Fear No Fear

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

“You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to dwell may not vomit you out. You shall not walk in the customs of the nation which I am casting out before you; for they did all these things, and therefore I abhorred them. But I have said to you, “You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am Yahweh your God, who has separated you from the peoples.”
(Leviticus 20:22-24)

“My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have a Counselor with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments. One who says, “I know him,” and doesn’t keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth isn’t in him. But God’s love has most certainly been perfected in whoever keeps his word. This is how we know that we are in him: he who says he remains in him ought himself also to walk just like he walked.“
(1 John 2:1-6)

The Israelites were not being restricted because God wanted them to be monks. He wasn’t keeping things from them. He wasn’t denying them good things. He was being clear with them from the beginning. He was Holy and He had called them to be like Him. He had called them to rely on Him for everything they needed. To do what He said because He said it. Because from His point of view it was how things were supposed to be. That in spite of living within a world full of sins and infected with Sin (and the curse that came with it), they were to be DIFFERENT. They were to lean into Him, take on His moral character, and live holy lives – which means doing what THE Holy One said was Holy.

Nothing changed when Jesus came except the scope of who could be holy. Instead of a single people bound by bloodline and set apart by special relationship with God, we now have a single people bound by bloodline and set apart by special relationship with God through Jesus AND anyone who chooses to believe in who Jesus was and what Jesus did. THE mark of whether or not you truly believe is that you will obey what Jesus said to do. That you will live in the way that Jesus said was holy. All people on Earth can do this. First the Jew and then the Gentile. We are all part of the Church, the Body of Christ, believers in Jesus who is God the Son. We will AUTOMATICALLY seek to obey Him because we love Him and want to emulate Him.

Summary

What sets us apart isn’t a set of rules, but our moral character. Our BEHAVIOUR. We don’t model it after the world. We don’t call something a spade because THEY say it is a spade. We call a spade what JESUS says is a spade and then we seek to use it as He says it should be used. This sets us at odds with the world, but it is our natural state. It is NATURAL to love God because He loved us first. It is NATURAL to obey God because we love Him. It is NATURAL to copy the example we have in Jesus because it is in, through, and because of Jesus that we have a relationship in the first place. When we find ourselves saying ‘no’ to something God said to do, we need to ask ourselves if we are restricting ourselves and rejecting Jesus’ love in that area. When Jesus’ love is active in an area of our lives, obedience follows as surely as morning after nighttime.