Fear is not your portion

As the title of this blog post suggests: “Fear is not your portion” if you are in Christ. Indeed, as a believer in the LORDJesus, there is no such thing as fear because our saviour and LORD has defeated any enemy we could have. He defeated sickness, defeated pain and suffering, defeated anxiety, defeated poverty, defeated fear and defeated death. There is only victory in Christ! That is why, “the people who know their God, will display strength and take action” (Daniel 11:32) because there is no room for fear. We who know the LORD ought to live bolder lives, it is not acceptable for us to sit on the sidelines and worry about our little lives here on earth while the kingdom of God is not advancing. We are too focused on the life here and we forget that we are not of this world although in it (John 17:14-16). In today’s post, I want to challenge us all (myself included) to be at our Father’s business which is the establishment of His kingdom on earth and making Jesus known into every sphere of this planet. Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15), and today it is still at hand. Many have not heard this “good news” we know so let’s be active. In order to do this well, we must live without fear. Knowing God is the cure to fear and it will be my focus in this post. 

Throughout history, Christians have demonstrated a great deal of courage and zeal. They have been in the forefront of change in civilization, in nations and have spearheaded many movements that benefited society at large, not just themselves. Their intent although often good has not always led to great results as human greed, and thrill for power came into play. For the many instances of good that has come out of the boldness of Christian men and women throughout this world, the positive result has stemmed from their knowledge of their God. Those who knew their God, relied on their God to keep them steadfast. Indeed, those who trusted in the LORD knew they could never fail and they knew above everything that the power did not belong to them but to the LORD; they knew their mission in life was not to do their will but the will of the Father; they knew not to be afraid of those that can kill the body and not the soul but of the One that could destroy both in hell (Matthew 10:28); they knew that victory was already theirs in Christ; they knew the LORD was with them and was for them; they knew they were not the ones working out the good, but that God was working out good through them; again, these Christians understood they were merely vessels, it was for God’s glory and not theirs. They forsook all other things, laid down their lives for the One who laid it down for them and gave them eternal life. This indeed is the only way to live courageously in today’s world. It was the solution then, and it is the solution now. 

Where do we start? I believe it is in our heart. We have to come to terms with what is ruling us, what our fears are, what or who we live for, the idolatry in our hearts; we must bring these before the LORD, confessing our sins to Him and repenting of our evil. We must learn to behold our God. The more we look to Him, the more our faces shine and reflect His glory; the more we look to Him, the more we seek to be like Him, to honour Him, to please Him. Most of our misalignment with the LORD as Christians stems from the fact that we do not look to Him as our all in all. We sing about the LORD being our all in all, about Him being our everything, like Peter, we are quick to utter words carelessly: “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” (Matthew 26:35) but when the time comes to prove our words, we fear and chicken out. The fact that we will be judged by what we say is a big deal (Matthew 12:36), it means we must be careful to not say what we do not mean, we must be careful to not say what we cannot follow with our actions. Indeed, the only way for our words to be measured is by what we do. That is why faith is measured by our actions. Remember what the book of James tells us: “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness” (James 2:23). This righteousness status followed his act of obedience which was sacrificing his son to God as God had commanded. Thankfully in Abraham’s case, his son Isaac was not sacrificed but a substitute animal was provided by the LORD(Genesis 22).

Our words are tested by our actions and people are able to judge us based on what we do, not on what we say. In our world, everyone says so many things, and we often seem to hear many voices saying the same things or at least appearing to but when the time for action comes, it is staggering to see the disparity between what people say and what they do. One clear example of this is often seen during election time. People will say they believe in one candidate only for the world to find out that they actually believed in another candidate. At that point, what they said does not matter anymore because what they did showed where their allegiance was. The point is clear, do not say you are a Christian simply because you feel good saying it, or because you were born into a Christian family, grew up in the church, belong to a Christian country, or because Jesus gives you things, no, if you say you are a Christian, know that you will be tested by your words through the way you live your life, how you treat your neighbour (whether they look like you or do not, whether they agree with you or do not), how you stand for truth (if you stand for truth), how you obey the teachings of Jesus (irrespective of what they look like to the world), how you love God. Saying you are a Christian is not a mere word you utter, or another title you wear with pride, but it is your identity, one that says you have died to yourself and only live for Christ. It is a covenantal relationship we have entered in with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob where we have pledged our allegiance to Him for eternity and He in turn has promised to never leave us nor forsake us and to be with us into the ends of the earth. He has also promised us to fight for us, to provide for us, to prepare a table before us in the presence of our enemies, to have goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives (Psalm 23).

I mean, I am not sure what else God can do to show us the depth of His love any more than what He has already done. He has made a way for sinners like you and I to be reconciled to Him. Truth is, when you came into this world, you were tainted with sin, a seed that only grew as you grew. No one taught you to lie, or to do evil, you just naturally knew how to do it. No one taught you to blame others for your mistake, you just knew how to do it, no one taught you the art of covering up, shame taught you how to do it. All these are examples of how sin has corrupted us in our core because we all came from Adam who was the first man to sin against God and who gave us his seed, that sinful nature which separated us from the holy God. This separation also meant we were guilty before this holy God and would face His judgement. But God in His mercy and love, knew that we could not atone for our sins, sent the one who could, His one and only son Jesus to die in our place and atone for our sins. The goal was simple, provide this redemption and salvation to anyone who would believe in Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross on their behalf and be brought back into the presence of God. This was not something we could have done, only a sinless man could have done so, and Jesus was that sinless man who redeemed man from the curse of sin. 

Therefore, if you are in Christ, you are a new creation, the old is gone behold the new is here. Your acceptance of Jesus’ sacrifice comes with a mandate: to count the cost of following Jesus. He cautioned us saying: “any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). The cost of following Jesus is extremely high, it requires your very life and everything you have but so is the reward. Aside from eternal life that is already huge, Jesus has rewards in heaven for you that no one knows about except him and as a good Father, who only give good gifts to His children (Matthew 7:11; James 1:17), you can be sure that your reward will be good and satisfactory, in fact, it will be better than what you can think or imagine. So where do you go from here? Go back to the beginning, your first love and simply live a faithful and obedient life. Start where God has placed you, start introspectively, look at how you are living today and begin to cut out things that are not honouring the LORD, keep at it and before you know it, that fragrance will spread and be a pleasant aroma of Christ around you. “Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion” (Isaiah 52:1), amen.