Fear No Fear

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

“Who is like you, Yahweh, among the gods?
    Who is like you, glorious in holiness,
    fearful in praises, doing wonders?
You stretched out your right hand.
    The earth swallowed them.“
(Exodus 15:11-12)

“When Israel went out of Egypt,
    the house of Jacob from a people of foreign language,
Judah became his sanctuary,
    Israel his dominion.
The sea saw it, and fled.
    The Jordan was driven back.
The mountains skipped like rams,
    the little hills like lambs.“
(Psalm 114:1-4)

The Israelites came out of Egypt boldly and fiercely. But they were arrested almost immediately by fear when the Egyptian army came after them. They were OUT, but thought they were about to be pulled back IN. But God wasn’t done. He had shown His superiority to all the gods of Egypt. He had shown that He could turn around a seemingly impossible situation and bring out His people with all the riches they had been promised when they entered (Genesis 45:20). Now He would show His superiority over ALL nature (not just areas ruled by idolatry) AND the physical realm (the armies of Egypt). He did it top show them that He COULD BE their source for EVERYTHING. That they could rely on Him no matter WHAT it looked like. God showed Himself to be THE God of ALL creation.

God had showed who He was and who He could be to them. The rest was up to them. “He said, “If you will diligently listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, and will do that which is right in his eyes, and will pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I am Yahweh who heals you.”” (Exodus 15:26). They could go with what they saw and felt, or they could go with the One who now had an undeniable track record of Truth, Mercy, and Power.

Summary

We have the same choice before us as the Israelites did. We can choose to rely on God and look to Him as our Source of everything. We can choose to rely on ourselves and refuse to look to Him. Our choice. But if we truly love Him, we’ll find ourselves seeking to obey Him (John 14:15). That’s where BLESSING is. In obedience. Because only by obedience do we prove to ourselves that we DO trust, that we DO rely, and that Jesus IS our Lord and King.