Duck's Back Blessing

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and champion faith in God. It emphasizes the power of God's word in protecting and guiding us. It describes the attributes of God and encourages a close relationship with Him. The transcription also mentions the confidence and courage that come from knowing God is with us. It concludes with a daily affirmation of God's love and mercy towards 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 Deuteronomy 7.21 You shall not be scared of them, for the Lord your God is amongst you, a great and awesome God. Get this truth into you, and you will never have to be anxious, depressed, overwhelmed, scared, fearful, worried, concerned, panicked, stressed, or anything like it ever again. Those things will still exist and will try to fall on you, but they'll slough off like water from a duck's back. That's right. This verse is the duck's back blessing. There's two types of feathers on ducks and other waterfowl. The outside ones are tight, they're interlocked, and they're consistently covered in an oil that keeps them straight, matted, and parasite-free. This keeps them able to repel water. Under those are down feathers, and they're not neat. They have air pockets. They're very soft, but fluffy. They're insulators. Between these two types of feathers, the waterfowl are warm and well-protected from the element. It takes a lot of work, though. Preening is the process of taking the oil from the producing gland and distributing it over their feathers. They can spend 23% of their day preening. They take it very seriously, and as long as they are physically capable, they do it. Now, we should be the same way, spiritually. The Word is our oil, our first line of defense barrier. It's what keeps our outer feathers healthy. It needs to be applied daily and not in tiny amounts, Joshua 1.8. It needs to saturate us. The Word helps us to put on our feathers, our armor, Psalm 119. It helps us place the pieces where they should go, and also it interacts with our armor, Ephesians 6.10-18. It's like the electrical current that turns on the armor. To keep up each piece, to make sure that we're going where we should, how we should, and when we should, Romans 12.1-21. Now, underneath that, we have what is our down, that which insulates us, warms us, and protects us. Our relationship with the Lord. It doesn't matter who you are. It all comes down to that. But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head. I cry to the Lord with my voice, and He answers me out of His holy hill, Psalm 3.3-4. The effectiveness of your protective layer is directly proportionate to your relationship with the Lord. Sunday service doesn't cut it. A head nod, now I lay me down prayer doesn't cut it. Major holidays only definitely doesn't cut it. I mean, those aren't negative things in and of themselves, and they're certainly better than nothing. But if you treated a fellow person that way, and then referred to them as your best friend, they'd give you some serious side-eye. Thankfully, the Lord God is merciful and doesn't give us side-eye or any other kind of judgment. He loves us and encourages us. Yes, He corrects us, but He's not judging us. He wants relationship with us, real and abiding. Now who is this Lord? Well, Job 38.7 says the stars sing to Him. Now go online, look up planet sounds. You should find several videos or MP3s that have the sounds that the planets make. The vibrations as they hit our ears are actual sounds. Some are soothing, some are eerie, some are windy. Saturn is downright weird, but they're there making sound, singing. Now this verse is verifiably true on a human scale and standard with human methodology and instruments. Then what else might be true? What else in the Word that we can't verify might be true? What kind of God is Yahweh? If we get into a relationship with the Lord, if we let Him come amongst us, as it were, what are we dealing with? Now today's verse says He's great and awesome. That isn't even the tip of the tip of the iceberg. He's a rock, Deuteronomy 32.4. He made the world, Acts 17, 24-28. He's clothed in majesty, Job 37.22. He keeps covenant, Nehemiah 1.5. He performs wonders, Deuteronomy 10.21. He's full of power, Psalm 66.3. He has wisdom, Psalm 147.5. He wears light like clothes, Psalm 104.1-2. He is recognizably great, Luke 9.43. He keeps promises, Joshua 21.45. He does things we can't believe, Habakkuk 1.5. He has authority, Mark 1.7. And that's the short list. That's only a few of the attributes that He has and lists none of the things that He is toward us. Redeemer, groom, healer, teacher, comforter, counselor, etc. The Psalms are full of the praises of the Lord. The Gospels are full of who He is toward us. Details of what He has done, what He can do, and what He's being asked to do. Job 38-41 is a laundry list of capabilities of the Lord. And since the list was assembled by the Lord, I'd have a tendency to believe Him. Here's a snippet out of Job 38, verses 25-33. Who has cut a channel for the floodwater or the path for the thunderstorm to cause it to rain on a land where there is no man, on the wilderness in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate ground, to cause the tender grass to grow? Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew? Whose womb did the ice come out of? Who has given birth to the gray frost of the sky? The waters become hard like stone when the surface of the deep is frozen. Can you bind the cluster of the Pilates or loosen the cords of Orion? Can you lead the constellations out in their season? Or can you guide the bear with her cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Or can you establish His dominion over the earth? You can see what we're dealing with here. And He isn't a statue, an image, an idea crafted by humanity. He's a living God, Isaiah 57, 15. He is self-sustaining and enduring, Daniel 4, 3. And He doesn't absent Himself from us. What does Jesus say in Revelation 3, 20? Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him, and I will dine with him, and he with Me. Jesus is right there knocking at your door. If He's willing to come in and abide with you, He's completely willing to answer a question or two. Our God is the only God who speaks to us as friend, confident, and Father. This is the God who wants to be beside you, with you, fellowshipping and connected to you. Tell me, when you were a kid, didn't you feel more confident when bigger people or parents had your back? Weren't you bolder, knowing they were there and would protect you? Suddenly, you had a big mouth. You could run, ride that bicycle, climb that rock, swing from that tree, or slide down that steep slide, right? Well, go look up some of those verses, and others, because they're easy to find. This is the God who wants to be beside you. Think of the confidence you could have if you believed that, if you believed that this God was with you. If you were speaking and acting according to what He said in His Word, claiming the promises He made, what would that look like? So that with good courage we say, The Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me? Hebrews 13.6 and Psalm 118.6-7 The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers came at me to eat up my flesh, even my adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell. Though an army should encamp around me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, even then I will be confident. Psalm 27.1-3 How can we fear, knowing this? How can we even for a moment fear? This is the God who loves you. This is the God who made you. This is the God who wants to fellowship with you. This is the God who wants to heal you. This is the God who wants to lead you. This is the God who wants to protect you. This is the God who wants you to accept His redemption of you. This is the God who wants to explore all of creation with you. A great God. An awesome God. A good God. A good Father. Praise the Lord. I will not fear. For He is amongst us. He dwells in me and I in Him. Holy Spirit, thank you. You are here and indwelling me. Jesus, thank you for all you have done, do, do, and will do in the future. Father, I worship you and thank you for all your tender mercies and loving kindness. I worship you and I pray in the name of Jesus that you will send angels to everyone reading or hearing this today. May they minister to them as you speak to their hearts and begin to reveal some of who you are. It will take an eternity to truly grasp it, but thank you that you are starting now. That your presence and love and revelation drives fear from our hearts. Fear, get gone, and don't bother coming back. Thank you, Father. Thank you so much. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Psalm 9, verse 10. We're dirt. God knows we're dirt. We're ordinary dirt, too, not that store-bought stuff full of vitamins and peat and fertilizer. We're not processed. We're dug in the backyard full of bottle caps, old gum, twigs, and cigarette butt dirt. God knows it. God doesn't forget it. You know what? He doesn't hold it against us, and He is still merciful, loving, and kind to us in spite of it. We were made, created, on purpose. He does not consider the building material. He does not consider what we are doing with it. He considers and puts His mind on what we can be in Him. He sees us as we were created to be, as we could be, as we will be. He sees your situation, but you aren't your situation. You're a reflection of Him. He sees more than us. He sees us inhabiting our potential in Him. That is the big gift that Jesus gave His Father, us, in Him. A not-only-sin-washed-away-new-creation, but a baked-in-the-mold-perfect-new-creation carbon copy of Christ Himself. What we need to do is shift our sight from what we are and were to who we are and will be, to inhabit the frame of the us that His love is crafting. From God's point of view, we're there. His love finished us. From our point of view, we're growing. But as you grow, remember the vision of who you are becoming in God's love poured out for you. Because He loves you and can't do without you. As we close, remember that you have birth. You were 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.