Let Him In

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and champion faith. It emphasizes the importance of obedience to God and the power of the Holy Spirit. It encourages believers to support and encourage one another in their journey of faith. It also discusses the concept of free will and how it can either allow or hinder the work of God in our lives. 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 John 6.20-21 But he said to them, I am. Don't be afraid. They were willing therefore to receive him into the boat. Immediately the boat was at the land where they were going. Now verse 19 tells us that the disciples had rode about 25 to 30 stadia, or stadia. That's a distance of about 5 to 6 kilometers. For those foreign to the metric system, that's about 3 to 4 miles. A long way to walk on water. But that's how far Jesus walked before the disciples saw Him in verse 19. Assuming He didn't get translated right to the spot where they needed Him. Acts 8.39-40 shows that is possible. Regardless, the disciples were about 6 kilometers from shore. They were headed to Capernaum. The Sea of Galilee, or Gennesaret, is approximately 13 kilometers across. So at best, the disciples were halfway across. The wind was blowing strong, verse 18 of John 6. And they were lost halfway across the sea. Isn't that often the way it works? We start out okay. We do well for a while. And then the wind picks up and we start to flounder. About halfway to where we know we were headed. But we, fellow believers, do not have to be lost. 1 Peter 1.13-16 tells us, Therefore, prepare your minds for action. Literally, put on the belt of the waist on your mind. Think about the armor of God here, Ephesians 6.14. Therefore, prepare your minds for action. Be sober and set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as children of obedience, not conforming yourselves according to your former lusts, as in your ignorance. But just as He who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your behavior, because it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy. That's Leviticus 11, 44-45. When we are about our lives, we need to be prepared and obedient. By being ready to do what God asks us to do and then doing it when He asks, we'll be kept ready by Him and able to carry it out, to pull toward the shore in spite of the wind and waves trying to block our way. We'll be walking as doers, not triers. In this boat of ours, we are not alone. We are here with other believers, other followers who are ready and obedient to God's leading. Now, there are a lot of negatives that can crop up when people get together in groups, more so when a system of any kind is present, school, political parties, office, bureaucracy, or a religion. But the positives of believers in Jesus being together far outweigh the negatives of peopling. When we think of a church as a religion of doctrine, Mark 7, 7, not as a connected body, 1 Corinthians 12, 27. Hebrews tells us in chapter 3, verses 12-15, Beware, brothers and sisters, lest perhaps there might be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief in falling away from the living God. But exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called today, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end while it is said, Today, if ye will hear his voice, don't harden your hearts as in the rebellion. That's Psalm 95, 7-8. We have Holy Spirit dwelling in each of us, and he speaks to us, but our human minds can get in the way. We can decide that we want this or that, that God really means be, without checking in with him about what he said. It's amazing that when we see a good opportunity, how suddenly we become the Holy Ghost and start prophesying it is the direction of the Lord. To help us, God has given us other believers to help us, Galatians 6-2, to remind us that God and God alone has the wisdom of the ages, James 1, 5-6. He can guide us, Psalm 32, 8. His actions don't need to make sense to us, Isaiah 55, 8-9. We need to obey, no matter what, 1 Samuel 15-22, to run the race, to strive for the prize, to help each other along, picking our brothers and sisters up when they fall and being picked up in our turn, Ecclesiastes 9, 9-12. To work together following the Lord, to row in the same direction. We also have God who is with us all the time, there for when we call on him and there even when we don't, answering us when we speak to him and talking to us when we aren't talking to him. Romans 8, 9-11 says, But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. The Spirit of Jesus inside us and the guarantee that if Christ was raised, we too will be raised from death to life, from failure to victory with the Spirit of God dwelling in us and with our brothers and sisters helping us to stay focused on God's voice, on the will and the heart of the Father through the Word. How can we fail? Well, we can fail by losing sight of what God has, by ignoring the voice of God. We can get lost. We can flounder. None of us are perfect, though we have the ability to be perfect through Jesus who is in us. And what we can do is make up our minds. When the disciples were lost and scared, they were willing, therefore, to receive him into the boat. Nothing has changed. Are you willing to receive him into your boat to be part of that ongoing sanctification process from what we were before Jesus to perfection in Jesus, which really won't happen until we are regenerated in heaven? Are you willing to let the Lord be the Lord of your life when things are going great, the Lord of your life when things are not, and to be the Lord of your life when you are lost and paddling in circles out of alignment with the will of God? Are you willing to accept a course correction? Jesus said in Matthew 18.18, Most certainly I tell you, whatever things you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever things you release on earth will have been released in heaven. This isn't talking about heaven, the home of the Lord God Almighty, but the heavens around us, the spiritual landscape that surrounds the earth, creation. It is where the prince of the power of the air operates, Ephesians 2.2. Not a physical location as much as a spiritual one, but it's hard for us to understand. It is where the demonic contests with the angelic as they both go about their missions, Daniel 10.12-13. It is in the spiritual atmospheres and landscapes that our struggle occurs, Ephesians 6.12. But our part of that struggle is our battleground, the mind. Our mind, which chooses either to listen to the spirit and speak words of life, or to listen to the flesh and speak words of death. Every word that comes out of our mouth with intent or in idle jest is a seed, Matthew 12.36. By our obedience, we loose the Lord to work in our lives because we have invited Him in with that obedience. We have dominion. We have free will. The Lord won't force us to do anything. He wants to do in our lives, but we need to give permission. Nothing pertaining to man is done by the Lord God Almighty without Him being given permission to act. That is free will. Note, God reserves the right to do anything and everything He wants in every area in all of creation and beyond that does not touch on humanity's free will. But where free will exists, nothing at all in the spirit realm, from the lowliest of demon spirits to the throne of Almighty God, can touch us or operate in or on us without having been given permission by a mind of a created male or female human being that's created by God through natural process, not chosen by man and surgically formed, Genesis 1.26-28. I know that's a hot button issue, but we're dealing with the Word here, not doctrines, thoughts, and feelings of men. Any issues that that statement I made kicks up, take it to God. He knows what He's talking about and it is in His purview, not mine. By the same token, that we obey and loose the Lord to work on our behalf as He desires to, we also can bind the Lord in the sense that we can stop Him from working in our life. We can say, No, we can disobey. We can reject Him. It doesn't mean that He stops loving us, being with us, talking to us, and trying to bless us. It does mean that we can prevent things from happening to us that He wants for us. When Jesus walked this earth, the people of Nazareth bound Him and prevented Him from doing miracles with them. Matthew 13.58, He wanted to, but He could not. Mark 6.5-6 says, He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. He marveled because of their unbelief. So He wanted to, but He could not. Now Jesus did nothing unless His Father showed it to Him to do, which means that the Father wanted to do mighty works there. He had them planned, and He wanted to see them come to pass. But He could not, because the free will of man said, No. We can stop the work of God in our lives. It's just like a child refusing to reach out and take the present or treat that you're offering with an open hand. And if you have or have had a toddler, you know exactly what I mean. We aren't binding God literally. We're binding ourselves by refusing to accept what He is or wants to do. We can choose not to believe, but when we choose to obey and to believe and to accept Him and His works in our lives, amazing things can happen. You can see what happened to the disciples in John 6. Immediately the boat was at the land where they were going. The Lord moved the boat and everyone in it six kilometers and into the docks of Capernaum from the middle of the lake in the blink of an eye. That's something. That's an amazing thing. It's the only time it happened too. When Jesus calmed the storm in Luke 8, they had to keep rowing their way across. Sometimes when we allow God to work, the result is instantaneous. Other times we have some rowing to do. The important thing is that we are willing to humble ourselves, admit our inability to succeed, repent of bad rowing, and obey the words and instructions of the Lord. God wants us to succeed. God doesn't want us lost. God doesn't want us chained to fear. He doesn't want us anxious, depressed, sick, lacking, unhappy, unfed, or alone. He wants us at peace. His peace. He wants us with Him. He wants us blessed with all His spiritual blessings that He freely offers through grace, Ephesians 1, 3-23. In John 14, 27, Jesus says to us, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, I give to you. Don't let your heart be troubled. Neither let it be fearful. If we will walk in His ways, supporting our brothers and sisters in obedience and humility, just as Jesus walked, giving all glory to our Father in Heaven who does the work, signs, and wonders, we will arrive at our destination, His glorious kingdom, where we will hear, Well done, good and faithful servant, Matthew 25, 23. Don't stay lost in circles. Be willing to let Jesus into the boat. Our daily affirmation of God's love is 1 Peter 1, 3-12. What mercy the Father shows us. What mercy Jesus shows us. To give us a living hope in Jesus through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead to life again. Reserving for us a spot in Heaven. Reserved for you, for me. A place with our name on it. Something for us and for no one else. That means no matter how many others go there, we have a spot. We are guarded in our faith, sealed by Holy Spirit, and a fascination to angels who wonder at this beautiful relationship we have with our Father, the Almighty God. It is a precious gift and it is for each and every one of us. 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. 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 loves us. He can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.