THE Bookends

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that rejects fear and champions faith in God. It emphasizes that Jesus has authority over all realms, both physical and spiritual. It discusses the importance of choosing faith over fear and highlights the examples of faith in the Bible. It encourages believers to trust in Jesus' authority and submit to his will. Ultimately, it urges individuals to give God permission to work in their lives and do miraculous things through them. 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 Revelation 1.17-18 When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me, saying, Don't be afraid. I am the first and the last and the living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. Amen. I have the keys of death and of Hades. Jesus said he had the keys of death and Hades. We all know what death is, but in Hebrew, the word the Greeks translated as Hades means the unseen world. Jesus has the keys to the unseen world. Now, that is significant because in the book of Hebrews chapter 11, it says, Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen. For by this the elders obtained approval. By faith, we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God so that what is seen has not been made out of things which are visible. This is further scriptural proof that Jesus is Lord of all. He has been given authority of every realm, of everything in every realm. No matter what we as humans discover, be it macroscopic or microscopic, be it wormhole, black hole, or dimensional, Jesus has authority over it. All the physical realms and all the spiritual realms. Jesus is Lord over the unseen world and everything within it. Jesus is Lord over the created world and everything within it. Jesus holds the keys to it all. The unspoken question is this. Do you believe it? Do you have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, and ability of Jesus to hold this authority? All the great patriarchs of the Bible were approved by the Lord because they chose to operate in faith, both male and female. Faith that the world was made out of unseen things and we can have total, 100% trust in the unseen world. Faith that what God said was, that the Lord was trustworthy. It sometimes took them some time to get there, but when they got there, they stood on it and did not waver. This is what made them faithful. That is why it was imparted to Abraham his righteousness. He believed. To believe is to hold something as true. To accept it as genuine and real. To consider it honest. To accept the evidence and words about something. To have wholehearted conviction about it. This wasn't a head nod. This wasn't head knowledge. It was deeper. This is total and absolute conviction. No one could sway them. Nothing could convince them otherwise. Nothing they saw or experienced. Nothing anyone said. It wasn't overnight faith. It wasn't belief that happened immediately. Look at Abraham and his having a child. Abraham, then Abram, was told that he would father a biological child through his wife Sarai when he was around 75 to 80 years old. That was when he was first told by the Lord that he would father a child. Now, when he was 86, the two of them tried to force the prophecy to come true through Sarai's maid. When Abraham was 99, the Lord told him again that he would father a child by Sarai, now Sarah. When he was 100 years old, his son, Pisara, was born. It took them at least 20 years for both of them to fully believe that God would give them a biological son. But once they got there, they stood. Abraham stood so firm that when God asked him to sacrifice his son, which was a common practice of the pagans in the land of Abraham's youth, Abraham assumed that God was going to raise Isaac from the dead, even though that had, to his knowledge, never happened or even could happen. Hebrews 11, 19. Now, that is some faith. Jesus holds the keys to everything that he, as the Word of God, made through the will of the Father, whether in the physical realm or the spiritual. John 1, 3. Colossians 1, 16. The existence of all creation is held together by the will of Jesus. Colossians 1, 17. By grace, through faith, we have access to all that blessing and all that promise and all that righteousness. Ephesians 1, 3. Not on our own, but because we are in Christ. John 14, 20. Christ Jesus holds all the cards, all the access, all the authority to wield the power which emanates from the Father. Jesus started out by creating the universe. He has ended by holding the keys to the universe. He is the bookend of all creation, and we can have trust in him, faith in him, and absolute confidence in him. In him, we are sons and daughters of God. In him, we are made perfect. In him, we have everything we need to succeed. He is Alpha. He is Omega. He is beginning. He is ending. And he is the living one of God Almighty. Now, if that doesn't give you shivers and make you want to worship him, then let go of your fear and embrace faith. We are spirit beings, and the spirit is a binary setting. It is either one or the other. It is either on or off. You are choosing to use or you are choosing to stay away. Ignoring it is a choice to stay away. Believing it is a choice to stay away. Anything but turning it on is a choice to stay away. One side is faith, on, and the other side is fear, off. Every day, in every word, and with every action, we have to decide what we are going to do. Are we going to walk in faith or walk in fear? Are we going to speak words of faith or words of fear? Science can't help you. Society can't help you. Habit can't help you. Frivolousness can't help you. School can't help you. Government can't help you. Rebellion can't help you. Doing good can't help you. Acts of charity and kindness can't help you. Nothing can help you. You either speak faith or you are speaking fear. You either choose to put your words and eyes on God or you are being selfish and fearful. Period. This is dominion. This is free will. There are no other options. We have a choice and must make a choice. On or off. Light or darkness. Now Jesus said, don't be afraid. Afraid. That means two things. Well, it means more than that, but two things I am talking about. One, that means we need to not obsess about fearfully choosing the wrong thing. Yes, we have to choose in everything we do, but don't get hung up on the fact that there are negative consequences and positive consequences. Don't be afraid of the choice. Just make it. Secondly, these words mean, don't be afraid, means we can choose not to yield to fear. We are not to give way to arguments, demands or pressure, no matter their source. We are to choose faith. We are able to choose faith, but we can't do that if we're not abiding in Christ. The flesh does not choose faith automatically. The flesh chooses fear because fear is experiential and flesh is experiential. The spirit can choose faith automatically because we're given Jesus' spirit. We are human beings. Male and female have been given total and absolute authority over this planet Earth, Genesis 126. We have been given complete and absolute free will over our own selves, but all the power is in the spirit realm. All the power comes from the Father alone, Matthew 6.13. Jesus is the only one with authority to wield it. So God looks to us to have faith and tell him that he can move on Earth through us. We give him legal permission to be the miraculous God that he is on this Earth at his timing, in his way, according to his will and his word. We have the dominion, but we are nothing without him. We can give him permission, but only permission to do what he does. We can't make him do anything. We cannot force him to do anything. We can't have him do it our way. We are literally just saying, you know, we're going to stand aside and let you come in and be God. We are in the image of him. We are to work to do things, to be in the right place, to minister and help and bless and receive and be all that he made us to be. We can obey, we can act, we can let him in, but we can't do anything without power. The Son can do everything because the Father has all the power and he has given his Son authority to wield it. And Jesus gets to keep it too. But our Father lets us exist in a place where we can open ourselves to him by abiding in Christ Jesus. We get to say, yes, Lord, use me. We can work together where we are the vessel or conduit and he is the work and the power, Matthew 19, 26. We can walk where his light shines, Psalm 119, verse 105 to 112. We can be obedient. We can let him teach us. We can let him work through us. We can lend our faith to his work. We can say, yes, Lord, use me. He exercises the power because we submitted our will to be where he wanted, doing what he showed us and saying what he said to say. John 5, 19 to 20 and 12, 49 to 50. God can do miraculous things beyond our comprehension if we will let him, if we will obey him, if we'll use our authority of dominion that he gave us and give him permission to work with us and for us. Now, Jesus did it 100% during his earthly ministry and look what the father did to him. Jesus, when he was resurrected to life, gave us his spirit when he made us new creatures. And what did he say to us? Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also and greater works than these because I am going to my father. John 14, 12. Jesus went to heaven and sent us the Holy Spirit. In Jesus, by his spirit, the father can do much with us and through us. Why not let him? Why not give him permission to do something with you and through you? What do you have to lose except your fear? Our daily affirmation of God's love is Colossians 1, 16 to 17. Jesus made everything and holds everything together. Do you realize the implications of that, the proof in that of his love for us? By the will of Jesus, we exist. By the will of Jesus, we continue to exist. If he decided to, he could end us in a moment with a thought. He keeps us alive moment by moment with his thoughts about us. That means he is thinking positively about everything. Every human being is treasured in the thoughts of Jesus. Not our state, sinful or non-sinful, not our actions, but us, the real us, we are treasured in the thoughts of Jesus. The people who were tormenting him during his crucifixion were being held together by the will of the man whom they were torturing. While we are in sin, his thoughts are keeping us alive and breathing. He holds us alive to the very last moment that he can because he loves us and enjoys us. He wants us to have all the opportunities we need to choose life, to choose him. Of course, because we have free will, there comes a point where we can refuse. We can choose death. We can choose hell. But until that choice is made, he is holding us together and holding us up. The Lord God loves us more than we can understand without his help. He has his thoughts on us all the time. He loves us so much. Praise him for it today and love him back. Choose life. He deserves your love. He loves you so much. 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.