Fear No Fear

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

“Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,
“Dominion and fear are with him.
    He makes peace in his high places.
Can his armies be counted?
    On whom does his light not arise?
How then can man be just with God?
    Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean?
Behold, even the moon has no brightness,
    and the stars are not pure in his sight;
How much less man, who is a worm,
    and the son of man, who is a worm!””
(Job 25:1-6)

“Judge me, Yahweh, for I have walked in my integrity.
    I have trusted also in Yahweh without wavering.
Examine me, Yahweh, and prove me.
    Try my heart and my mind.
For your loving kindness is before my eyes.
    I have walked in your truth.
I have not sat with deceitful men,
    neither will I go in with hypocrites.
I hate the assembly of evildoers,
    and will not sit with the wicked.
I will wash my hands in innocence,
    so I will go about your altar, Yahweh,
   that I may make the voice of thanksgiving to be heard
    and tell of all your wondrous deeds.
Yahweh, I love the habitation of your house,
    the place where your glory dwells.”
(Psalm 26:1-8)

“If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory.“
(Colossians 3:1-4)

Those who don’t have Jesus as Lord cannot conceive of humanity being worth His time. Even religious people who don’t truly fellowship with Jesus walk around talking about being ‘old sinners’. There is an assumption that we – as a species – are not worthy. And in a sense that’s true. We AREN’T worthy. There is nothing WE can do to make ourselves worthy. But that doesn’t matter to God. He CHOSE us. He CREATED us. He did it to have a relationship with us. In spite of the fact that we aren’t worthy, He CHOOSE to make us worthy in Himself. Without Him, we’re fancy talking dirt.

We can walk in integrity and right living. We can follow rules and make sure to dot our i’s and cross our t’s. But that is cleaning the outside of a vessel that’s inherently dirty. It is not our place to justify ourselves. It is not our place to bemoan the fact that we were born in sin, separated from God by our spiritual DNA. It is not our place to constantly look at our old nature, our old patterns, and our old thinking. We are to give ourselves to Him. To let Him do the work. To let Him complete us. To let Him restore us. To let God have the say as to what we are and who.

Since Jesus opened the Way and we chose to accept His offering, we have been raised up in Him. We are now what He is (2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 John 4:17). Our eyes should be on Him and the things of His Kingdom. We should be focused on what He won for us, not what we walked away from. Our identity is in Jesus and we are what and who HE says we are because we are in Him and He is in us. The old us is dead. It’s gone. The new us is justified in Jesus. The new us is created in Jesus. We are going to stand in glory in heaven, not cringe and try to hide. It’s all because of Jesus and our identity in HIM. He did it all for us because we could do none of it on our own.

Summary

We are not sinners. When we are focused on God and keeping Jesus in our eyes and His Word on our mind, we will not choose to rebel and go our own way. We won’t sin. We only sin when we take our eyes off of Him. When we put our thinking before His thinking. It’s so simple. But it takes effort. We need to pay attention to what we’re focusing on, thinking on, and what we put before our eyes and ears. We need to really think about it. Take the time to listen to Holy Spirit about it. Take correction when it’s given and change what we do. We have a whole NEW LIFE to live in and through Jesus. Jesus wants to live in and through us. Why wait another day? Lean into the Lord. Take His direction. Change your thinking with the Word and make HIS point of view YOUR point of view. Walk in what He says you can walk in because of what He did for us.