Best Advice Ever

This transcription is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture, rejecting fear and emphasizing faith in God. It discusses the importance of obeying God's commandments and walking in his love. It highlights the power of God's love to cast out fear and bring prosperity. The transcription encourages seeking God's love and abiding in him to experience blessings and freedom from negative emotions. It concludes by reminding the listener of their worth and God's unconditional love for them. 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 1 Chronicles 22.13 Then you will prosper if you observe to do the statutes and the ordinances which Yahweh gave Moses concerning Israel. Be strong and courageous, don't be afraid, and don't be dismayed. First things first, we are set free from the law and its requirements. Romans 8.2-4 But instead, choose to be in discipleship and under obedience to Jesus. 1 Corinthians 9.21 In Deuteronomy 30.15, the Lord says, Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil. And again in 30.19-20 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants, to love Yahweh your God, to obey His voice, and to cling to Him. For He is your life and the length of your days, that you may dwell in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. What does that mean? Well, when you take into account Romans 8.2-4, then we know that in the Old Covenant, we have access to everything that was a blessing, everything that was a promise. But, we get to ignore the curse. If we don't do everything that we're supposed to, we aren't hit by the curse. In the Old Covenant, the Lord needed humanity to realize two things. First, terrible, terrible things are waiting outside the shelter of the Lord's wings. Psalm 17.8-9, 91.4-8, Malachi 4.2-3 Now, what was the law? It was a strict list of things we as humans would have to do perfectly to be righteous and enter His presence, which was and is impossible. And also why there were sacrifices to temporarily cover our sins, like how tomato juice covers the stench of a skunk spray, but doesn't eliminate it. This is the second thing we needed to understand. There is no way in the natural for a human being to hold to the righteous ways of the Lord. No way for us to be righteous. No way for us to hold to the rules. In fact, the rules are there to show us how rebellious we are. Well, how? Well, you wouldn't know to break the rule if you didn't hear the rule. You might do the behavior on your own, but there is a very, very high chance you'll do it once you know you shouldn't. Don't believe me? Psychologists do. They've done studies, and God knows a lot better than a bunch of human minds, no matter how smart they are. Where does this leave us? Jesus. It leaves us Jesus. Jesus wants us to follow God's way of doing things. Remember that the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, shows the heart of God. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13.8. Once Jesus, sinless, died to pay the price of sin, the punishment of sin was fulfilled. If we believe that our own sins and sinful nature were part of that price Jesus paid, we can accept his payment on our behalf. If we believe he was God's Son and could do that, we enter into covenant with the living Christ, raised to life and Lord of all. By accepting, believing, and proclaiming these things, we could have fellowship with God in Jesus. Jesus gives us his nature and his righteousness. When we abide in him and live lives led by Holy Spirit, we are able to fulfill the requirements of righteous living by grace, through faith. Without faith, no one pleases God. Hebrews 11.6. And if we could live right by ourselves, in our own strength, Jesus wouldn't have had to die in the first place. It's all in Jesus, by Jesus, from Jesus, and about Jesus. So what is the requirement he has for us? What is it that his Spirit and his nature enable us to do in the grace we get to inhabit? Love. It's all about love. Not our kind of love, but God's kind of love. Jesus said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Deuteronomy 6.5. This is the first and great commandment. A second, likewise, is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Leviticus 19.18. The whole law and all the prophets depend on these two commandments. That's Matthew 22.37-40. These two commandments are the answer to the two things we as humanity had to realize. Only God can protect us from what we did to creation, the introduction of sin by rebellion against him. And only Jesus' love can enable us to walk by grace and treat each other right. What's that well-known verse about God's kind of love? For God so loved the world that he gave his only-born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. John 3.16. Now if you look at the various meanings of the words in that verse in the original languages, we can read into it another layer of feeling. For thus God loves the world, so that he gives his only-begotten Son, that everyone believing in him should not be losing, perishing, having violent strife, or being destined to die, but may be pregnant with physical and spiritual world-beginning life, partaking in the character of the eternal. That's a lot of meaning in that well-known verse. So what's it all work out to for us day to day? Well, when we look at the old covenant promises of God, we can claim them when we're abiding in God. Now, we all fall short of where we should be, Romans 3.21-26, because we're in the habit of sin. Once you're saved, you no longer have a sinful nature, you have Jesus' nature. But our flesh has the habit of sin. However, by getting into the Word and placing ourselves into obedience with it, by letting it renew our minds, by accepting his grace and walking in his faith, we will be striving to succeed, pregnant with his power. For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control. That's 2 Timothy 1.7. We do not have to be slaves to our feelings, or to the curse we've been redeemed of. John 3.16 says that none should perish. There's free will there, choice, decision. Are we going to walk the path the Lord lays for us? Psalm 119.105 and 2 Peter 1.19-21. Or are we going to go our own way and walk out from under his wings? God calls us to move ever forward. Forward to him, forward to heaven, forward to blessing, forward in discipleship, forward in discipling others. Forward. So don't despair if you see a promise in the Old Testament that's tagged to the law, do this and I will, don't do and boy howdy, Jesus fulfilled the law. If we are saved, we get because Jesus did. Seek his love, walk in his love and prosper. He wants us all to prosper, but to prosper this way. 3 John 1.2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be healthy, even as your soul prospers. That means that if we neglect our spiritual food, the Word, if we don't abide in Jesus, if we aren't in communion with and guided by Holy Spirit, we aren't going to prosper. The Lord doesn't want us to coast at an acceptable level until we hit the golden streets of glory. He's a God of growth, of blessing. He wants us to walk in victory, bounty and wisdom now as well as in heaven. But the state of our spirit soul comes first. Our walk with him comes first. Matthew 6.33 The rest follows as a logical conclusion to the prospering of our soul. Good soil gets bounty. Untended or rocky soil gets scraps, if we're lucky. That's Matthew 13, the whole chapter. Now that's God to us and us to God. But today's verse, remember 1 Chronicles 22.13, it's part of a beautiful love letter from King David to his son Solomon. One of those benefits of my wisdom deals. The biggest thing David said was, obey God and walk in his commandments. It was the number one thing that David did in his own life. Was he perfect? No, not at all. But he loved God, sought his heart and always put himself into obedience. Whether that meant obeying from the get-go or doing wrong, taking correction, repenting and accepting punishment. Old Testament had punishments, remember, not in the age of grace that we enjoy. Thank you, Lord. David loved God very much and the most beautiful Psalms he wrote reflect that. He admonished, advised and strongly recommended that Solomon do the same. For those who seek the Lord and walk in obedience with his ways will prosper. It's an automatic byproduct of the love of God. We're not talking rule following blind obedience. We're not talking nitpicking obedience. We're not talking dominion and patriarchy and religious shackles. We're not talking about the power of positive thinking or, Oh, universe manifest this blessing and benefit either. We're talking real, truthful, soul scouring love. Love God, seek his kind of love. When you learn about it and live it, you can't help but be obedient. That obedience in all those things is what brings the prosperity. You sow, you reap. I mean, how can you love someone while you're hurting them? If you're obedient, you won't be doing that. At best, it's hypocritical. At its worst, it's abuse. You can't do it with God. The Father knows our hearts. Jesus is with us every moment of every day. You can't hide. The Spirit will always ask why you aren't trusting Jesus with what you're doing. The Spirit will always correct behavior if you let him. Never be afraid to be repentant, apologize to another person, and seek to never do it again. All things are possible with God. Mark 10 27. And God can guide you in all things. Isaiah 58 9 to 11 and Psalm 32 8 to 9. If you want the full blessings of the Lord, you go love on him. Love on him like crazy and walk it out. Another benefit? You won't dread or fear anything either. That's another reason why David mentioned it. God's perfect love drives away fear. 1 John 4 18. Do you want to get rid of fear, anxiety, depression, negativity, loneliness, and every other negative emotion? Like doctors telling you to stop taking your meds because you're well and whole? Get rid of? Love God and embrace his love. Real love. If we abide in God, he abides in us. 1 John 4 13. And abiding is a powerful thing. We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love has been made perfect among us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Because as he is, even so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us. That's 1 John 4 16-19. That sounds wonderfully peaceful, doesn't it? Our daily affirmation of God's love is Deuteronomy 7 12-15. Related to the above, if you're abiding in God, there is no end to the love and blessing that gets showered on you, simply because by seeking God's love, we're accepting it. God loves us, whether we love him or not. Nothing you can do can alter his love. Nothing you can do will change his feelings toward you. But if you abide in him, you will change. You will alter. You will find yourself walking under the waterfall of his love. Do it today. 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. 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 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 to see versus 18 and 19. We love because he first loved us. He just loves us. He can't get enough of us. And amen to that. See you next time.