Fear No Fear

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

““Therefore behold, I will allure her,
    and bring her into the wilderness,
    and speak tenderly to her.
I will give her vineyards from there,
    and the valley of Achor for a door of hope;
and she will respond there
    as in the days of her youth,
    and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
It will be in that day,” says Yahweh,
    “that you will call me ‘my husband,’
    and no longer call me ‘my master.’
For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth,
    and they will no longer be mentioned by name.
In that day I will make a covenant for them with the animals of the field,
    and with the birds of the sky,
    and with the creeping things of the ground.
I will break the bow, the sword, and the battle out of the land,
    and will make them lie down safely.
I will betroth you to me forever.
    Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in loving kindness, and in compassion.
I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness;
    and you shall know Yahweh.”
(Hosea 2:14-20)

“What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory— us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? As he says also in Hosea, “I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.” “It will be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’” Isaiah cries concerning Israel, “If the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant who will be saved; for he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth.” As Isaiah has said before, “Unless the Lord of Armies had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah.” What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who didn’t follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith; but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn’t arrive at the law of righteousness. Why? Because they didn’t seek it by faith, but as it were by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, even as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense; and no one who believes in him will be disappointed.””
(Romans 9:22-33)

The people were not following Yahweh. They were dallying with idols. They were forsaking Him and breaking the covenant and walking away from Him. God had warned them. Again and again. Warned them not to do this. Warned them to keep to the covenant. Warned them that if they left the blessing zone they would be exposing themselves to the consequences of living apart from God. They, however, were determined. But God still loved them. God promised that because of that love, because of His covenant, He would save a remnant. He would still be faithful. He would make a new covenant with them. He would save them. He would restore them. He would make them anew.

When Jesus came and sacrificed Himself, that opened up the Way. Jesus made covenant with the Father for eternal life. We get to enter into Jesus, and into that covenant, because of what Jesus did. This is the New Covenant. The promised covenant. The renewal of a relationship with God and all that entails. Even better, it is a covenant open to ALL people. Jew and Gentile. It is a covenant built along the same lines as the old ones: trust in God. It isn’t a covenant of rules – those things we do outside of God to prove our belief and trust in Him to ourselves. Rules don’t save you. Rules remind you of what should be in your heart. But the covenants were always about TRUST, not rules. The rules naturally grew out of the trust. They were for us, evidence to ourselves. The trust was what mattered. It was how Abraham was justified. How David was justified. How Moses was justified. And how WE are justified. Trusting in God is how we enter into His covenant. When we do, it renews us from the inside out into who we were always meant to be. Into what God promised that we could be.

Summary

If we love Jesus, believe what He said, and trust in Him, we will find ourselves naturally obeying what He commands. When we love Him, it’s easy. Because it isn’t performative. The rules God lays down, the commandments He gives, aren’t in and of themselves what saves you. They are the fenceposts. They are the border. They are the markers that let you know if you are operating in alignment with His moral character or not. We obey because we love Him and want to please Him. We obey because we want to do what is right from His point of view. But the obedience is not what we trust in. That’s a fool’s game because no one can ever obey 100%. We’ll miss it. We’ll be selfish. We’ll do what we want and not what He wants. Then we’d be sunk. No, our salvation and our security comes from our trust in Him. It always has us repenting when we do wrong. It always has us changing our mind on what is right and permissible. It always informs our behaviour. Our obedience comes out of it, but our relationship comes because of our trust. Trust is how we come to God. How we live in God. How we rest in God.