Afraid or Abide?

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and champion faith in God. It emphasizes the importance of staying close to God and His Word to overcome fear and experience His glory. It also discusses the concept of darkness as the absence of light and the importance of abiding in Jesus to receive God's blessings and have a fruitful prayer life. The ultimate goal is to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus through the process of sanctification. 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 Matthew 17.5-7 While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. Behold, a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. When the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were very afraid. Jesus came and touched them and said, Get up and don't be afraid. Glory shows up and everyone hits the dirt. It happens every single time. First off, encountering the Lord God Almighty is life-changing. Whether you're hearing a voice, having a visible visitation, or having a spirit slam, God doesn't let you stay the same. How does that song go? Jesus, I have touched you and I can never be the same. It's true. He doesn't do it out of spite. It happens because of who he is. God is righteous, pure, the goodest good that has ever been. We are not that. We have trouble handling that. We have trouble so bad that if we saw the Father in all his glory face-to-face physically, we would explode. The voice of God will knock you to the floor. His absolute righteousness can knock you out and worse. If it wasn't for Jesus' sacrifice, we wouldn't have a prayer. Thank him today that he did that for us. That he became a form we can see, interact with, and touch without blowing up. If he hadn't, we'd still be separated from God for our own safety. The closer to the Father you get, the more of a pow factor. The thing is this, there's no such thing as darkness. There isn't. There's only light. Remember high school science class? Cold doesn't exist. Only heat exists. Cold is simply our word for the degrees of the absence of heat. In the same way, there is only light. Darkness is simply degrees of absence of light. Heaven is 100% light. Hell is spiritual Kelvin. Absolute zero light. Heat is caused by particles moving. Kelvin is absolute zero. The temperature at which all particles cease to move completely. And this is what hell is. The place where the Spirit of God ceases to move completely. There is no God in hell. Only absence of God. That's a terrible thought. But one we don't have to live in. We do not have to choose it. Because Jesus brought us into himself. Romans 8, 2-4. Instead of absence, we get to get closer to all of God. James 4-8. But our bodies cannot withstand the Father. Our spirits can, because by grace we have Jesus' Spirit. Until we get our new physical body, we can't manage all of God's glory. But the time will come that we will handle it and rejoice. Revelation 22, 4-7. Only abiding in Jesus enables us to withstand the glory of God. The disciples couldn't do it because Jesus hadn't been resurrected yet. They fell down and cowered before the majesty of God. And that was just his voice and light. The Israelites did the same thing and begged Moses not to let God speak directly to them again. Deuteronomy 5, 22-27. We, though, we have a new covenant in Jesus. A better covenant. Hebrews 8, 6. One that enables us to stand before God without fear and trembling. Hebrews 12, 22-24. We are enabled, but enabled by grace through Jesus the Anointed One. Yeshua HaMashiach. Jesus Messiah. We can't do it alone. Alone, we're the same as any other person. But in Jesus, we're family. We have nothing separating us from God. Romans 8, 16-17. Be warned, humans have fluid feet. We have a habit of taking our eyes off the prize. We have a habit of moving from out of the covering of God's wings. We leave the yard. Jesus calls us to stay in the yard. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come into him and will dine with him and he with me. Revelation 3, 20. Jesus knocks. He doesn't open. He knocks. Jesus won't force himself on you. God Almighty will back your decisions. If you want to wander, he lets you. Now, he does everything he can to get you back in the yard, back with him. But he respects your free will. He knows what's at stake, you see. The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness. But he is patient with us, not wishing that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3, 9. But a lot of people are perishing. He does everything in his power, and that's a lot. Right up to the moment one sets foot into hell to get them to choose God, to choose Jesus, to choose heaven. But if we insist, we get to go to the hell that was made for Satan and his angels. He respects our free will. So how do we stay in the yard? How do we keep our eyes on the prize? We do it by staying in the Word. John 8, 31-32. Daily meditation on the Word is the best way to stay focused on Jesus. Reading the Word with intent. It is like praise. The song we sing, that isn't praise. That is the preparation for praise. That is aligning our heart, mind, and spirit into the attitude of praise. Shifting our atmosphere from us to him. We sing so that we can praise. When we sing as praise, we miss out on the real deal. There's still benefit there and honor being delivered to God. But we don't use the atmosphere we've cultured when we do it that way. The Word is the same. It prepares us for abiding. It isn't abiding, but it aligns our heart, mind, and spirit into the attitude of abiding. It changes our atmosphere so that we are ready to look to Jesus and listen to Holy Spirit. It cultures our focus onto Jesus. Staying focused on Jesus is the only way to abide. In John 15, 5, Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. If man doesn't remain in me, he's thrown out as a branch and is withered. And you gather them, throw them into the fire, and are burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire and it will be done for you. Not only is it important to thriving in God's presence, but it's also important to our prayer life, To be focused on God, abiding in Jesus, and praying in accordance to the word is the goal. If we do that, whatever we pray will be the will of God. Whatever the will of God is, we will receive. That is more than a human mind can really take in. But thank God that he renews our minds for us. Romans 12, 2, so that we can take it in and walk in it. Flesh is selfish. Because of that, much of what we pray is selfish. God doesn't hear selfish. God doesn't hear flesh. That doesn't work. You ask and don't receive because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasures. James 4, 3 Take money. We know from scripture that God wants us to prosper financially. Why don't we all prosper then? Why aren't we all rolling in money? Because of the hook money has and what we would do with it. Oh, I'm not hooked by money, you say? Really? Well, let me ask you this. If money is the very least of all the kingdom rewards, something with almost no value at all, why is money what we all think of when we hear prosperity? When God talks prosperity, he is talking the whole picture. Spirit first, then soul. It's mind, emotions, personality. Then flesh, our body. And then what is around us. That's the levels of importance right there. The around us manifestation of blessing as prosperity is only there to encourage our spirit that we're on the right path. That yes, we're prospering in spirit. That we haven't missed it. We can be living in a dirt shack. No money, not sure where the next meal is coming from. Covered in sores and happy as can be. Prospering. Enjoying God's favor and presence. We can be exactly the same level of prosperity with two cars, three floors in our house, not so much as a sniffle and an 82-inch television. If we're truly prosperous, we can give any and everything up. We can walk away from it all. It doesn't have a hook in us. It isn't important. And we never ask for anything that will take our focus off Jesus. That is prosperity. Because Jesus is where it is at and where it should be. We get into the word to learn about how God sees us and how he wants us to be. What he wants us to have. What he wants us to care about and do. When we are abiding in Jesus, that excites us. That invigorates us. That feeds us. It's a process. It's called sanctification. The making of us like Jesus. It takes time. And it cannot be measured against anyone else. We are all on a different place of each part of the path. And no one is better than anyone else. God is no respecter of persons and doesn't care for one of us more than another. Romans 2.11 We can all of us have it all. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Ephesians 1.3 Our spirits already have it. If we let him retrain and renew our minds, our soul can have it too. If our spirit and our soul are enjoying every blessing, then our flesh can too. If our spirit, soul, and body are experiencing every blessing, we're in heaven and in our renewed and resurrected bodies. That is when we will have it all. Until then, it is a process of us walking ever closer. By grace. Not by effort, not by accomplishments, and not by works. The works are the result of grace in our lives. Not the vehicle by which we get grace. Sanctification is a process. Abiding in Jesus is a journey. Along that journey, Jesus touches us all. He says, don't be afraid. Get up. Jesus lifts us up into himself, renews us through the word, and introduces us to his Father as a gift from his Son. It's a wonderful privilege. We are a wonderful gift. Jesus said so. The Father thinks so. Believe it. Receive it. You are a wonderful gift. You. Amen. Our daily affirmation of God's love is 1 Thessalonians 5. We are children of light, and we belong to the light. God appointed us to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One. He did it so that through Christ we could live together with him. Jesus paid for sin. We can choose God. That is wonderful. We're here to spread the word, the good news, to all. Their sin is paid for. They're free. We're here to exhort, build up, respect, and honor our fellow believers. To promote peace and not strife. Patience, not frustration. To be a blessing to one another. Believers and non-believers. God will be the judge, not us. We're here to build up and support. To begin to show people a glimpse of their worth in the eyes of the Lord. To thank God in everything. Not for everything. In everything. Again, peace and love, not strife and negativity. It's so easy to lose our focus. To lose our perspective of the kingdom and get wrapped up in all of our human problems. Points of view and politics. Let the Holy Spirit move within you. Seek the Lord in prayer and in the word. Never stop talking to, listening for, and listening some more to the Lord's voice. The word is truth. And God will sanctify us with the truth if we'll let him. John 17, 17. We're children of light. Don't throw shade. 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 loves us. Can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.