But not every parent is able to give their children what they need to be successful. To rise above their circumstances and become something more. To change the apparent destiny into actual destiny. But our Father in heaven made the way for us in Jesus. The way was made before He created anything. Before we were anything but an idea in His mind, He wanted to make sure we could get to Him. If it couldn’t happen, He wouldn’t have created anything. He loves us THAT much. If you really understand it, it should change your view of yourself. That is how precious you are. That is how valuable you are. That is how special you are. That is how LOVED you are.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.