Don't Look Back

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and champion faith. It discusses the story of Moses and how he acted in faith despite fear. It emphasizes the importance of reading and consuming the Word of God to strengthen our faith. The transcription also highlights the love of God and how knowing we are loved can empower us to live in obedience and make sacrifices. It concludes by reminding us of our worth and God's endless 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 Hebrews 11.27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. When I did something wrong as a kid, I looked behind me. Not right away, not while it was happening. But as soon as I was out of sight, you better believe I looked behind me to see if I had someone after me. And then I ran. The first time Moses left Egypt, he was running. Probably looked behind himself a bunch of times. He was, after all, a wanted murderer. He ran right out into the wilderness, crossed a desert, and sat down by a well. Alone, broke, tired. A far cry from a prince of Egypt, adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter. But Moses had killed a man, an Egyptian, while trying to help the Israelites. All this is in Exodus chapters 1 and 2. Moses killed the man in secret, but it turned out not to be secret. And he got scared. He was afraid of Pharaoh and ran away. He had good reason to. The Bible says Pharaoh sought to kill Moses for it. But Moses ran and hid. Doesn't sound like faith. But that was only the first time. Moses met God in that far-off country, spoke with Him face to burning bush. Yahweh spoke, and Moses accepted an assignment. But not without some whining about it. This also doesn't sound like faith. But it was obedience. He did go do the things. He spoke to Pharaoh. Different Pharaoh by this time, because it had been 40 years. And demanded the release of the Israelites on behalf of the Lord. Moses brought the plagues that God released to him to call down. And after the gods of Egypt were humbled, broken, and shown to be ineffective against Yahweh God, the Israelites were let go out of the wreck that was Egypt. Now we see faith. There were a lot of Israelites, about 600,000 men plus children and women, on foot. Now Psalm 105.17 says, He brought them out with silver and gold. There was not one feeble person among His tribes. Even with no one sick, 600,000 plus don't move fast. The Lord had just destroyed Egypt. Exodus 10.7 says, Pharaoh's servants said to him, How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go that they may serve Yahweh their God. Don't you yet know that Egypt is destroyed? Now that's tremendous. Out they went, away from a nation that had been brutalized. The long way around they went down into the wilderness by the Red Sea, and they camped by the sea. Now Pharaoh had a change of heart, again it was about his sixth or seventh or something like that, not the first anyway, and came against the Israelites with 600 chariots. The thing is though, Yahweh told Moses about it ahead of time. The Lord spoke to Moses and told him they were coming and that God was behind it, and that God would triumph against the Egyptians and get honor over Pharaoh. But that was it. No details. Now we see faith. With the Egyptians coming down on them, with the Israelites screaming and declaring that they were going to die and it would be all Moses' fault, Moses stretched out his hand and God divided the water of the Red Sea. The Israelites crossed on dry ground. Pharaoh tried to as well, and God closed the sea on the Egyptians. The Israelites were free, and Moses didn't have advanced plans of it. Just the words of the Lord. By faith Moses accepted them. By faith Moses believed. And by faith Moses never turned back. Moses acted on his belief. That is faith. That's what we're called to do. Believe that the Lord will do what the Lord says he will do. No, most of us aren't hearing audible words. Most of us are not looking into the face of a burning bush. But we have the Word. There are promises in it. Check it out. They're all for you. God said it. You can have it. He's offering it to you. There are some conditions to some of them, but that's okay. Don't sweat it. Jesus isn't. We shouldn't be either. Why would we be told to get into the Word to strengthen our faith if our faith didn't need to be strengthened? It is common sense. If you think of your faith like a muscle, muscles can be built up. Muscles can atrophy. It all depends on our usage of them. You can choose to be active and healthy. You can choose to be weak and shaky. It is a lot of work. We start small and we work our way up. It doesn't matter if we start as kids or if we are restarting in our retirement. We can choose at any time to start moving and building those muscles. We can recover the use of our body, in most cases, by movement and strengthening exercises. We're not talking about conditions caused by disease and sickness here, just the natural and broad brushstroke human condition. We can choose to give in to weakness or we can choose to reject weakness and build up our strength. It works the same way spiritually. If we get into the Word with intent, it will build up our muscles. It doesn't work if you're not asking Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to you, reveal the Father to you, to reveal Himself to you as you read. It doesn't work if you're not approaching the Word as food and drink for your spirit. That is one of the messages of communion. Jesus was the Word. We eat His body and drink His blood at the communion table, entering into covenant with the Lord and accepting from Him wholeness, righteousness, newness. We also eat His body when we devour the Word. It is life to us, John 6.63 and Hebrews 4.12. It is medicine to us, Proverbs 3.8. If we use it as a tool to build us up, it will bring to our spirit strength and depth. If we do not use it as a tool to build us up, our spirit atrophies. It isn't enough to just read it. Reading is good. I'm not knocking reading it. But there are people who read the Bible every year and have a love-hate relationship with it, seeing negatives in the Word, seeing things that don't jive with today's world. They struggle with it. These people are reading the Word, but they're not reading with intent, not with a revelation in mind. They're not being built up. They're not being renewed. We need to consume the Word as food, as sustenance, as the thing that is going to keep us from going under, keep us from wasting away, and keep us from starving spiritually. Read the Word. Think about the Word. Believe the Word. Consume the Word daily, any and every way you can. Audiobook, physical book, electronic book. It doesn't matter as long as you get it in you as much as you can with mindfulness. Don't rush it. Don't breeze through. Think it through as you read or listen. Meditate it through. Ask Holy Spirit about it as you read it. Have faith in the Word. Trust it as true, as written, truth, period. Don't look back. Walk forward in belief, faith, and the Word. It is a process that takes time, but it will be time well spent, the best time. Trust me and Him. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Acts 21, 1-13. Paul was warned not to go to Jerusalem by believers who saw it in the Spirit, by a prophet who demonstrated it. But Paul went anyway. They wept. They begged. But Paul went anyway. He went because Jesus loved him. He went because the Lord God, the Father, loved him. He went wrapped in the love of the Holy Spirit. How? Because Paul knew he was loved. Paul said he was ready not only to be bound, but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus. Verse 13. You don't get that willingness to die or be bound unless you know you're loved. You don't get that willingness to be a servant, to be obedient, to be a slave to the principles of something unless you know you're loved and you're appreciated. When you know you're loved by someone who loves you, it makes every sacrifice worth it. Every act of obedience is a language of love, the language of love. Ours to Him and His to us. John 14, 15-31. If we love Him, if we keep His commandments, we show that we love Him. If we love Him, we keep His commandments. We follow His way. We let Him in. 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. 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.