Like Minded

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear in any form. It emphasizes the power of faith and the importance of like-minded people coming together. The transcript discusses the significance of partnership and community, both with fellow believers and with God. It highlights the challenges of isolation and the need for connection and fellowship. It also emphasizes the importance of finding connection points with the Lord rather than relying on other things. The transcript encourages the use of technology to connect with others and emphasizes the strength and support that can be found in the church community. It concludes by reminding listeners of God's love and mercy and encourages them to declare their worth and value in his eyes. 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 Job 33.6-7 Behold, I am toward God even as you are. I am also formed out of the clay. Behold, my terror will not make you afraid, neither will my pressure be heavy on you. There is something special about being with like-minded people. There's something special that happens when you're together. An echo of fellowship that warms you out of proportion to how many people there are. It strengthens our values. It's a powerful thing and should never be abused. When you're together with the wrong type of people, you're echoing the wrong lessons and strengthening the wrong values. It is the principle of two or more, and it's a law of creation. We know this because it's why Adam got a helper. Adam was doing well, complete, satisfied, and doing a lot. He named all the animals. He was tending, caring, and protecting the garden. But God looked at him and said it wasn't good for Adam to be alone. He needed help. He needed a partner. Man got woman as a helper and partner. A helper is one who helps, but a partner? Someone who takes part in an undertaking with another, especially in a business with shared risks and profits. In the Amplified translation, it says that God decided the man needed a helper, one who balances him, a counterpart to who he is, suitable and complementary for him. Complementary is combining in such a way as to enhance or emphasize the qualities of each other or another. Suitable is right or appropriate for a particular person, purpose, or situation. Their job, remember, was to tend, protect, and guard the Garden of Eden, as well as populating the earth. This is a huge job, and it would take more than one of them. Just the garden stuff was a full-time job, plus some. It took a minimum of two of them. Adam needed a joint heir, and with two of them, there was nothing they couldn't do, which is why Satan came to break it apart. When the law arrived, you couldn't convict someone without the testimony of two or more witnesses. That's old covenant. What about the new? Jesus said in Matthew 18, 20, For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the middle of them. That's incredible. 1 Corinthians 14, 26-33 talks about two or three prophets speaking in tongues or in translation, and the people weighing what they said to discern truth. In both these examples, the church is encouraged not to convict except on the word of two or three witnesses, not to discipline except with two or three elders, not to forsake gathering together because Jesus is there as soon as there's two or three more. I mean, he promises never to forsake us personally, but this is a communal group where we get together, and God shows up every time. All of these are very key things, and all of them require two or three or more. God knows the power of partnership, the power of like-minded people agreeing together, bolstering their faith, strengthening their values, and sharing their anointing. In other words, there is never any major doctrine that isn't echoed at least one time, if not multiple times. Important things are said more than once. The deepest mysteries have echoes. The entire Old Testament was a shadow and a type of the New Testament. There is strength in partnership. In Zeastes 4, 9-12 says, two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who is alone when he falls and doesn't have another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth. But how can one keep warm alone? If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. It is worth it to be around other believers. It is worth it to have a prayer partner. It is worth it to take teaching with your mate. The power of like-mindedness can strengthen you in troublesome times. Add Jesus to the mix, and it is amazing what can be accomplished. It's the biggest reason that the world is reeling from the restrictions surrounding the pandemic. It's the reason that people are open about being traumatized by it. On its face, we were told to stay in our homes, and people freaked out. It was silly if you look at it that way. Home. You know, that place you're supposed to like, that you talk about wishing you could stay at when you're dragging yourself to work or school. Then we have the opportunity to stay at home, and we freak out. Of course, there is real tragedy there, because not everyone has a pleasant or a safe home. For them, isolation was a threat to their lives and their mental health. But for the rest, being forced to stay where we always say we want to be, doesn't that sound silly? But if we think about the law of partnership and community that the Lord put us in, it makes total sense. Here, we are designed to participate with people, designed to fellowship, and the government was telling us that we have to stay home. People didn't do well with that. They craved being out and about, doing things with people, or meant to. When faced with isolation, most people didn't handle it well. Whether they realize it or not, whether they choose to deny it or not, people have the same inner turmoil that happens when we're separated from God. We're meant to commune with God, to have fellowship with Him. It's part of who we are, our spiritual DNA. We try and fill that spot with anything and everything else that joins us with another. We do it with anything and everything that sparks a feeling of being part of something or someone. It could be a hobby, relationship, activity, or anything. It's amazing what the human mind can connect with. But of course, the Lord is reflected in His creation, so it really isn't a surprise. But what's the language we use? Oh, I love doing that. I love this. Oh, I couldn't live without this. Oh, that's how I survived. That's how I this, that's how I that. We put a lot of weight on these things because they're connection points for our spirit. So what are you connecting with? What is it that you are telling yourself and reinforcing in yourself that this is the thing that completes you? It makes a big difference to our spiritual life when we're connecting with things that aren't of God. We don't always realize it. In essence, we, especially as New Covenant believers, were meant to be altars for the Lord, landing strips for the supernatural. Now, you build an altar by repetitively and consciously putting into something. This can be really bad or really good. But if you take into consideration the law of partnership and community and communion that exists inside us, you can see that most of us are building altars to things that we shouldn't be building to. Whether they're innocent on their own, we are not mindfully connecting with the Lord. We're mindfully connecting with these things instead, and they can become idols. Because anything that you repetitively and consistently put your mind and heart energy into, that thing is your altar. That's what you're worshiping at. That's what worship is. It's mindfully connecting and giving of yourself and giving your mental energy to it. You're dwelling on it. That's why the Lord tells us to meditate on the Word day and night. That's Joshua 1.8 and Psalm 1 verse 2. These are important principles that God wants for us, for us to understand and for us to take advantage of. No man is an island, spiritually or physically. No man, no human is meant to be solitary. We're meant to communicate with God in the spiritual. We're meant to communicate with each other in the natural. The modern world, through pressures, cultures, media, and social environment, has created a sea of broken people. People who don't know who they are. People who can't be around others. People who are challenged in the basic ways of peoplehood. We've either held them back or we haven't given them opportunities to develop those skills. Or we've oversaturated them with sensation. Or we've traumatized them in some way. And they literally, without help, cannot function in the way we're meant to function. The whole thing is meant to keep us from connecting with each other, with the Lord. It's meant to isolate us against the virus of companionship. Against the power of togetherness. The enemy sees these things as horrific diseases because the Lord sees them as phenomenal blessings. That is why God's promise to us is so important. He will never leave us or forsake us. Deuteronomy 31 says. He's offering us all the togetherness we can handle. And He has a body, the church, that He set up and prepared and has gotten ready to be there for us. To help each other, to build each other up, to fellowship together, to meet each other's needs. Look at the book of Acts. This is exactly what they do. Now the enemy saw it and he's been tearing it down, or trying to, ever since. But God's there to fulfill our communion gap. To spark the completeness inside you that you always needed, but maybe haven't acknowledged. God's is there, whether that's a connection with people or a connection with the Lord. Let's consider how to provoke one another to love and to good works. Not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another. And so much the more as you see the day approaching. That's Hebrews 10, 24 to 25. For some of us, the digital world is more real than the real one. And guess what? God's there too. There are churches we can attend, people we can connect with, congregations we can join and be nurtured in. The world can be crazy and the world can panic. It doesn't matter if you have a job with bizarre hours. It doesn't matter if you're being forced to isolate. It doesn't matter if the only way you feel you can stay sane is to plug into the net and surf. It doesn't matter if the online world is where you hide and stay safe. The church is online. Fellow believers are there. The Lord is there. We can assemble in person. We can assemble online. We have no excuse not to connect and be together, helping each other, building each other up. And I'm warning you, it won't stay online. We're designed for face-to-face fellowship. But when you're restricted or you think you're restricted or you have a mental disability that prevents you to, like anxiety, depression, this can open the door to staying connected, to getting help at being a person. That doesn't mean throwing your medication out the window. I'm talking about just connecting and learning to be a person again. We can't do that alone. We have to do that with other people. That's why so many people go to therapy. It's someone to talk to, to connect to, and someone who's trained that can help you work things out. This is what the church is supposed to do. We're supposed to help each other. That's why God trains our pastors and our leaders. That's why we're supposed to stay connected with the Holy Spirit so that he can guide us. He knows what you need to hear. He knows what you need help working through. We're supposed to be together. God designed us to be stronger together than we are alone. He calls us sheep, remember? Sheep flock together. They watch out for each other. They gather and prevent predators from easily picking them off. They fight for their friends because they actually make fierce friendships. They take care of each other. Their motto is, never alone. Ours should be too. If a three-fold cord is not easily broken, think of how strong the cord of the church body could be. Do not let fear and its child, strife, keep you from the flock of friends the Lord has for you. Don't let fear and its children, anxiety and depression, keep you from connecting. There are always ways to take those steps. Always ways for us to be together, full of his love, building each other up, not hurting each other, not bullying, not demanding, not shoving doctrine down our throat, not throwing religious rules at each other and shackling ourselves to restrictions, not throwing around personal power or personality, family, nurturing, as it was meant to be, helping, wholesome, healing, based on the word as it is, a warm support, a body, his. Today's daily affirmation of God's love is Jude 1, 17-23. The love of God is a powerful thing. Within it, we find the mercy of God. The mercy of God is how we get eternal life. The good God is merciful, and his mercy endures forever. Because of that, he extended his grace and his faith so that we can be saved. That's powerful. That's life-changing. And any time we have difficulty, division, struggles, or problems, we need to get right back there to the mercy of God found within his love. His love endures forever, which means his mercy endures forever. Thank the Lord for that. 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.