Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the NET, netbible.org, all rights reserved)

he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy, through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit,
Titus 3:5 (emphasis added)

All of our human thinking and science is based around what we see and experience. When we look at some things in the Word, we tend to bring all that thinking along. Take the Garden that was in Eden. We imagine it like this world. We think of Adam and Eve doing things in it exactly like we would. But it WASN’T this world they experienced. It was the world BEFORE sin. We think of sin as a concept, as behavioural impulses. But it was something that completely changed everything. The pre-sin Earth was different. It had different rules. In Revelation we’re told of a New Earth. It could absolutely be a completely new Earth. But the word ‘new’ used with it is the same word used in 2 Corinthians 5:17 calling us new creations. The Earth that is coming could be a RESTORED Earth – which would be completely new to us. Sin altered EVERYTHING until it was no longer recognisable, no longer functioning the same, and running on completely different rules.

Since we ARE new creations in Jesus, why do we think we function the same as before? Why do we think the old rules apply to us? Broken thinking. We look at the broken thinking as normal, because it is all we’ve ever known. If all the children outgrowing their toys donated the very used and well-loved ones to daycare centres, those little ones would only experience broken and less than perfect toys. That would become the expectation. What would they do if given a brand new toy? After they got over the initial wonder, they’d play with it the same way they did with the broken ones because that was all they knew. Unless they were shown proper care of the toy, it would soon match all the rest. Broken thinking needs to be mended. Not in the human way with glue and tape. But in Adonai’s way, joining the pieces so tightly and completely that you cannot tell they were ever broken – even while missing the pieces that were sadness, trauma, and every other negative thing. NOTHING negative exists in Elohim. Nothing. Yahweh is completely righteous and pure. He has ONLY good things He wants to give us. We don’t always understand that because we let broken thinking inform our expectations.

Sickness. Disease. Poverty. Depression. Anxiety. Missing limbs. ADHD. Chronic illness. All these things exalt themselves arrogantly against the knowledge of Elohim. So do the thoughts that tell you they’re normal. Natural. Part of life. Because they’re NOT. They’re only part of SINFUL life – that is life that has been touched, twisted, and corrupted by sin. And the natural world KNOWS it was twisted. “For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly but because of God who subjected it—in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now” (Romans 8:19-22). Creation, the world we see around us that we can touch and feel and taste, groans and suffers in its present condition. HOW can we think that what we experience is NORMAL? Think about the human body. If someone comes to you and groans out they are suffering, do you think that’s normal? Or do you encourage them to go to a doctor? Suffering (of any kind) isn’t normal. Even suffering for the sake of the Gospel, for Jesus’ sake, (persecution) isn’t NORMAL – we’re just told to expect it because the devil hates anyone who doesn’t accept suffering as normal and especially those who love Adonai. Creation is fallen. It is damaged and broken and will NOT operate this way again. Since in and through Jesus WE are new creations, we should not expect to operate the way we did before EVER AGAIN.

We need to renew our thinking about everything. That will take a long time. Adonai doesn’t expect us to do it all at once. He wants us to do it piece by piece. The piece HE brings before us, when He brings it. It might not be the piece WE think needs work. But it will be the piece that is right and ready to be renewed. We find these pieces by listening to Ruach HaKodesh as He speaks to us. The voice is clearer when we have clean ears. We get clean ears when we let the Word get in them. It cleans our ears and also builds our trust in Jesus. We develop the muscle of trust that He gave us. Develop, strengthen, and deepen it by the process of hearing the Gospel of Jesus proclaimed (Romans 10:17). The entirety of the New Covenant writings are the explanation of what Jesus taught. Different words in some places, but the same concepts and principles. They are all the heart of the Old Covenant. The moral, spiritual, and physical right ways of thinking, speaking, and acting which Yahweh has been calling humanity to walk in since He first formed us and breathed into Adam the spirit of all the lives that would come from him. Only one human being has truly walked in them from the birth to the death of the body made from the Earth – earning the privilege and position of being resurrected to eternal life in a body made from the trust of Yahweh Himself: Jesus of Nazareth. He is the True Human Being. The One who didn’t disobey. The One in whom we ALSO get to have a body made from the trust of Yahweh. Not now, but soon and when we see Jesus face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12). In the meantime, we don’t mope about looking forward to what will be. No. Heaven forbid. No, what WE get to do is experience the REST of it NOW. The relationship with the Father, Son, and Spirit. Thinking with His mind. Emoting with His feelings. Working with His interests as our focus. And cooperating with Him wherever and whenever He wants His power operating. Experiencing the NEW birth, the NEW creation we are in Jesus, subject to and operating according to the NEW rules (nature, biology, and laws) of HIS Kingdom – spirit, soul, and body.

You’ve heard of flu season? Well, when you got saved you entered Whole Season. If there is an area in your life that ISN’T whole, it can and should be renewed. THAT is the will of El El’yon. It has ALWAYS been His will. Adam never repented. He was sorry. He was remorseful. But He didn’t repent. It took a long time and a lot of lessons, but eventually humanity was in a position and place to be willing to repent. That was when Jesus came. “But when the appropriate time had come, God sent out his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we may be adopted as sons with full rights. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, who calls “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if you are a son, then you are also an heir through God” (Galatians 4:4-7). The true path of humanity that we were originally on has again been opened to us. We no longer have to be lost. We no longer have to wait in the lobby (the Law). We can enter the fullness of Adonai Elohim. We can let His Light and His mind consume us. Fill us and nurture us. His seed, sown in our soil, produces a thing truly wondrous to this world: true human beings. Not in ourselves, but in Jesus. We can be like Jesus IS in this life. In THIS life. “By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as Jesus is, so also are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). Jesus is WHOLE. We should and CAN be whole too!

Our thinking needs to be renewed. Our spirits have ALREADY been renewed and sealed so that they are protected, whole, and experiencing the fullness of what WE will once our bodies are spirit, not flesh (Ephesians 1:13). We can engage the thinking, speaking, and actions of our new spirit by renewing our minds to HIS possibilities. The Word agrees. From beginning to end, it agrees. It is consistent and it is constant and it encourages us if we will listen to Him. Thousands of promises. Thousands of pieces of advice. Thousands of instructions. Thousands of encouragements. Thousands of instances of being able to rise above what this broken world has for us and live according to the New Life of His Spirit in His Kingdom. As human thinking goes, we’ve come up with some great ideals, rules, laws, social contracts, scientific discoveries, medicines, and methodology. As good as it is, it falls short of what it could be. Yahweh kicked Adam out of the Garden so they wouldn’t be stuck in broken thinking and broken bodies forever (Genesis 3:22). Yahweh scattered humanity so they wouldn’t be indoctrinated and trapped in broken thinking around a single human system that was in arrogant rebellion against His Righteousness (Genesis 11:1-9). Adonai is persistently trying to get us in harmony with His Righteousness in order to restore us to what we truly can be. To get us out of the darkness of our own thinking and into His Light. “So I say this, and insist in the Lord, that you no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts. Because they are callous, they have given themselves over to indecency for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn about Christ like this, if indeed you heard about him and were taught in him, just as the truth is in Jesus. You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man who has been created in God’s image—in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth” (Ephesians 4:17-24).

Darkness can be fun to play in as a child, but it isn’t real darkness. Real darkness holds fear because it is ignorance. It is unknown. It is unrevealed. It is not meant to be. Darkness isn’t natural. It’s an absence of light. Look at Creation and you see that Yahweh put lights in the darkness so that the night would not be true darkness but simply a rest from the day. Resting is a Elohim-given principle. Night (a sabbath from day) wasn’t fearful, truly dark, or anything to be avoided. It was a positive thing. Then sin was engaged and night became a place where darkness ruled. Where ignorance could flourish. Where demons and evil spirits could project forms humanity would believe were really theirs. It became the springboard of wrong thinking that dominates us. Immorality didn’t happen in daylight, but under the cover of darkness. It wasn’t until societies got TRULY broken that things were done in the open. Even then, they weren’t done until the next generations were being trained in the normality of the behaviour. Darkness is ignorance. Darkness is broken. Darkness is where we were raised. We are in a new culture now. We are in a new place. We are in the light. Ruach HaKodesh has been given to us, not to condemn us, but to show us IN THE LIGHT the pieces of ourselves that are broken. To show us where they are broken. To encourage us to renew our thinking to Jesus’ own thinking and accept from Jesus the renewal He bought and released for us so that our broken bits and pieces can be restored to full and complete WHOLENESS. Ruach HaKodesh reminds us we ARE the Righteousness of Messiah Jesus and therefore we ARE ALREADY whole and healed. We ARE ALREADY exercising the Fruit of His Spirit. We ARE ALREADY redeemed from broken thinking. And if we would simply BELIEVE Him, TRUST Him, and ACT LIKE IT then we would walk in it, enjoy it, and see it – truly and clearly SEE it – in the glorious light of His wondrous, grace-filled, and merciful Love (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Ruach HaKodesh, as one of the parenthood of Yahweh, is asking us ‘don’t you know this is how you are?’ When we shuffle our little toddler feet and say, ‘yeah’, He then says ‘then why don’t you act like it?’ It’s a phrase every child on this planet knows well. Our Heavenly Father is saying it too. Ask yourself if you know it. Really KNOW it. If you don’t, get His LIGHT on it. You are in the light. Take a good, hard, detailed, microscopic look at yourself and see the YOU that HE sees. See what you CAN be and ARE in Jesus! Get it so deep into your heart you KNOW it. And then guess what? Spirit up and ACT LIKE IT, praise Jesus! Act like it. Become it. We’re ALLOWED to. We’re His kids and we are WHOLE!

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Zechariah 11:8

“Next I eradicated the three shepherds in one month, for I ran out of patience with them and, indeed, they detested me as well.” Messiah would be despised. Darkness HATES the light because it exposes how dark the darkness is (Proverbs 4:19; Isaiah 9:2). Those whose hearts would be hardened against the Light of Yahweh would despise the Messiah who brought that Light with Him. “But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus killed” (Matthew 27:20). When given a choice between Jesus who had broken no laws and Barabbas who was a murderer (or worse), the religious elite chose Barabbas because he was the one who did NOT shine the light of the love of El Elyon. “The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed” (John 3:18-20). Jesus came to show the Father (John 14:8-18). He was despised for it. Jesus IS the Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

Yeshua is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Matthew 16:16b