Fear No Fear

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

“It shall happen, because you listen to these ordinances and keep and do them, that Yahweh your God will keep with you the covenant and the loving kindness which he swore to your fathers. He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your livestock and the young of your flock, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give you. You will be blessed above all peoples. There won’t be male or female barren among you, or among your livestock. Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; and he will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, on you, but will lay them on all those who hate you. . . . You shall surely destroy all the places in which the nations that you shall dispossess served their gods: on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree. You shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, and burn their Asherah poles with fire. You shall cut down the engraved images of their gods. You shall destroy their name out of that place. . . When Yahweh your God cuts off the nations from before you where you go in to dispossess them, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, be careful that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed from before you, and that you not inquire after their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise.” You shall not do so to Yahweh your God; for every abomination to Yahweh, which he hates, they have done to their gods; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.”
(Deuteronomy 11:13-16; 12:2-3, 29-31)

“Listen, my son, and receive my sayings.
    The years of your life will be many.
I have taught you in the way of wisdom.
    I have led you in straight paths.
When you go, your steps will not be hampered.
    When you run, you will not stumble.
Take firm hold of instruction.
    Don’t let her go.
    Keep her, for she is your life.”
(Proverbs 4:10-13)

It wasn’t enough for the Israelites to go in and settle in the Land. Enjoying the benefits of possessions built and planted by others. The whole reason those people had to leave – instead of joining with the Israelites – is that they had rejected the God who brought them there (Amos 9:7). The God who made a place for them (Deuteronomy 2:12; 2:9). The peoples who inhabited the Land had rejected God, turned to the worship of nature and false gods, set up idols, and performed abominations as the offerings of their worship – including the murder of children. They did it because they believed they were securing for themselves security, riches, and success. They believed a LIE (John 10:10). If the Israelites started to investigate their methodology, started to work with the people, started to use their religious paraphernalia, then the Israelites would walk the same path and end up turning from the Lord to embrace a lie.

We need to do the EXACT same thing. Except we’re not necessarily destroying PHYSICAL idols or PHYSICAL places of worship. We are destroying MENTAL places of worship and MENTAL idols (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). We have to COMPLETELY wipe them out. We have to learn what God has to say about things and then get that into our hearts. We have to CHOOSE to rely on God. We have to CHOOSE to accept what Jesus says. We have to CHOOSE to take up the correction of Holy Spirit. We have to CHOOSE to obey, CHOOSE to humbly submit, and CHOOSE to love God more than we love the easy way of living that the world pedals. It is such a SIMPLE thing, we pass over it without choosing to run our lives on the principle of living hand-in-hand with God PERIOD and with NO exceptions. Choosing to LISTEN to God and to OBEY what we hear is the path to LIFE. The path to a life of FREEDOM. The path to a life of JOY. When GOD is our Source of ALL THINGS, there is NOTHING we will be embracing that isn’t GOOD. But it HAS to be founded on God’s moral character, God’s will, and God’s Word. That is the ONLY way to avoid that which first trips us and then seeks to kill us.

Summary

Romans 12:2 says “Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.” This is the separation we have. We are in the world, but we are NOT part of the world’s systems. We don’t do business like them. We don’t depend on them. We don’t look to them. And we don’t share their values. There are areas where our values align to one degree or another, but that is not what we hold to. We hold to the REASON behind our value system: God’s point of view. We’re not looking to do things the way the world has. To get success the way the world has. To look to ANYONE there as a model of how to do things. We are to rest in Jesus. To rely on Jesus. To look to God as our Source and our model (1 Peter 2:21-25). The ways of the world might appeal to our human instincts, but doing it God’s way ALWAYS leads to success WITHOUT any strings attached. It is THE Way to godly, righteous living.