Birthday Weekend Repeat #1 - Contagious Relief

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and champion faith. Fear is a spiritual force used by Satan to keep people down, but perfect love casts out fear. Jesus knows our needs and worries, but anxiety and fear serve no good purpose. The world may believe that anxiety is a vital human response, but fear is a parasite on the human spirit. We have the choice to leave behind anxiety and fear and live in God's peace and love. Words matter and can invite negativity or positivity into our lives. Jesus told his disciples not to let their hearts be troubled and not to be fearful. Anxiety is a choice for believers. We can choose to believe God and operate in his peace and love. Walking in God's love brings relief from anxiety and strife. God's love and peace are gifts that he gives us daily. Everything the Lord does is motivated by true love for us. Welcome to Fear No Fear. Grace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit embrace you today. This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture. We reject fear in any and all forms. Fear is a spiritual force, the currency of darkness and ignorance. It's what we inherited when Adam gave up his faith and Satan uses it to keep people down. His only weapon is words. If he can get you believing or looking at words of fear, he's got you. Instead, we champion faith as an allegiance to God, as a belief and trust and loyalty to the Lord God Almighty. We accept the evidence of his word as unvarnished truth, as is, just as it's written. We get close to his perfect love through the word, and perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4.18 All scripture is taken from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Visit eBible.org Jeremiah 42, 11-2 Don't be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Don't be afraid of him, says Yahweh, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand. The Lord knows what we're thinking. He knows what we're doing. He knows our needs. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6.32 that your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. He was referring specifically to clothes to wear, food to eat, fluid to drink. But he also is talking about things that we're anxious about, which covers a larger sphere. Our bills, where our food is going to come from, whether we can find a job or a safe place to live. In the end, the point is that the Lord knows everything that we need. We can assume he knows our wants, too, because he sees inside our hearts, even though he likes to talk with us about them. He knows when we are worrying, scared, anxious, and losing sleep over the problems in our lives. A few verses earlier, Jesus asks a question for the ages. Which of you, by being anxious, can add one moment to your lifespan? That's Matthew 6, verse 27. Jesus knows that anxiety and fear serve no good purpose. Not for the human being, and certainly not for the believer. They are nothing but negative. But the world has a different opinion. They believe that those who are anxious are more intelligent. That anxiety is an adaptation of fear, which is often thought of as being designed to keep you safe, and therefore is a vital and fundamental human response. Their belief is that anxiety points to what your mind is saying needs your attention, and what values are your deepest. That the anxious are chronic overachievers, and therefore more prone to success. That it can teach you balance in life, whatever that balance might mean to you, because the world hates to tell anyone that something is the thing to do. It all sounds logical and scientific, but it's based on an absolute lie. Fear is not something the human species was meant to have. In fact, nothing in this universe was meant to have fear. It is not a fundamental human response. It is a parasite on the spirit of humankind. It is the carrier of the curse. It was not the plan. It is a product of disobedience, like everything else that is negative, and it is the lifeblood of sin. Anxiety is a mind killer. It keeps us in chains. It is not a positive. We can look at it as a positive. The human mind was designed to be a powerful thing. Our words can change the atmosphere around us. We can bring anything to heal in a worldly way by the power of positive thinking. That does not mean that it is positive. It means we decide that this thing that is bad is actually good, like smearing yourself with feces and convincing yourself it's a mud treatment. It's having been horrifically scarred and telling yourself it was a growing experience. It's being sick and telling yourself God is teaching you something with it. There is a billions of dollars industry out there designed to get you to look on the bright side of life and selling you the idea that this is how the human experience works. The power of positive thinking is a weak use of the law of sowing and reaping. Luke 12, 29-34. We can look at anything and tell ourselves it is a positive thing. And if we sow into that enough, we will believe it. But anxiety is a choice. Now most people who have it or who have had it don't want to hear that. They'll tell me I'm wrong, but it's the truth. Not my truth, universal truth. We can choose to leave it behind. Anxiety, fear, and trouble are choices that we make sometimes unconsciously. Whether knowingly or by default, not choosing their opposites, we choose them. We don't have to accept anything negative as the human experience because it isn't. It is the fallen human experience. The believer is above that. Jesus raised us up out of that when we agreed to abide in him. We don't need to settle for managing anything, be it our symptoms, our mental landscape, or our triggers. We have the God-given legal right to be healed. To have the scars smoothed. To have the pain removed. To have the sickness flee. We have the legal right to be free from all pain, anxiety, depression, sickness, disease, or any negative thing. To be safe, whole, and secure in the boat while the storm storms away around us. To be delivered and safe in the hand of the Lord who is with us. It starts with language. When you really start focusing on it, it is humbling how much negativity is part of our lives. How many things we label as a non-positive just in passing. Words matter. But words are like texting or an email. There's no inflection to texts. No nuance. If all we send are words, the recipient doesn't know we're saying it with a smile, or as a joke, or that we're using sarcasm, or that we're not being passive aggressive. They can't hear our honesty or sincerity. The recipient can only go by the words we say. I can't tell you the trouble I've had in life because I tend to say exactly what I mean. I mean, it isn't always the case. I'm as guilty as anyone about joking or unconsciously saying a negative I don't mean. But when I talk, text, or email, I tend to say what I mean. No hyperbole. So many people in life blow things up or minimize things that those around me assume I follow the same pattern. There has been a lot of confusion over the years, and a lot of surprise when someone realizes that the black and white thing I said was just what I said. That's why this unconscious negativity hits me so hard. I'm all about words having meaning and using just those words to convey exactly what I mean. Everyone around us can only go by what we type. They cannot rely on what they know about us or our situation. They can't rely on social cues. Our words work the same way with our atmosphere and the spirit world around us. God can see into our hearts and knows exactly what we mean, but nothing else does or can. What you say is what you mean, or it is assumed that you mean it. We can invite a lot of negative into our lives by joking. We can stop the spirit moving by our statements of doubt whether we mean it like that or not. Words are words are words. The best way to start rejecting fear, depression, negativity, anxiety is to change the words we say. The way to do that is to get better words inside our minds and our mouths. His word. As the crucifixion approached, Jesus knew his disciples were going to be facing a bad time. They would see him taken, tortured, hung on a tree, killed, dead, and buried. They were going to be facing the loss of hope, peace, joy, peace of mind, and possible arrest and their own deaths. He knew what they would grasp in the natural. The spirit revealed it to him. He knew how much of his teaching they didn't get yet. He honestly believed that the source of the Last Supper preaching was his burden that they still grasped so little. That whole night was Jesus telling them the most important of the most important things. Anything Jesus spoke that night is three times as weightier as what he said the rest of the time. Because this was the foundational change your world stuff. He was desperate for them to know. Anything said this night was really, really, really, really important to us. Among a lot of other gems. What did he say about our subject? Don't let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. Luke 14, 1. Don't let. Don't permit it to enter or pass through. Don't give it opportunity. Don't adjust your thinking in that direction. They could, in their hearts and their minds, choose not to be troubled. To be in a storm, but not let the storm affect them. He didn't leave it there. He blessed them with peace and then told them again in 14, 27. Don't let your heart be troubled. Neither let it be fearful. Anxiety is a choice. For the believer, fear is a choice. Why can I say this? Because the word says this. Because Jesus said this. Because we can choose to believe God. We can choose to believe Jesus. We can choose to operate in his peace and love. That's it. Black and white. Period. Done. This is truth. God's truth. The only truth that is worth anything. The only truth that remains true no matter what new information or facts come to light. In fact, if the facts are worth anything, they'll conform to God's truth. If they don't, we don't understand what's happening yet. Truth is true. Period. It's what makes it true. Believe it. Receive it. Choose God. Praise the Lord and walk in his love. It's the only way to get lasting, real, spreadable, permanent relief from anxiety and strife. To leave worry behind and start walking in faith. With our words and then with our feet. Our daily affirmation of God's love is John 14, 23-31. Jesus walks in the love of the Father. The Father wants us to walk in it too. Love and peace. They are gifts that he gives us. Daily. All the time. Always. Why? Because God is love and we are made in his image. Genesis 1, 27-28. Everything the Lord does is motivated by true love. Unlimited love for us. He made us this earth and gave it to us to subdue and fill. He made all the animals within it and gave them to us. He gave us all the food we could ever want. No animal was against us. We weren't against them. We weren't menu items. There was no fear at all. Why? Because it was an atmosphere of love and grace. God loves us so much he wanted to give us paradise. Real heaven on this real earth. He did it even knowing that we would rebel, mock, avoid, and turn away from him. He still wants us. Each and every one. That's how much he values our choice. That's how much he seeks our hearts. That is love. As we close, remember that you have earth. You are precious and valuable. Declare this. Today, God loves that I, now you, fill in the blank. Was it a meal you made? A smile you gave? Did you get out of bed? Read? Put on socks? There's no wrong answers here. There is no end to God's love. And no end to the things about you that he loves each and every day. Pick one. And remember, the Lord loves you. Just because you're you. 1 John 4 9-10 tells us, By this, God's love was revealed in us. That God has sent his only born son into the world. That we might live through him. And this is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us. And sent his son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. His perfect love turned away God's wrath because of sin. And it casts out our fear too. See verses 18 and 19. We love because he first loved us. He just loved us. Can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.