Choosing is a Choice

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that rejects fear and promotes faith in God. It emphasizes the importance of rejecting fear and anxiety with the help of God. The passage also discusses the use of scientific principles in understanding and applying the Word of God. It encourages believers to exercise their authority over fear, sickness, and negative emotions through the name of Jesus. The passage emphasizes that God's love and power can overcome any challenges and that believers should choose righteousness and embrace the freedom and love offered by Jesus. It concludes with the reminder that God loves us unconditionally and that His love casts out fear. 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 Mark 13.7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don't be troubled. For those must happen, but the end is not yet. The end is not yet. It can feel like it, though, can't it? Economic pressures, loss of income, famine, floods, food shortages, and more. It can be hard to get out of bed every day. It seems like the entire system that we as humans have been constructing for a global marketplace is swirling in some cosmic toilet. The days are here when, although we do have products from all over the world in our grocery stores, those things we have come to rely on are rising in price and lowering in quantity. Transportation problems is a phrase that I hear too often. But when we think things can't get worse, and then they do, Jesus says not to be troubled. That the world isn't over, even though it may seem to be when you're standing at the gas pump. Being troubled is the state of being in distress or anxiety. Now, this is a child of fear, by that definition. Shun it. Avoid it. And the only way to do that is with God's help. The world will most certainly tell you one of two things. First, that it's all in your head and not to worry about it. Just stop. Second, that it is a mental illness or a chemical imbalance and science is going to help you as much as they can. You can learn to manage it and live with it. The important thing to remember, they will tell you, is that it is not your fault. That phrase, it's not your fault, comes up more times than you would think unless you were watching for it. Many of the things that we claim are part of the human condition are slapped with this label. The thinking is that if it is a quantifiable part of being human, then as long as you are human, you have no choice in the matter. If a scientist in a laboratory or a psychologist's office can determine in a measurable way that a thing is generically part of what they define as humanity, or if they can measure what they think is the quality of something, then that thing must be. And it can't be your fault. Ironically, we use our feelings to justify a whole host of behavior, from our sexuality, to the way we communicate with people, to our gender, to who knows what. But feelings are subjective. They aren't objective. And they cannot be measured in a way that can be used to establish any kind of rule or system of thought. They change based on what's coming at us. They have no value when it comes to determining who we are and how we are. But it doesn't stop them from the process of expanding the human experience to include feelings as a force of nature. Basic scientific principle, if you can measure it, if someone else can replicate the process by which you measured it and achieve the same result, then that thing exists. Now this dogma will be used and already is used to justify a great many things that are morally wrong. Mostly because they're reducing humans to the level of an animal. And if you judge human behavior by the animal kingdom, you can get away with a heck of a lot. More than that, it's used to eliminate any sense of responsibility to the end of keeping people from exercising their God-given authority over these things. If you think that a behavior or a way of thinking is just part of the human condition, if you think that it is an impulse and need a biological compulsion, then you will not take any responsibility for it. And you will not exercise authority because you won't think that you have authority because it's just part of your mammalian nature. Now, I am not against the scientific method. In fact, I believe firmly that you can apply it to the Word. The Word says that if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that he was resurrected to life, you will be saved. Romans 10.9. Now it says, if you, so anyone can do that. Anyone. If you do it, you will be saved. That's basic scientific principle. Do the thing, get the result. Anyone, anywhere, do the thing, get the result. The most hardcore atheist, the average person, someone who was raised by the church, someone who was raised to hate the church, anyone, you have to audibly confess and you have to honestly believe. And if you do, you'll be saved. Now, of course, it will change you, but it is true. And it follows the basic principles of the scientific method. Now, if that piece of the Word is true, then what else in the Word is true? Well, for one thing, that we have choices about what we feel, Mark 13.7. And if that feeling has anything to do with fear, we can reject it by standing on the Word, by belief, by using our authority, we can make it go. 2 Corinthians 10.3-6. If you're saved, if you have invited Jesus into yourself as Lord and Savior, if you have confessed Him as Lord, you believe in your heart that He died for you on the cross and He was resurrected to life again by the Father. Well, He did a wondrous work on the cross and you're part of that. He broke the curse and set you free. And you've accepted that. Because you've accepted that, you now have the legal authority to use His name to enforce that freedom. John 16.23-24. The healing. Healing isn't God doing anything right now, because He already did it through the cross. Healing is you, through the name of Jesus, demanding the demonic doesn't do something. Demanding that the curse release you. The healing presence of Jesus is inside you right now. And you have the legal right to tell sickness to go. Matthew 10.8. To tell fear to go. To refuse to accept feelings of anxiety, stress, depression, or fear. John 14.10-14 tells us that. You're not speaking to God. You're speaking to your issue. Your body, a disease, a sickness, a feeling, or any bad thing. God didn't send you your issue. God didn't start that war. God didn't cause that earthquake. God only gives good things. These occurrences are the birth pangs of the end of days. The enemy is the cause of it. The curse is the cause of it. This is the natural progression of victory, reclaiming what the curse twisted. We do not have to accept the mental trouble, the anxiety, or the fear. We do not have to accept the world's diagnosis that it is all normal, natural, a chemical imbalance, or a mental illness. God enables us to send the bad, including the mental bad, packing through Jesus Christ who died to break these things. James 4.7. The name of Jesus is more powerful than every scientific doctorate on earth. Don't ignore facts or doctor advice, but do stand on the word and speak to your problem. Pray believing you receive it and that it's happening right now, and then stop worrying about it. Start believing it. Facts are always subject to truth. Facts don't make truth. They conform to truth. You can get a diagnosis which is a fact. You can take the word of God and apply truth. Go back and find that that diagnosis is no longer the same. You can start believing it. You can use Scripture, backed up by Scripture, and stand on what God says in His word. This is not the power of positive thinking. This is choosing to believe in the promises of the Lord God Almighty. Nothing more and nothing less. This is not pie in the sky. This is Scriptural truth right there on the page, right there in your heart. Holy Spirit will speak to you if you'll hear Him. He'll lead you and guide you. The word will confirm it. God never contradicts His word. You will never hear anything of the Lord that contradicts His word. And then you can claim and live in your freedom. The freedom that Jesus gave to you and me and all of us through His death and resurrection. Don't be troubled in this life. Choose to believe and receive His peace, Philippians 4.6, and walk in that freedom. Our daily affirmation of God's love is 2 Timothy 1.7. The last Adam has a spirit of power, love, and self-control. That's what Jesus wants for us. Not some fight-or-flight mammalian instinct, but an authority, a powerful loving compassion, and an ability to self-regulate. To keep from immoral things because they are objectively immoral. To choose righteousness not because of dogma or political leaning, but because at every time and in every place there are righteous acts, morally correct, no matter what anyone or any society says, because the Father in heaven says that they are righteous. Objectively righteous. Choose Jesus and choose righteousness. Be the gift God wants you to be. Embrace the gift God has for you. 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. 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 loves us. Can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.