Won't Get it Out of Your Head

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture aimed at rejecting fear and championing faith in God. The speaker emphasizes that fear is a spiritual force used by Satan to keep people down. They encourage trusting in God's word and perfect love to overcome fear. The speaker also discusses the importance of praising God and keeping Him in mind in all aspects of life. They explain that through reading the Bible and praising the Lord, we can experience His presence, hear His voice, and find strength to face any challenge. Overall, the message is about the power of faith, the love of God, and the freedom that comes from trusting in Him. 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 Psalm 56, 10-11 In God I will praise His word, in Yahweh I will praise His word. I have put my trust in God, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? What makes God get close to us? What can we do to bring Him closer? Nothing. He's as close to you now as He ever was. From Deuteronomy to Hebrews, we're told He will never leave us or forsake us. He's near to us when we're hurting. Psalm 34.18 He's always near, whether we realize it or not. Isaiah 55.6 He has His angels always around us as well. Matthew 18.10 We are in fact at the center of a lot of heavenly attention. Hebrews 12.1-2 Like with many, many, many other things, God has already done everything He's going to do about this. He's resting in this. Work done. He's there. End of story. The problem is us. We are the ones who move. And we're moving in the wrong direction most of the time. Because we're not resting in the Lord, we're following the paths of the flesh. The habits of our mind as it was. It doesn't need to be sin as we think of it. It doesn't need to be an action that we do. An act. The truth is that anything not done in faith, the full persuasion that God's way is the right way and we should be doing according to His word, is sin. Romans 14.23 Because we operate in a black and white scenario. Everything we do is of the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. Period. There are no other paths. We are either mindfully thinking of the Lord and applying His word to all we do, or we are mindfully not thinking of the Lord and applying His word to all we do. You see? This is the challenge of the believer. We believe, so we need to walk the walk. How? How can we leave behind all the patterns we've spent a lifetime building? Jesus. Without Him, we can do nothing. John 15.5 If we're not using our faith, we're not pleasing God. Hebrews 11.6 Everything is about the Lord when we're thinking, speaking, and doing faith. Do not make the mistake of thinking that faith is only walking with folded hands, quoting scripture, and nodding piously when you see someone else. Faith is laughing. Faith is doing dishes. Faith is playing with your kids. Faith is washing your car. Faith is mowing the lawn. Faith is being passionate. Faith is being faithful in employment. The Lord gave us a whole world. The Lord enabled us to have a wide range of emotions. The Lord gave us everything that is good. James 1.17 We can have the Lord in mind in every single aspect of the human existence, period. It will save us from so many missteps and so much heartache if we'll only practice the presence of the Lord at all times and in all things. But again, how? It's hard to force our mind to think a certain way. It's why habit is so strong, path of least resistance. We've already done a thing, so we keep doing that thing because there's no effort involved. The ball rolls along the groove, and we don't bother to carve a new one. We need to build the Lord into our minds, to carve a groove of Jesus' mindfulness. The best and easiest way to do that is praise. We all have or can have songs in our heads, simple ditties, sonorous hymns, exuberant choruses, catchy children's tunes. The human mind is built for music. You'll find snippets of songs floating through your head when you don't expect it. Ever had a jingle stuck in your head? This is the same principle. Reading the word can take some work, concentration, thinking. But songs? Those suckers float around without conscious thought. We can let praise constantly float through our minds and help us think about the Lord in everything we do. Actively sing inside your head and with your lips. Praise Him. You won't forget to think of Him when you're always singing a song to Him. Praise is a marvelous thing. The more you praise, the closer you get to Him. God isn't coming your way. It's you going God's way. It's standing and looking in His direction instead of leaving Him as some kind of divine shadow, always there but almost never in sight. When we focus on Him, we can hear Him. How often do you get lost in a conversation because you turned away to pick up a coffee, grab an item, or because something else made sound and caught your attention? It works the same way with God. Reading the word and praising the Lord are excellent ways to make Him real to you in ways that otherwise would never happen. And it's important to do. It's one of the most important things you can ever do. It keeps your eyes on Him. It opens your ears to His voice. If you want the glory, you bring the praise. This world is a place full of things that are not nice. We have to navigate these places and spaces. We have to deal with the way we're treated by others. Today's verse shows us the best way to do that. Trust in the word of God. Praise the Lord and then there is nothing to fear. It will seem foolish to fear. What is death? It's stepping through a doorway into a wonderful eternity. At least it is if you're a believer. We don't die. Our flesh just falls off. For us, death has no sting. 1 Corinthians 15, 55-58 The Lord can get us through anything. Financial pressure, emotional pressure, physical pressure, sickness, wellness, abuse, bondage, traffic, energetic children, and every kind of thing that we can encounter. But the Lord speaks to us through the word more than any other way. We hear the presence of the Lord when we're praising more clearly than at any other time. Why? They get us to realize that we are close to Him. That in fact, the Lord is near and the Lord is here. Standing next to the Lord while realizing that you're standing next to the Lord is the best place to stand. We can't do it alone. We need Him to help us. We need Jesus to be in Him and to have Him actively in us. 2 Corinthians 13, 5 And thank God for His grace. It's so beautiful. Read the Bible as a way to hear Jesus' voice. Think about what you've read. Listen for His voice. Praise Him by word, by song. Just tell Him what you think of Him, which will hopefully be nice things. As you do, worry and fear melt away. This does not mean that the circumstances you are in will melt away. But the fear of it does. It becomes easy to trust in what God says and to do what God wants us to do. We can fight and win our battles in our praises. We can finish our songs. And as the notes fade into the air, we realize that we no longer have a problem. When God is for us, who can be against us? No one can do anything to you. Things might happen to you or around you, but your focus will be on the Lord. And your experience in this world will be completely different than people standing right next to you. It will change how you see the world. It will change how the world sees you. I promise. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Exodus 20, verse 6, and 34, 1 to 9. Thank God for His grace and faith. Thank Him that Jesus came, died, and rose again, paying for our sins and freeing us from the curse of the law. It is so great to be able to revel in the steadfast love of God without having to follow the law. It is so freeing to have been given the righteousness of Jesus and let His Spirit guide us through life. To be able, through Him and by Him, to live free and full in the presence of the Father. It is an amazing gift. What amazing grace. Thank Him today. 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. First John 4, 9 to 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 love 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.