Unqualified Victors

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and champion faith in God. Fear is a spiritual force used by Satan to keep people down. Angels often appear in the Old Testament and say, "Do not fear" because humans are fallen. We need Jesus to be righteous and stand before God. Gideon encounters an angel and is initially afraid, but God tells him not to fear. God loves us and can use us despite our imperfections. We have access to the Father through Jesus. We should obey God and let Him work through us. Our lives are changed through grace and faith. God eagerly waits to shower us with gifts and celebrate with us. Our enemy has been broken by the Lord and He restores us. We should worship and praise Him for His goodness. 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 Judges 6.23 Yahweh said to him, Peace be to you. Don't be afraid. You shall not die. Have you noticed that most of the time when an angel appears in the Old Testament, the first words out of its mouth are, Do not fear. It is not because angels were scary or bizarre in appearance, although it is true that some of the inhabitants of heaven do not fall into what we consider a conventional appearance. They did not speak against fear because they appeared out of nowhere, although I am positive that that is a startling occurrence. They spoke against fear because humans are fallen. We've all given in to the evil impulse that permeates this world. We have not maintained the position we had in the womb. We are no longer innocent. We are not clean. We have all chosen to sin, letting it into our lives and corrupting ourselves. Genesis 4.6-7 We have a weakness we inherited from Adam, and because of that we have all fallen short of what we've been called to. Romans 3.23-24 Without salvation, we are terminally ill. We are not sinners by our nature, but we are in sin by our choices. 1 John 1.8-10 God is pure righteousness, and we are, well, we're not. When you are confronted by pure and perfect goodness, you will not survive. You are not pure, perfect goodness. That is the nature of righteousness. Evil cannot be in its presence. It cannot endure it, and sin is evil. We can't even view pure righteousness. Moses said, Please show me your glory. He said, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the Lord's name before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. He said, You cannot see my face, for man may not see me and live. The Lord also said, Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand on the rock. It will happen, when my glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back, but my face shall not be seen. Exodus 33.18-23 Like Moses, without the rock of Jesus, we cannot see the Father. It is through Jesus that we get to experience the Father, because we're given Jesus' nature, His righteousness. We no longer have to rely on ourselves, but can be in Him, and through Him, have access to the throne. Do not be fooled. In order to stand before God, we have to be completely righteous. We are not righteous in ourselves. We need Jesus. But in the Old Testament, that wasn't an option. Jesus was not yet incarnate. He interacted with us, but we could not interact with the Father. Going down another notch, you have angels, and angels do not have the righteous nature of God, but they stand in the presence of God, unfallen, and as such, they reflect it. Moses reflected it after being on the mountain so much that his face shone, and he had to cover it. Exodus 34.35 So how much more do angels shine with the Lord's glory? Even though angels are merely reflecting this righteousness, people saw them and thought, uh-oh, this is it. Sometimes it was. Other times, it was just a message. Here in today's verse, Gideon has been visited by an angel. Gideon didn't know it was an angel. Maybe it was just a prophet. They also had a habit of showing up out of nowhere. There was nothing supernatural here that Gideon could detect, so following the law of hospitality, he made a meal and offered it to the angel. The angel didn't eat it, but consumed the food by fire sent from heaven. Fire from heaven has no smoke to it. It defies the rules of this world. It is visibly supernatural, like the burning bush, burning but having no smoke being consumed. Exodus 3.2-3 Then the angel disappeared right in front of him as he was watching. Gideon's first reaction? Fear. He'd seen an angel, and he figured he was going to die. He knew he wasn't holy and pure. Then the Lord spoke to Gideon and told him not to be afraid. Gideon immediately made an altar to God and named it The Lord is Peace, or Adonai is our peace. Shalom. This is a wonderful picture. The very voice of God brings such peace that it eliminates fear and births praise, even in the face of our unworthiness. We serve a wonderful God, a good God. I can't stress it enough or say it enough. God is good. He is so good to us. There are so many reasons He has not to deal with us, not to help us. We don't do much, if anything, to show our worthiness from His point of view, but none of that matters. He chose us. We are the chosen of God. He chose to love us. It was a decision, and He has not changed His mind. He loves us. He meets us where we are. Gideon was the least important son of the least important family of the least important tribe of Israel. They also weren't the most pious. His father maintained an altar to Baal. By all human standards, Gideon was a nobody. And this was the guy God chose to be the deliverer of Israel. God uses regular people, unqualified people. Unqualified people. But He lets them experience victory, to be the first over the line. Gideon obeyed God and let God accomplish some great things through him. Gideon also made his share of mistakes. God loved him just as much as he did before the mistakes or the obedience. God loves us, period. As we are. As we will be. He just loves us. And God can use us if we let Him. We may not be called to deliver an entire nation from an invasion. God can call on us for smaller tasks that are just as important in the long run. Even more important, a single soul claimed and discipled for Jesus is worth the same as a nation's peace in the natural realm. Even so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner repenting. Luke 15, 10. And those are the words of Jesus. We are called in our imperfection for God makes all things perfect in Jesus. 2 Corinthians 13, 2-4. Colossians 3, 14-16. He doesn't need us to be strong. Jesus says His grace is sufficient for us because His power is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12, 9-10. We just need to apply it to get victory. This isn't an excuse to be weak. God does not extend grace to us so that we can do whatever we want whenever we want. Romans 6, 1-2. God just isn't limited by our strength or our weakness. He's the one doing the work anyway. If we don't let our ego or unbelief get in the way and we invite the Father to operate through us as alters to the Lord. 1 Corinthians 6, 19-20. Then together nothing is impossible. Matthew 19, 26. We give permission for Him to do what He wants, when He wants, and how He wants. Then we need to obey Him and follow His plan and His schedule. Period. Now Gideon did that even though some of it was foolishness in his eyes. Unlike the Israelites under the old covenant, we have been given a new nature in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5, 21. The veil is torn away and we have nothing between us and the Father. Hebrews 4, 16. As we are in Him. Because Jesus did that for us and He'll do that for anyone. Mark 16, 16. Romans 10, 9. We are His gift to His Father. We can go to the throne in person, face to face, with no fear. Think of what we can witness. Think of what God can accomplish if we let Him. Think of the lives that can be changed forever. We are in Jesus. We will not taste death. Psalm 56, 13. But move from this world to heaven in less than a blink. With Jesus living in us and the Holy Spirit on us, how can we be afraid? By grace, through faith, our lives are changed at a fundamental level. It's an amazing gift. It is perfect peace. Believe it. Receive it. Walk in it. We are partners and the children of Yahweh God Most High. Broken and humble, we acknowledge Him. We abide in Jesus, His firstborn Son. Let His peace come over you. Watch the fear flee as you welcome Him beside you today. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Zephaniah 3, 14-20. Our Heavenly Father is waiting, waiting with bated breath, with eagerness for you and me, He cannot wait to shower us with gifts and celebration, for heaven to explode with loud singing, to eliminate shame and fear and reproach and oppression, to embody joy and rest and salvation for us. It's going to be beyond comprehension and He's been waiting since before the world began for this party because He loves us totally and completely, with abandon. It's going to be some party, but we don't have to wait. We don't have to sit in our best clothes and not fidget and smile wide and step out of our way through endless droning services until we're called home. Our enemy has been broken by the Lord. The Lord has calm for us, peace for us. He rejoices over us. He is restoring us. Yes, restoring to where we should be, heads and not tails, holding dominion in and through Jesus. He is restoring our fortunes, spiritual, mental, physical and environmental. With a pure spirit, we can worship Him in fellowship under His guidance and correction. Jump and shout to Him for the gift of His good news. Praise Him today for it. Whenever you think about it, when you think about talent, He doesn't call us to be singing stars. He calls us to be noisy. I think we can all manage that. After all, we're to be like little children, right? Rejoice in Him. Seek Him. Be obedient when He speaks. He'll take care of the rest. As we close, remember that you have birth. 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.