Free and Free Again

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear. Fear is a spiritual force used by Satan to keep people down. The goal is to champion faith as an allegiance to God and accept His word as truth. The news often focuses on negativity and fear, but as believers, we are redeemed and protected by God. Our enemy is not financial, but spiritual. Our minds have the power to choose joy and peace over fear and grief. God can heal our hearts and remove anxiety and depression. We have the choice to let God bless and help us. Jesus loves us and wants us to be free from sin and bondage. We are precious and valuable to God, and 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 Zephaniah 3.15 Yahweh has taken away your judgments. He has thrown out your enemy. The King of Israel, Yahweh, is among you. You will not be afraid of evil anymore. There are days looking at the news cycle that it looks like there's evil everywhere. The stories are either doom and gloom or inappropriate behavior. Greed, theft, abuse, violence, sexual harassment, objectification, grief, and immorality. If you're really, really lucky, there will be a human interest story that doesn't include negativity in some way. On the one hand, I understand that news outlets are seeking your viewership because it is their business model. A viewer will be more likely to tune in if the world is collapsing and they need information to survive and or thrive. On the other hand, that whole model of business and the material that they show are all born of fear. I am against fear, in every form, in every circumstance, for every reason. It doesn't serve a spiritual, natural, normal, scientific, religious, or adaptive purpose. Fear is a negative in every case and to be thrown as far from you as you can throw, with shooting it away from you using a cannon being the preferred method. Romans 8, 1 says, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who were in Christ Jesus who don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. This means that there are no judgments for those who are born again. Our sins are toast. There's nothing left to judge. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death. Romans 8, 2. Now, we'll have to stand to account for anything that we haven't repented for. Like any idle words, Matthew 12, 36-37. But if we've repented, it's gone and done, dealt with, on the cross, no judgment. We will instead face a judgment of commendation, a seat of reward, 1 Corinthians 4, 5. Like a judge of a sporting event who will give to each one of us the rewards that we are due. And stern words if our deeds did not hold up to scrutiny, 1 Corinthians 3, 10-15. If your life is nothing but a straw man, not based in the word and not focused on Jesus, no matter what your motivations are, once under scrutiny, it will burn up like chaff. There will be sorrow there. Only for a time, but not a pleasant time. But the judgment that is on the world, the judgment seat, that won't touch the believer of the Lord. We are redeemed. We are new creatures. Made again in the image of Jesus the Christ, the risen Lord. Our spirits are His spirit. We're in His image and in Him. John 15. Our enemies have nothing against us. They can do nothing to us. We are eternal co-heirs with Jesus. We are children of God. And God, the Lord Almighty, the King of Israel, is with us, among us, like it was in Eden. For a long time that wasn't possible because of our separation from God through sin. But through the blood of Jesus, we are once again able to get close and to be close to the God of all creation. The great I AM. Tell me, if you get this inside you, so that you believe that you are able to walk in the presence of the Lord, how could you be afraid of evil anymore? Now I can believe not being happy when bad things happen. Because who likes that? I can believe not being thrilled when we are attacked and dire circumstance comes against us. It doesn't matter if you're making ends meet or a millionaire a dozen times over. The attacks that aim to wound aren't financially based. They're spiritual. Remember, true prosperity is based on Jesus, not finances. Our spirits prosper first and foremost, then anything else. Matthew 6.33. So our enemy isn't knocking the natural, that's just a symptom. They know if they knock the spiritual, the rest falls. Ephesians 6.12-13. That puts the battleground in our mind, not our bank book. And our mind gets to make a choice about what emotions it will sponsor, and whether or not it will let feelings inform them or not. The struggle is greatest in times of stress, when we suffer loss, and grief threatens to rear its head. When the feelings of our flesh are so strong, they seem real. But I walk with the Lord. Don't I? Don't you? It's what we're called to do and equipped to do by the Holy Spirit, by grace. Uphe. It's what we're called to do. Galatians 5.16-17. For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is well-pleasing to the Lord. Ephesians 5.8-10. It's what we're equipped to do. For this cause, we also, since the day we heard this, don't cease praying and making requests for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory, for all endurance and perseverance with joy, giving thanks to the Father who made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. Colossians 1.9-14. Strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory, for all endurance and perseverance with joy, that's some equipment. It brings us far above what we can do ourselves. It brings us into Jesus. It brings us to where He can take our tears and dry them, take our wounds and heal them, take our problems and turn them into promises. If I am walking with the Lord and something happens I don't like, I'm going to take His hands and praise Him. I'm going to stand right beside Him, possibly grabbing His legs or hiding behind them. But I am not personally going to be afraid because God is with me. I might be getting an attack of the shy. I might be wondering if I really should be saying what I think I should be saying. I might need to be nudged along until I remember what I'm supposed to be doing. But I will do it because God is right there to make sure I do. On the other hand, I may be standing beside Him loud and proud because there's something special about me? No. Because I studied and learned and have achieved? No. Because I will have remembered who I am in Jesus, Ephesians 2.10. Because I will have on my mind that He prepared these things for me to do from the foundation of the world. When I am in Him and He is in me, I can do all things because He does them, not me. Philippians 4.11-13. Jesus changed my spirit. If I don't forget that, if I stay in the Word and make my mind face that, there is nothing that cannot be done. For God did not give me a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. 2 Timothy 1.7. When your hand is in Jesus' hand, when you are joined with Him and the Father and the Spirit, nothing is impossible. When we do things with people, they can fail because people are fallible. But when we do things with God, all things are possible. Why? Because nothing is impossible for God. So, with God, together as a team, nothing is impossible. Matthew 19.26. That means it isn't impossible to move the mountains that surround you figuratively and literally. That means it isn't impossible to alter your mental state from anxiety to peace, from grief to joy. It doesn't even need to alter the circumstances. You know, when someone dies, they may just stay dead. It's quite common. We grieve, but we don't have to stay grieved. We can move beyond that. We can move so that no memory is tinged with sadness. We can move so that we can celebrate them without so much as a pinch in our spirit. We can move so that there is no guilt, what ifs, or should I haves. Does that mean that we've forgotten? No. Does that mean that we are in denial? No. Does that mean that it's unhealthy? No. It means we've had our hearts healed. It does not hurt anymore. Period. If you let him, Yahweh will take away your judgments, those judgments that the world throws on you. He will throw out your enemies. Anxiety can be removed, no longer part of your mental psyche. Depression can get thrown out, never again weighing you down. Trauma can be erased. Erased. You can be renewed, restored, and revitalized. We have a choice. Will you choose to let Yahweh bless you? Will you choose to let Yahweh help you? Will you choose to let your spirit, which is in Jesus, John 15, will you let your spirit inform your mind, soul, and emotions as to what is really happening? It's a choice. God gave it to us, Revelation 3.20. Don't let the fear of choosing make you choose nothing. God is among us, Revelation 21.3. So he will fall down on his face and worship God, declaring that God is among you indeed. 1 Corinthians 14.25. This is one of the greatest principles of the Word. This is life-changing stuff, and I know what I'm talking about. This is not something I know from the Word but struggle to walk in day to day. The Lord God Almighty has done this in me because I have let him. I walk in this every day. You can too. It is a choice. It is a decision. And Jesus is right there knocking at the door to your heart, knocking and asking you to choose to open it, to choose to let him work, to choose to let him remove your judgments and throw out your enemies. Your world can be altered forever, for better. Believe it. Receive it. Walk in it. He's there, hand in yours, helping you every step of the way. You will not be afraid of evil anymore. Today's Daily Affirmation of God's Love is Galatians 5.13-25. Jesus loves us and wants us free. Free from sin. Free from bondage. Free from immorality. Free from the curse of the law. Free from the fruit of the curse. Free from every bad thing. Free to be full of love and peace and joy and every good thing. Jesus went to the cross to make available to us true and complete freedom within a perfect spirit. Jesus' own. That's love. Not just wanting something for someone, but doing everything possible. So all they need to do is reach out and take it. That is blessing. That is love. As we close, remember that you have worth. 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. First John 4 9 to 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 love 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 loves us. Can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.