Reflectors

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and embrace faith. It emphasizes the importance of peace in our lives and homes, as well as the impact of our atmosphere on our spiritual well-being. It encourages us to be mindful of what we watch, read, listen to, and say, as they can shape our values and mindset. The passage also highlights the power of praise and thanksgiving in inviting God's presence and overcoming challenges. Ultimately, it reminds us to walk in love, peace, and gratitude, allowing the Word of God to guide our lives. 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 Samuel 25.6 Tell Him, Long life to you, peace be to you, peace be to your house, peace be to all that you have. This is a great greeting. It covers everything. Long life and peace to the person, peace to the place they live, and peace to all that they have. Peace is freedom from civil disturbance and from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions. It is a state of security or order and harmony in personal relations. And this is being put on the person, their home, and everything they own. That's a great greeting. It's a whole person blessing, and God is all about wholeness. The whole person, the whole situation, the whole body, the whole everything. God works where there is peace. Strife is the easiest way to keep the Lord from moving in your life. It doesn't mean He isn't there, because He never leaves us, Hebrews 13, 5-6. But it is the difference between God being present and God being present, moving, ministering, and actively blessing us. When we are in strife, He is there with all the tools we need to stop the strife, because we are in a place where that is all that we can receive. He freely offers them, but we need to use them. Now when we are in peace, He is there with all that He has for us, because we are in a place where we can receive all that He has for us. Finally, brothers, rejoice. Be perfected. Be comforted. Be of the same mind. Live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. 2 Corinthians 13, 11-12. Now wouldn't that be great, having the God of love and peace being with us? Not in a He's-in-our-heart way, but in a physical, tangible, filling-our-home-with-His-atmosphere way. And I tell you truly that according to the Word, the Lord is with each and every one of us. But the homes of some Christians are almost the furthest thing from peaceable and loving that you can get. They are places of strife, blame, guilt, anger, frustration, conflict, and resentment. I guarantee you that a home with that kind of atmosphere is a home that is not putting the Lord first and foremost. The question becomes, what is your atmosphere? Atmosphere is defined as the air of a locality, a surrounding influence or environment, and the overall aesthetic. What atmosphere are you cultivating? What is in the air that you breathe in your home? We spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars for air purifiers. They filter the air and remove all the unwanted stuff floating around there. Stuff like pollen, dust, moisture, bacteria, viruses, and dirt. And then of course there are gases, chemicals, and odors, and it's a whole thing we're not going to get into. Air purifiers basically all work the same way. Air is drawn into the unit, there are filters in there that trap particles, and then the air is sent back out into the room. They're most effective when you run them with regularity and combined with an overall cleaning routine of the physical surfaces of your home. If you get a unit that is appropriate for the room you are wishing to improve, with the right filters, with the right circulation, and combined with cleaning the physical space on a regular schedule, along with frequent use of the unit, they can be effective and improve the air quality in a noticeable way. Yes, it can be complex to get everything right, and yes, almost all of what it does is invisible, but by removing the invisible it improves your experience in that space. Now spiritually it's no different. What bothers us is invisible, but there's a physical base to it. We just can't always see it. Start with your viewing habits. What entertainment is going before your eyes? Not even obvious visual things, but the underlying morals, the statements, the values. Western storytelling is driven by conflict and conflict resolution, so safe to say there's some form of it in everything you watch. Is it promoting the values you should be cultivating? I'm not even suggesting you only watch programs where the main characters are always God-centered. I'm saying that you should be noticing where the values are. Are people sleeping around? Are they cheating to get good grades or promotions? Are they open, honest, loving, and caring? Or are they manipulative, argumentative, and secretive? You can have a wholesome show about saving the day as easily as a worldly one. What about what you read, physically and online? Uplifting? Teaching? Or trash? Are you reading passionate love stories or passionate lust stories? Does sex drive it? Corruption? Gossip? Are you doom-scrolling through the headlights of horror that most news sources and all entertainment sites produce as the daily happenings around the globe? What informs you? The Word or Wikipedia? What about what you listen to? What are the values that those captivating tunes promote? You can hum it in your sleep, but do you watch your kids acting like that? Are they singing about good things, God things, or something else? This isn't about whether it is good music in the sense of tune, talent, or technique. The world is full of horrible but great music. Well-made stuff that promotes bad values is still well-made stuff. But when you're dealing with the atmosphere, it isn't about whether something is well done, pleasing to the ears, eyes, or a great achievement by those crafting it. It is about the values, message, and lifestyle presented in the works. I have walked away from franchises that I followed happily for decades because the values changed. There are still really well-done franchises, but I'm no longer adding them to my atmosphere. Most important to atmosphere isn't what we watch, read, or listen to. It is what we say. Why? What good does it do for you to watch Christian programming but tell your kids to F off every time they take you off? Are you really opening yourself up to the Lord when you read the Bible, when you're yelling at your kids every time they aren't perfect? The Word renews us, Romans 12 too. But if we're binding the Holy Spirit at every turn with our words or attitude, then how is it ever going to take root? For God didn't give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control, 2 Timothy 1.7. A man's stomach is filled with the fruit of his mouth. With the harvest of his lips, he is satisfied. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Those who love it will eat its fruit, Proverbs 19, 20-21. What are we feeding ourselves on? Once fed, are we choosing to use it as fuel? Is our word-world balance right? Is your atmosphere being purified, or are there open containers of refuge being left around? What is your atmosphere? When he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and give praise in a holy array as they go out before the army and say, Give thanks to the Lord for his loving kindness endures forever. When they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushers ahead of the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who would come against Judah, and they were struck. 2 Corinthians 20, 21-22. In verse 15-17, God told the king that it was going to be okay, that the Israelites wouldn't even have to fight this battle. He told them to set themselves, stand, and watch their salvation. He tells them not to be afraid or dismayed. He tells them he's with them. The king then told the people and the priests. The king consulted the people as to how to do this, and the people chose to praise first, to lead with praise as they went to where God told them to go. God didn't tell them to do this. They chose to do it because they knew it was the right thing to do, that if they started out with praise, they'd get to where they were going in the right frame of mind. It was true for them, and it's true for us. The spirit and the bride say, Come. He who hears, let him say, Come. He who is thirsty, let him come. He who desires, let him take the water of life freely. We need to say, Come. We need to invite the Lord in. For he who would love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. 1 Peter 3 10-11 Put on, therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance, bearing with one another and forgiving each other. If any man has a complaint against any, even as Christ forgave you, so you also do. Above all these things walk in love, which is the bond to perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord. Colossians 3 12-16 We're told to enter his courts with praise. Psalm 104 We're told not to be anxious but to do everything with thanksgiving, especially when praying. Philippians 4 6-7 This is what programming our atmosphere starts with, praise, and then our words. Taking the time to pause before speaking and pray, to listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit, to remember the attitudes that Jesus had and that he has called us to have. Peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, joy, love, gentleness, and self-control. Galatians 5 22-23 We have the ability to choose these things, and we have the ability to reject their opposites. We have the strength to choose them because the joy of the Lord is our strength. Nehemiah 8 10 We have that strength because it isn't ours. We are strong in his might, not our own. Ephesians 6 10 It is not us that does it but Jesus. John 15 These things are ours because we are in Jesus, dead to our former selves and alive in Christ. Galatians 5 24-27 Don't choose stress and conflict. Don't bring that into your homes. Don't bring that into your lives. Cultivate the fruits of the Spirit. Invite the Lord into your life and your home. For every well-done thing you put away because it doesn't line up with the Holy Spirit, you'll receive of the perfect things of the Lord. Program your atmosphere with praise and with words that speak to life and Jesus. And if no one has said it to you, then let me say it to you. I declare long life to you, peace be to you, peace be to your house, peace be to all that you have. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Psalm 29. The Lord has glory and strength. He is clothed in holiness. His voice can knock down mountains, wipe out forests, rumble in the wild places. Yet He still gets down on His hands and knees to play with us in the dust. He breathed the breath of lives into us. He cares so much for us. Out of all the magnificence He made, and in spite of the majesty of the Lord, we were picked for Him to spend time with. He cares about you, what you're doing, where you're going, not to stop you, but to be with you. His majesty bringing us in so we can reflect it. And when we choose to do what He likes and not what our flesh prefers, we will find ourselves blessed and reflecting His majesty because He loves to give us good things. He loves us so much. Thank Him today. He deserves it. 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. 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 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.