Don't Waste the Word

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that rejects fear and promotes faith in God. Success is defined as furthering the goal of spreading knowledge of the Lord. To achieve success, we must love and obey God. Idols and altars can distract us from serving God and keeping the faith. To stay focused on God, we must disciple others and hold onto our faith and a good conscience. Love for God and faith go hand in hand, and with them, we can run the race of faith successfully. 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 Isaiah 42.4 He will not fail, nor be discouraged, until he has set justice in the earth, and the islands wait for his law. Who wants to succeed? Everybody wants to succeed. From the ancient aboriginal hunter-gatherers, to the traders on Wall Street, to the mother of three in an inner city, to the mother of three in a suburban stereotype. We all want to succeed. But what success constitutes has changed over the eons. Like everything else in this physical world, it is malleable. Money often features in it because we have decided as a species that we have to put a value on everything and build our societies around those things on which we have placed our arbitrary values. Spiritually speaking, the definition of success hasn't changed, not since before day one. The goal is for the earth to be full of the knowledge of the Lord as water covers the seabed. Success is how well we do, furthering this goal. Whether we achieve success or not is dependent entirely on whether we love the Lord God Almighty. If we love Him, we will obey Him. If we obey Him, we will be able to achieve what He has for us, because He is the one who does it, and not us. He enables us to walk in what He has prepared for us, Ephesians 2.10. With God as our guidepost, we cannot fail. When teaching today's verse, the rabbis teach that the meaning of this phrase is, the prophet shall not die, or he shall not be overcome by any violence of man. The prophet shall not fail with regard to the spirit which is joined to his body. He shall not be broken. When Paul reflected on his journeys, he had the same sentiment, but from the achieved end, not the before-you-start end. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. From now on, the crown of righteousness is stored up for me, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not to me only, but also to all those who have loved His appearing. 2 Timothy 4.7-8 Starting to seem pretty easy, isn't it? If God wants us all to help the goal succeed, if we'll listen to Him out of our love for Him, He will keep us from breaking, failing, and being overcome, which means we will finish the course, get our rewards from Him, and be faithful. Ah, there it is, the catch, if you will. Paul said, I have kept the faith. Verse 7 All this hinges on two things. It starts on the hinge of our love for Yahweh God. It ends on the hinge of our keeping the faith. On paper, that's a very basic thing, and we should all have mastered it. After all, we love the Lord, right? We accepted Him as our Savior on the foundational principle that He loved us and gave Himself for us. John 3.16-17 That sacrifice of love on His part created in us love for Him. 1 John 4.19 That's part of how we get saved. John 17.3 Realizing His love for us and starting to love Him back. Ephesians 2.4 Since we love Him, we follow Him. 1 Peter 5.6 If we follow Him, we do what He says to do, since we have already acknowledged that He knows better than we do. Colossians 3.2 That's salvation. Romans 5.8 Us acknowledging His holiness and not our not holiness. Revelations 4.8 Then we seek Him as we walk in His ways, which are those above us, holiness ways. Romans 12.2 By grace through faith we accomplish it. Ephesians 2.18 If we're faithing to walk with Him, doesn't that mean we're keeping the faith? Okay, okay. You've already seen it, haven't you? There's a lot of ifs and assumptions in what I just said. In fact, I'm just listing ideals and the principles, but not the realities. I'm listing what we should do. It isn't always what we do do. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can't serve both God and mammon. Matthew 6.24 Now here, Jesus was specifically talking about mammon, which is defined as material wealth or possessions, especially as having a debasing influence. But the principle behind that applies to everything in our lives and our spiritual walk. It's the crux that keeps us from keeping the faith, and we see it all throughout Scripture. We, as humans, fall back into the habits of the flesh. We let our focus slip from the Lord. We choose things that are not His things. We essentially choose not to serve the Lord. We choose to serve the not-Lord. The not-Lord is anything and everything that is, yet, not the Lord. We, as a species, can turn anything into an altar. This does not mean that everything is one. We can get caught up in a hobby, and that hobby isn't an altar and never becomes one. On the other hand, we can turn a product from a fast-food restaurant into an altar. Anything that replaces the Lord in our hearts is an idol. Idols are served on altars. Altars are not happenstance, and they must be broken if we are to be free of them. Deuteronomy 12.3 What we want to focus on here is how to keep from having them rise in the first place. So, how do we follow the Lord and keep our focus on Him since lack of focus or replacing Him is what causes the idolatry in the altars? If we can avoid the idolatry in the altars, we focus on Him, we can keep the faith. All right? Make sense? So, how do we run this race that we're called to be running? First, we have to recognize that it is a race that we have been called to run. Jesus commanded us to disciple our fellow humans. Matthew 28.19-20 We don't get to be choosy. We don't get to not do it, and we don't get to choose the type of person that we disciple. We are to disciple everyone. From the moment we are believers, that is our mandate. If they are seeking the Lord, it is our responsibility to help them along. But at the moment that we become believers, is not when we're to do it. Babies can't disciple babies. They can crawl along together, but they don't lead each other, not properly. We need growth. We need teaching. We need to figure out the kingdom of God, the basics anyway. That's why we're all given the Holy Spirit as soon as we're born again, Ephesians 1.13-14. Now, once we've been discipled, we can disciple others. Remember that the people Jesus was speaking to in Matthew 28 had been discipled by Jesus for three years. Does it take three years to be a disciple? No. We have the Holy Spirit. They didn't. There's no set times for these things. It comes down to us. The effort that we put in. The time we put in. The listening we put in. The praise we put in. But once we reach a level in the Spirit, we start to feel confident that we can share with others, to speak to them, help them, witness to them. We start to hear the command. Now, that's different from just wanting to talk to others about Jesus because we got saved. We feel that way right from the beginning, but this is the command, and that's the race we're all in. This is our calling. Timothy had a calling. It was prophesied to him. He was walking in it, but like the rest of us, he found that the walk wasn't always smooth. Paul had encouraging words for him, though. Encouraging words and the formula for success. I commit this instruction to you, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies which were given to you before, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience, which some, having thrust away, made a shipwreck concerning the faith. 1 Timothy 1, 18-19 Holding faith and a good conscience. That's what it takes. That's how we run the race. That's how we can keep the faith. We hold on to it. We're enabled to hold on to it when we have a good conscience. Paul says it again in 1 Timothy 3, 9. I mean, this is a theme. This isn't an us thing. It's an in Christ thing. Philippians 3, 9. We keep Jesus in our hearts through faith to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth and to know Christ's love which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3, 17-19 So, it's all about faith and love. We're given grace to succeed in holding fast because God helps us and He is faithful. Hebrews 10, 23. We are justified through our faith. Romans 5, 1. We conduct ourselves in a righteous way when we stand on our faith. Philippians 1, 27. When we walk in faith, we hold to God. Colossians 1, 23. Our love for God and from God gives life to our faith. When our faith has life, we can hold on to it. It has body. It has strength. It is not atrophied and useless. It must be built up daily. When we have vibrant, strong, alive faith, we can hold to the things of God. We can learn the depths of God's love because Holy Spirit has to teach it to us and without faith, we have no fellowship with Him. We need fellowship with Him to listen to Him. If we listen to Him, we will obey Him because it is our love for God that motivates us to listen. If we love Him, we will obey. If we obey, we will be doing the right things. If we do the right things, we will have a clear conscience. With faith and a clear conscience, we'll be running the race right. We'll be holding the faith it takes to wage the warfare we need to finish the race. So the circle is love from God becomes love for God. Grace and faith from God become listening to God. Listening in love becomes obedience. Obedience cleans our conscience. Clear conscience held in faith enables a good race, which is the success we can walk in Jesus, unbroken, undefeated, not discouraged, working with God and for God so that the knowledge of God can cover this world like the seas over the seabed. This is great news. This is achievable in Jesus, through Jesus, and by Jesus. John 15. Fantastic. So why aren't we all doing it? Why do we seem to spend more time on TV, meals, and friends than we do walking in this victorious race that we are called to? Well, the circle I just described is a great cycle of victorious living, but it needs a foundation. There are two key elements to this race we are to be running, remember? Faith and love? Neither are inherent in us. Both are gifts from the Father. We need the Word. The Word retrains our minds so that we can comprehend the Lord. Romans 12.2. This is such a universal principle that the world uses it daily without realizing it. They think it's their idea instead of something Yahweh established while founding the universe. There is no human endeavor that we embark on without training. We don't even go to the bathroom without training. We spend years in school learning how to learn. We learn our jobs. We retrain constantly as new things become available, a huge chunk of our lives is spent in a learning curve. The most basic tasks and professions all include some aspect of learning how to do it. This is life on earth. Why do we assume it is not part of our spiritual journey? Why are we getting saved and immediately starting to train? We can all do it. We do it on our own as well as under someone else's instruction, and ideally both. We all have the manual, the Word. We all have the same teacher's aid, the Holy Spirit. So why isn't this a priority? It needs to be. Without a foundation built on and in the Word, the cycle of our race will fail at one point or another. Do you want to walk in the victory of today's verse? The Word is what can make it happen. It is the groundwork. It is the substance of all that we strive for. It is the love of God for us. It is the grace of God to us. It is the faith of God imparted to us. It is the plan of salvation explained to us. It is the roadmap for our walk in Jesus. It is the food we need to be satisfied. It is the water we need to survive. It is knowledge. It is wisdom. It has the answers. It is everything. It is the physical manifestation of God's teaching, of Jesus Himself. It is a mystery that is so much more than paper and ink, so much deeper than translation and word choice. Don't read it like a novel. Read it like a meal. Savor it. Take your time. Chew on the hard pits. Get them into a form that you can take in. That's the job of the Holy Spirit. Dwell on them. Dwell on it all. Every time you do, there will be new revelation, some serious and some silly. Enjoy the silly. Apply the serious. We live in a technological age. Embrace that. There are teachings from anointed men and women of God from all around this planet. We even have teachings from ones who have gone before us. That is a wealth of revelation, explanation, training and renewal right there. Use it. Listen to the Word. Listen to teaching. Compare them. Find it out for yourself. Don't take their Word for it. This is the real deal here. This is the thing we need. This is what makes everything else possible. Do you know why ministries fail? Why leaders in the church step away? Why people abandon gathering together to go it alone? Lack of Word focus. If we are focused on the Word and applying it at every opportunity, we can't fail. How can you commit adultery if you're asking the Lord if you should and checking out the Word to back up what you think He's saying? You can't. It's a direct command not to. So like that, like everything, the choice is ours. Do we filter our lives through the Word or do we filter the Word through life? If we filter our lives through the Word, success will always be ours. If we do anything else, degrees of failure. God loves us. God calls us. God equips us. God asks us. God enables us. God does the heavy lifting. All of it is from, in, and through the Word. The Word is the way that the things of the Kingdom of Heaven become part of our lives in the Kingdom of God. The Word is the mechanism that opens the doors of our hearts to receive. But we have to turn the key. We have to choose the Word. We have to take it in. On purpose. Piece by piece. Learning and training and retraining. Focusing on the Word so that we can focus on God. It is that simple. The world is loud, though. The habits of the flesh are loud, too. And sin is lazy. Sin is the easy path. We need to fight that to succeed. Not on our own, but in Jesus. And Jesus is the Word. Are you ready to run the race? Or keep up what you've already been running? Get in the Word and never get out. You won't lose yourself in it. You'll shake off the dust and become more of who you are. The better you. The Jesus in you, you. The victorious in Jesus, you. The runner of the race, you. The crown waiting for you, you. The holding fast to your faith with a clear conscience, you. The Word doing it all, you. Get into it today. Let it wash over you. Believe it. Receive it. Walk in it. Our daily affirmation of God's love is 2 Timothy 4, 16-18. Jesus doesn't lie. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13-8. And He will never leave us. Deuteronomy 31, 6-8. We tend to present these two things as the hope. The wishful thinking. The hallmark card of Christianity. The smile we present to the world. But do we really believe it? And if we do, do we understand what we believe? I'm willing to make the claim most of the people on this planet believe in things like gravity. But I doubt many of them could explain it scientifically. These verses are the same thing. Believers believe them. But can they explain them spiritually? Do they understand the world-shaking principles that they hold? Did they get the testimony to the Lord's love of us that they proclaim? Paul did. He ran his life around them. He believed that Jesus wasn't lying when he said them. Jesus believed that they were true. And he held to them as his promise right to the end. Paul proclaimed from prison, while expecting execution, that Jesus stood by him and strengthened him the whole of his born-again life. Paul proclaimed his rescue from trials and tribulations again and again so that he could fulfill his calling. Paul stood on the promise that he was going to be brought into the Father's house and placed where he could freely praise Yahweh God Almighty. This is what we all strive for, isn't it? To do what the Lord has for us here on earth and to enter heaven, in person, to worship face to face when we're done? Isn't that what it is all about? And here we have the God of the universe coming to help us do it, not only calling us to something, but to walk it out with us, good times and bad, through persecutions and triumphs, a companion in all things to strengthen us and comfort us when every single other person has abandoned us, ignored us, and walked away. That kind of love is amazing when it is a fellow human doing it, when it's the God of the universe doing it, on purpose, without being asked. But there, before we even think of it, that is mind-blowing, that is life-changing, that is worship-inducing. Praise Him today for the tremendous and deep love that He has for us, that He cares for us, strengthens us, walks with us, talks with us, and is with us through it all, forever, starting from before we knew we needed it or might even want it. That is love. That is Jesus. That is ours. Embrace it. Celebrate it. Share it. It's too good a love to keep to ourselves. 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.