A Moment. That's All.

This transcription discusses the rejection of fear and the embrace of faith. It explores the concept of prosperity and how it is not solely about money but a lifestyle guided by the Lord. It mentions the persecution that Christians face around the world and the potential for it to increase in the West. The importance of eternity and shifting priorities towards pleasing God is also emphasized. Ultimately, believers have already died and been resurrected in Jesus, allowing them to have a close relationship with 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 Proverbs 1.33 But whoever listens to me will dwell securely and will be at ease without fear of harm. Jesus is your pal, your buddy. He wants the best for you. Blessing on blessing on blessing. But he doesn't promise you things. He doesn't promise you smooth sailing. He doesn't promise you a pain-free life. He does promise you will not fear and you will have peace. He promises you things of the kingdom. He promises you prosperity that comes from your spirit and inhabits the rest of who you are. And our lives can include many things. Successes, financial solvency, possessions, properties, stable employment, healthy food options, high quality clothes, many avenues to quality entertainment, educational opportunities, and a lot of options for recreation. Now those are things. We can also have family relationships, social relationships, mental health, communication, and widespread connections. A good and prosperous life is the quintessential dream of the West. It's a free society of independent citizens living in social harmony, economic equality, and democratically limited political and legal rights. That sounds to me like secure dwelling while at ease without fear of harm. But does that mean the Western dream is the will of the Lord? No. It means that the will of the Lord is a concept we're familiar enough with that they could be cousins or even siblings. Things that are at least recognizable to us. But the world and large portions of the church lose their minds and froth at the mouth of the idea of a Christian enjoying just that, but at the guidance of the Lord. We're fine with reaching that level of ease on our own, within the capitalistic system of free enterprise, anyway. I don't know if it makes them feel better about their wealth or what it is. But the idea that God might not only approve of wealth, but encourage it as a state of being for most of His followers just seems to scare them. And by wealth, I don't mean money only. I'm talking the whole package. And I've smiled more than once, not in judgment, just honestly, just amused, to hear conservative preaching state the same points as so-called prosperity preachers from the same Bible verses. They're just using a different language. I smile even wider when you look at the net worth of these people and see that there's not a big gap between the two groups. It's all just so much denominational and doctrinal silliness. The only difference between them is the language they use. You know what? Prosperity is biblical, but it's not a dollar amount. It's a lifestyle, and it's predicated on listening to the Lord. 3 John 1-2 states it as, Jesus stated it as, James 5-8 says, Now, John was the Lord's beloved close friend. James was His brother. And, of course, Jesus is the Word. What do they all say? Your circumstances don't matter. Your heart matters. Your spirit matters. How you seek God matters. Jesus is saying if you seek God first, the rest will follow, no matter what and how much that rest is. You see, He didn't promise you money. He didn't promise you security. He promised you the rest. The rest of what? The rest of what you need. Not what you want. Not what you desire. What you need. What will sustain you. John was saying without a prospering spirit, you're not equipped to handle prosperity as the world thinks about it. Now, James was expounding about the evils of ill-based wealth, the heavenly rewards of enduring suffering, and how we need to look to the heart more than anything since the end is coming, probably sooner than later. Paul, he wrote most of the New Testament, and he saw earthly suffering, and the flip side, which is prosperity. He saw them both as a light affliction. 2 Corinthians 4, 16-18. Something temporary. Both of them, something temporary. That it was over so quickly, it was barely something worth thinking about. This from a man who gives his resume of sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11, 24-27. Perils in the city. Perils in the wilderness. Perils in the sea. Perils amongst false brothers. In labor and travail. In watchings often. In hunger and thirst. In fastings often. And in cold and nakedness. Now, that's more than most of us see, depending on where you live. North Korea, Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, and India top the list for places of persecution against Christians today. Between 2021 and 2022, Christians were martyred by the tens, to the hundreds, to the thousands in Nigeria, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Myanmar, Colombia, India, Mexico, Honduras, and Pakistan. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom identifies Russia as one of the worst violators of religious freedom, any religion, not just followers of Christ. The Russians claim it's because of security issues but it is worsening as time goes on and it seems non-proportionate to other groups. So, is it really? The larger question is how soon before we see this in the West. The Bible warns us about it. Jesus promised we'd face persecution because of following him. It's only a matter of time. It won't matter if it's in small ways, like closing churches in lockdown but allowing bars and restaurants to have limited seating during a pandemic or big ways of locking you up if you profess your faith. When it's happening to you, persecution is persecution. Being stuck in a home can feel the same as being stuck in a cell, especially if you haven't experienced both to compare them. What about the name of Jesus? You know, when celebrities, athletes, or other achievers start to give Jesus credit and glory in news reports, have you noticed there's a signal loss within moments? A minute at most. When content providers start challenging things in regards to the word versus the world, there's often website issues that prevent some of the content from being disseminated. What will be next? They already say Merry Christmas is frowned on as being uninclusive. Will saying the name of Jesus be next? Religious books? The Bible? I'm not being doom and gloom here. I'm not trying to paint a picture of Nazi-esque techniques to keep the cross-carriers down. But I'm saying Paul suffered these things and he did not fear them. He did not shy from them. They were a light affliction in comparison to, one, what Jesus suffered, two, rewards in heaven gained by following Christ in spite of what is happening around us or to us, and three, eternity. Now, it doesn't matter if you're talking the average population age of death of 60 to 85 years old or a blue zone average of 90 to 100-plus years old. This is less than a blink of a blink of a blink of an eye in a timeless environment. Forever is a long time. Now, the modern world is trying to discount long-term decisions. Have you noticed? Things like sexuality, gender expression, and genetics are all being shifted into a fluid model where your feelings are followed as they happen. So maybe you're one way now, maybe you're one way the next day, and it changes. So you're following your feelings and not reality. But there are things that we as people and the animal kingdom have actually chosen for life. There's scientific examples of that. So is eternity any different? We can think on that scale, you know. We can experience life on that scale, but not naturally. It takes Jesus to do it. And in Jesus, the travails of suffering and persecution and the experience of prosperity, even prosperity as the Western world sees it, are both temporary flashes in the pan. In Jesus, all our priorities shift. They shift from humankind-centric to God-centric. God is eternal, always was, always will be. If you are shifting your thinking from a created being into a non-created being way of thinking, you'd better believe there are going to be seismic shifts of your reality. When we live with pleasing God as our goal, nothing else really matters. Everything else is a temporary thing. A light affliction. Because there's only so much that can be done to our flesh. There's only so much that can be done to us. Then limits are hit and we're gone. Poof! Into the rest of our lives. There's only so much wealth and possession that you can have. There's only so much that this world has to offer that you can accumulate. And then limits are hit and we're gone. Poof! Into the rest of our lives. Remember that if you're a believer, you've already died and gotten resurrected into Jesus. John 11, 25-26. Lord, don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried, therefore, with Him through baptism into death. Not just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father. So we also might walk in newness of life. Romans 6, 3-4. We've already died. We've done all the dying we're going to do. We literally cannot die. Oh, sure, we'll drop the meat sack. But what is that? It's like taking off a coat. And then, boom, instant shaking hands with Jesus. Because we'll be perfected in His righteousness at that point. And we can be buddy-buddy with our brother and fellow child of the Father. We can hug Him, see the Father's face, have all that we've been promised and probably more. You see, we want to be buddy with God. We want to be all happy and smile. But it takes pure righteousness to stand before Jesus, to stand before the Father. And we don't have that except in Jesus. But when we have that, not just in our spirits something that we know and that we're working to be sanctified into, but once we're there and we have it, have it, it's going to be amazing. So why worry? Why fear? Anything that happens here is quick, fast, over in a moment. It might not always seem like it, but that's because we look at it with human eyes, human thinking. Look at it with heaven's eyes, heaven thinking. You'll realize one important thing. It has all been done. Since it's done, accomplished, and over, there's no pressure. We don't have to do anything to achieve what we've been given. We can't earn it. We didn't deserve it. But we got it anyway by the grace and mercy of Yahweh God. Never take that for granted. Never underestimate the miracle of that gift. We can praise Him. We can worship Him. We can love Him. And through loving Him, find ourselves following His commands because we love to please Him. We can lose our fear of this world, whether that is fear of not having stuff, fear of losing stuff, fear of loving stuff too much, fear of the other guy getting to have stuff, or fear of suffering. We can be at ease, resting in the promises of the Word, trusting the Lord, and taking what He gives as He gives. He won't let us be tempted by the enemy beyond our means, 1 Corinthians 10.13. He won't give us things that will make us stumble, James 4.3. He will guard us as precious children, Philippians 4.7. When you realize that God can be trusted, that is the first step to knowing that He can be trusted. And when you know He can be trusted, it's the first step to strengthening your faith that He can be trusted. Did you get that? And when you realize He can be trusted, you can know He can be trusted. When you know He can be trusted, you will strengthen your faith that He can be trusted. What will you end up with? You'll end up trusting Him. And when you do that, you will have peace. It won't matter what comes against you. It won't matter where you find yourself. It won't matter what you have or what you don't have. It won't matter what someone else has or what someone else isn't walking in yet. You will be completely content with whatever you have, eager to bless those around you that don't have, because you're fully satisfied and taken care of. You'll be eager to be the instrument the Lord uses to let them walk in prosperity. And the fear that the world is always slinging around, hoping you'll pick some up, will blow away like chaff in a tornado. It is a secure place to stand. It is a safe place to stand. It is a peaceful place to stand. And there is no fear, because nothing can move you when you stand in Jesus. You are the one in control of your feet, the only one. God can't move you because he chose to restrict himself through our free will. The enemy can't move you because he's a powerless braggart. Demons can't do it. They're powerless little whiners. Evil spirits can't do it. They're hyped-up infants with an inflated sense of self-worth, and they're just as powerless as the other two. No one can move your feet but you. You can choose to abide in Jesus, or you can choose to step away. You can choose to live by faith, or you can choose to indulge in sin. Not the fun indulgence of a decadent dessert, but the indulgence of smearing yourself with septic waste. It's your choice how you want to live. At ease, secure, and without fear? Or the way the world does? I highly recommend what the word more highly recommends. God's way. Live in Jesus, through Jesus, and by Jesus. With him we can do all things. With him all things are possible. With him is peace and ease. Choose Jesus and enter eternal peace. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Psalm 27, 1-4. Inheritance is the reception of genetic qualities by transmission from parent to offspring, or the acquisition of a possession, condition, or trait from past generations. We have inheritance all around us, genetic inheritance being the largest one. But we also have a divine inheritance, a declaration by Yahweh that as his children, we have his righteousness, and we have the right to call out and call down those who come against us in his name. Isaiah 54, 14-17. Where do we have this inheritance? In him. He is our strength. He is our light. He is our salvation. He is our secure base. He fights for us. He protects us. He does it all. We seek him. We seek his face. We work to get to know him, to learn his ways, to walk in them like a toddler in their parent's shoes. And just like that toddler, those shoes will start to fit better and better. We will grow larger and larger. Our stride will improve. Our balance will center. And before you know it, we'll be walking in those shoes as if they were made for us, which they were. We are the image of God, Genesis 1, 26-27. We are in Jesus and he in us, John 14, 20. We have been put into Jesus' righteousness, 1 Corinthians 1, 30-31. That is our inheritance. That is our genetic history, our DNA of the Spirit. We are the children of Yahweh God, by grace, through faith. We abide in Jesus and he in us. Nothing can stand against us. Nothing can successfully come at us. The Lord God Almighty gives us total and absolute peace while he takes care of the rest. He loves us too much to do anything else. Love him back. Seek his face. Seek to be pleasing to him. Walk in his ways. His ways are perfect love and never-ending mercy. It is a beautiful place to be. 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. 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.