Fear No Fear

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

“You shall not spread a false report. Don’t join your hand with the wicked to be a malicious witness. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. You shall not testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice. You shall not favor a poor man in his cause.“
(Exodus 23:1-3)

“For we have spent enough of our past time doing the desire of the Gentiles, and having walked in lewdness, lusts, drunken binges, orgies, carousings, and abominable idolatries. They think it is strange that you don’t run with them into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you. They will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For to this end the Good News was preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed as men in the flesh, but live as to God in the spirit.“
(1 Peter 4:3-6)

The masses are not correct. The current of society ebb and flux. They alter. It does NOT mean that they are improving. It does NOT mean that it is the correct way to go. It is easy to go along with the crowd. It is NOT easy to stand up for what you believe. But we MUST side with what is right and good. We MUST retrain our minds to think along the lines that God thinks (Romans 12:2). We need to view life from HIS point of view. This was how the Israelites were to act and this is how believers today are to act.

We did a LOT of things before we were saved. They may well have felt good. They may well have been enjoyable. But in the Light of the Love of Jesus, they lose their lustre. They lose their appeal. And no one but a believer can truly understand it. The things that we got enjoyment from before, we no longer get enjoyment from. We no longer want to act how we acted. To do what we did. We want to be like Jesus. We want to live like Jesus. We want to be completely different from what we were. THAT is freedom. THAT is life in Jesus. THAT is abundance.

Summary

When we act, speak, and live like Jesus commanded us to, people don’t like it. They don’t understand it. They mock it. And they rally against it. None of that matters. We are called to live like Jesus. To live by LOVE. To be separate from the world even as we walk in it. We are called to live God’s love to everyone – whether we know them, like them, or agree with them. We are set apart. We are not with the crowd. We’re with God Almighty. And we’re sticking with Him.