The Seeking Solution

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and promote faith. It discusses the fear of survival in day-to-day life and the impact of mainstream media and government on this fear. It also provides information on the cost of living and quality of life in different countries. The transcript emphasizes that prosperity should not be solely defined by money and possessions, but also by safety, healthcare, and well-being. It reminds us that God's love is unconditional and that our best life comes from abiding in Jesus and having access to the Father. It explains that prosperity and blessings are not just about material wealth, but also about righteousness and generosity. 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 6.27-29 Which of you by being anxious can add one moment to his life span? Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don't toil, neither do they spin. Yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these. There is such fear in the world today about survival. I don't mean in the wild or the usual apocalyptic dystopia so often portrayed in media. I mean the day-to-day stuff. Employment, bills, groceries, gas prices, that kind of survival. A standard of living. No matter what else is going on and what other issues are occurring, the standard of how we live is always the biggest fear button going, because that is what motivates us. What good is it to have a perfect political system if we can't buy groceries for the family? What good is it to have the highest-ranked schools if we can't afford gas to drive our kids? What good is it to have a thriving multicultural landscape of restaurants and entertainment options if the employment rates are skyrocketing? These are the shackles that fear has on us, and they are promoted by the mainstream media and the government, because they are very, very effective. As of 2014, the cost to rent a three-bedroom apartment in Singapore is about $4,950 a month. In Australia, $2,778. Lebanon, $2,092. Japan, $1,912. France, $1,743. USA, $1,685. Canada, $1,592. Russia, $1,369. Portugal, $1,063. Costa Rica, $850. Saudi Arabia, $726. India, $388. As of 2023, looking at the cost-of-living index, Bermuda rates is number one. Israel is number 11. Finland is number 23. Sweden, 31. Greece, 44. Ethiopia, 72. Russia, 76. Lebanon, 27. Japan, 29. USA, 16. Canada, 25. Australia, 13. Singapore, number seven. Huh. Well, what about quality of life? If you scale for political and economic stability, costs and income, and health services as the three most important categories, how does the list look? Well, Hong Kong is number three. Switzerland is number four. Singapore, number eight. Australia, number 14. Japan, 23. South Korea, number 10. Canada, 29. Estonia, 33. USA, 48. Israel, 51. Brazil, 98. Mexico, 108. Nigeria, 134. Lebanon, 115. It seems there's a wide field of what could be considered prosperous. Housing, food, and transportation costs are significantly lower in Brazil than in other major cities. This means you can live comfortably on a budget of between $784 and $2,416 per month. A family of four estimated monthly costs in Ireland are $3,545 without rent. A single person estimated monthly costs are $1,013 without rent. In Canada, you should be sure that you can afford at least the bare minimum of $3,911 for a family of four. The advisable amount that you should have each month is $5,230 so that your entire family can live well and comfortably. In a 2021 modern wealth survey conducted by Charles Schwab, Americans said they needed an average net worth of $934,000 to be financially comfortable. A personal capital survey claimed Americans believed they needed to save an average of $516,000 to maintain financial health. In most parts of the country, a $100,000 salary is considered good, more than enough for an individual or even a small family to live comfortably. With all this range around the world, what is prosperity for humanity? When we think of God in terms of these issues, it really becomes a hot issue. There's one side of the crowd that thinks we should suffer and be in poverty and kind of scrape along, and that is what true Christianity is. Monks and paupers and rewards only in heaven, can't wait to get there. There's another side of the crowd that thinks we should have everything that we want, money, cars, things, and the best life now, that we should be so blessed people are lining up to be jealous as we jet across the world in fancy clothes, derping with jewels and the latest high-end accessories. It does have its appeal, and there are others that are in between the two groups. But, I mean, is life just money and stuff, or lack thereof? You know, if you make safety the most important factor of quality of life, and you bring everything else to zero, the list changes dramatically. Australia, Singapore, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Norway are the top five countries on the list. Germany is number 13, Canada number 14, France is 17, Italy is 42, Saudi Arabia is 50, the USA is 59, Serbia is 61, India is 79, Russia is 96, Brazil is 114, and Afghanistan is 133. So what is most important? Safety, health care, money, possessions? What makes a best life? Well, how you feel about these issues has a huge influence on what you believe when it comes to prosperity, and it colors greatly your views on how God views prosperity. You see, we have a tendency to ascribe our ideas to God. Not saying that He thought of them, but thinking that what we hold dear is what He holds dear. We have a tendency to think of God in human terms. This is both dangerous and foolish, and it's also why many people who don't believe God include God with all the other mythological figures out there. See, God is not us. Jesus became a man in order to pay for sin, but God is not human. God is above us. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts, Isaiah 55, 8-9. That's a big difference. Look at love. God loves us. No matter what we do, God loves us. He loves us when we're good. He loves us when we sin. He loves us when we're in heaven. He loves us when we choose hell. He loves us no matter what with an unconditional love that goes beyond understanding. It's an amazing thing to contemplate. It can change your life. God loves you just as you are. We are so used to performing for love that this simple thing can change everything. It is freeing. It's a blessing. It is wonderful, and it has nothing to do with anything other than that it is the motivation for all God does, because God is love, 1 John 4, 8. Does that mean God wants you to live your best life? Yes, Jeremiah 29, 11. Does God want you healthy? Yes, Psalm 41, 3. Does God want you prosperous? Yes, Luke 6, 38. There's scriptures for all of those beyond the three that I listed, but they are all beside the point and have nothing to do with anything other than they are expressions of God's love for us. We're a byproduct of God's love. The Father made us, and Jesus gave us as a gift to the Father. It's all about the Father. The Father is absolute righteousness. Without absolute righteousness, we cannot stand before the Father. Jesus died so that in Him we can be absolute righteousness. With His Spirit, we have just that. We can now go before the Father to worship Him. Without absolute righteousness, we cannot stand before the Father. We cannot go to the throne. It would destroy us because only absolute righteousness can withstand the power and glory of absolute righteousness. There is absolutely no way whatsoever, no matter what we do, what we say, that we can get there. We only get that in Jesus. By grace through faith, we can get saved and abide in Jesus, which lets us go before the Father and do what we were created to do. Our best life is to abide in Jesus, which gives us access to the Father. But, well, that doesn't jive that well with human thinking. I mean, we can abide in Jesus no matter what our circumstances. We can abide in Him whether we are safe or not, whether we are employed or not, whether we have comfortable work-life balance, whether we have access to health care or not, whether we pay a lot for rent or not, poor or rich, educated or ignorant, tall or short, successful or homeless. It makes no difference. Those are all human-conditioned things. They have nothing whatsoever to do with our ability to stand before the Father as we abide in Jesus and He in us. That is the good news. God loves you and has given you a way back to Him in peace, in fellowship, and it doesn't matter what your circumstances are, what your quality of life is, or where in the world you were born. This transcends the world. We are spirit beings, and this is spirit stuff. But what about Jesus having come so we could live an abundant life? What about gaining the blessings of Abraham and Jesus, Galatians 3.14? Well, those are all good verses, but they aren't stand-alone concepts. For example, we are enriched in everything, but not for the sake of enrichment. So we multiply your seed for sowing and increase the fruits of your righteousness, you being enriched in everything for all generosity, which produces thanksgiving to God through us, 2 Corinthians 9.10-11. So we get enriched in everything by having been good sowers and having produced fruits of righteousness. That may not mean money, or at least not just money. Paul goes on in verses 12-15, For this service of giving that you perform not only makes up for lack amongst the saints, but abounds also through much giving of thanks to God, seeing that through the proof given by this service they glorify God for the obedience of your confession to the good news of Christ and for the generosity of your contribution to them and to all, while they themselves also, with supplication on your behalf, yearn for you by reason of the exceeding grace of God in you. Now thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift. Money is part of it then, but not for hoarding, for generosity. But it is much more about grace and obedience and the fruits of our righteousness in Jesus superseding money concerns and getting at the heart of the matter, which is God. Doesn't God want to bless us in all sorts of ways? Yes, He does. Going in and coming out in fields and cities. Deuteronomy chapter 28 goes into great detail about it. There are 11 verses telling you exactly about all the blessings God wants to put on us. All of it is provisional on us being obedient. Right after it, there are 53 verses telling about what happens when you are not obedient. In fact, the entire law that the Lord gave Moses to give to us is about obedience. If you obey, there is no end to the blessings that God wants to shower you with. Without that obedience, you are at the mercy of the curse in this world and those who rule it. Nothing good comes of being out of alignment with obedience to God. Of course, you have to keep the law in your heart as well as in deed, which is impossible because we all give in to the evil intent of this world. We are all of us human and always in some way choose to sin. We always fall out of obedience with God even though we could choose not to. It is what being human is. We are fallible. That's why Jesus came. He came so we could choose to abide in Him. We could choose to do what He did by letting Him guide us, by letting Him do it in us and through us. We have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. We have all the tools to achieve the law in heart and deed because Jesus is the one doing it as we abide in Him. We only need to listen to Him 100% of the time and then choose to follow through with it. What happens if we don't? If we fail? Well, if we truly realize we have failed and we are repentant, Jesus helps us turn around and head in the proper direction. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive them, 1 John 1 9-10. Without Jesus we can't do this. We need to abide in Him, which means we need to die to ourself. Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life? Matthew 16 24-26 I am the true vine, and My Father is the farmer. Every branch in Me that doesn't bear fruit He takes away. Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You were already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, and I in you. As the branch can't bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. 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 a man doesn't remain in Me, he is thrown out as a branch and is withered. And they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burnt. John 15 1-6 Jesus answered, The greatest is, Here is Rael, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. The second is like this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Mark 12 29-31 For there is no good tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again a rotten tree that produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For people don't gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings out that which is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings out that which is evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and don't do the things which I say? Luke 6 43-46 From the lips of Jesus Himself, love God with all your heart, soul, and resources. Love one another as He loves us. Listen to what He says and obey Him. Those are the three principles of prosperity. Die to yourself daily. Everything should be about Jesus and nothing about you. This is the message of Jesus. Total obedience is possible in Him, only by grace. In Jesus, by Jesus, and through Jesus. Without Him, nothing. With Him, everything. Seek the Father above all, and the rest comes to you. Matthew 6 33-34 But they come not because we seek. The seeking is the finding, and the rest follows because we seek. Wow, that sounded complicated. Try this. We don't seek to get. We get because we seek. Not to hoard. Not to amass things. So that we can do what He did for us. So we can bless others and give it away to those in need. Philippians 2 1-4 It is God first, everything after that, in His time and in His way. We prosper as our soul prospers. 3 John 1-2 Are you struggling? Seek Jesus. Are you sick? Seek Jesus. Do you have unmet needs? Not wants. Seek Jesus. Do you have enough to bless those around you, seeing to their needs and being a blessing to them? Seek Jesus. Are you worried about it all? Seek Jesus. Everything is Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. It isn't easy. If it was, it wouldn't require a cross. Do I believe in divine healing? Walking in divine health? Being so blessed you can't bless others fast enough? Yes, yes, and yes. But I know that it is all in Jesus. My best life is a life in Him and dead to myself. Doing what He wants, when He wants, and how He wants. This is an abundant life. My plan out the window and yokes to His plan. It's a light yoke. God loves to bless us. I intend to do all I can to obey so that I qualify for those blessings. I'll probably miss it from time to time, but I choose not to be full of myself. I will be broken before Him. I will walk from the behavior that is disobedient. I will set my face on Him and seek heart. In the end, I will have peace. In the end, I will live an abundant life. No matter where I am, no matter what the position my country is on, I will be like a bird in the air or a flower in the field. Not worrying, doing my job, fulfilling my purpose. No worry, no anxiety. If I dwell in Him, He will dwell in me. If I seek Him, I will find Him and thereby be blessed in spirit and in truth. That is no lie. It is a powerful promise. I will lack nothing because Jesus is my everything. That is prosperity. That is abundant life. That is the will of the Father. Nothing else will do, and nothing else matters. Amen. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Psalms 16, 6-11. Jesus loves us no matter what. The Father loves us no matter what. The Holy Spirit loves us no matter what. This is undeniable and scripturally provable and true. We know God loves us unconditionally. What about you? How do you love Him? Do you love Him unconditionally or just on Sunday and Easter? Do you love Him when you are opening your Christmas presents as well as when you receive a pink slip? Or do you only love Him when it is going well? Just as God's love for us does not rely on what we do, our love for Him should not rely on our circumstances. Because we are in the world, our circumstances are determined by more than just God's will. It was not His will for man to fall. It was not His will that only seven people were willing to be saved from the flood. It was not God's will for us to turn away again and again. His perfect will is for total fellowship and everyone saved. God's perfect will is with God. We are born with God. But if we choose even once to walk in not God, then we have let sin in and we are also unable to be with God. The world is choosing not God all the time. As spirit beings, we have two phases of our existence, outside of our bodies and inside of our bodies. We were outside and with God. We were born inside and live here. If we choose to let the body inhabit not God, that is a spirit choice manifested in our flesh. And it is intentional because we know better. As humans, we know better. We may not know Jesus, but we know what's right. If we keep on in our spirit choice of not God, then when our bodies die, we remain in not God land. The only place that is not God spiritually is hell. By choosing not God, we are choosing hell. By choosing not God, we are choosing not to go to heaven. If we love Him, we will obey Him. If we love Him, we will choose with God. We will do whatever we need to get with God because we love Him. How is your love for God? Are you matching Him or are you walking away? Choose to seek with God. It is effort well spent, well rewarded, well blessed. Not God? Not God is not good. As we close, remember that you have birth. 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.