The Scriptures tell us that God’s love and favour cast out all fear.

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18

Today’s post is an encouragement to cast off compromise and stand fearless in God’s favour. It is our small compromises that leave us open to doubt and anxiety in our spirit, because compromise is the result of a fear and doubt that God will actually come through for us. God can’t work with fear and doubt. Spiritually they are not a good substance to build anything with.

Take Ishmael as an example. Abraham and Sarah decided that God needed some help to produce the promised child so took upon themselves to provide a solution to the problem, and provide a half-baked answer to the full-fledged promise that God had given them. The result was the Middle East conflict, Afghanistan and the Iraq war, among other things.

May God in His grace help us each day to make decisions based on the promises He has given, trusting Him to bring them to pass in His own way and His own time. This does mean that we do nothing, it simply means that we do as we are directed by the Holy Spirit, and stay away from a compromised position where our reason has to justify our actions to make them sound acceptable to our conscience. Friend, God is not reasonable in the way we understand reason. He is far beyond what we consider acceptable, and His behaviour is beautifully untamed.

He has all the power and holy intention to bring to pass all that He desires in your life and the live’s of your loved ones. Instead of offering him a Hagar kind of solution, how about taking time to pray in the Spirit and offer the substance of faith – something He can work with.

“But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” Jude 1:20-21

Step through the cross today and leave compromise behind – stand fearless in the presence of His favour and receive.

It is all by Grace through faith

It is so important that we come back again and again to the fundamentals of what it means to walk by faith in the grace of God, and not get all tied up in theological knots trying to be a good Christian. Even Jesus said when someone called HIm ‘good’ teacher, “Hey, quit with the good thing – only One is worthy of that accolade and that is God HImself!

“Now behold, one came and said to Him, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”” Matthew 19:16-17

Now, we all know that Jesus Himself was perfect, and deserving of this attribution, yet He gave us an example here to follow – It’s not about us or our goodness – its all about Him and what He has done for us and is doing in us.

The Cart before the Horse syndrome

Ever present is the religious pitfall of hitching the cart and the horse the wrong way round. Our outward life follows our inner reality. We don’t get right with God by doing right – we do right because we are already right with God apart from our own efforts – through plain and simple faith in Jesus Christ.

Once that inner reality is established, the rest will naturally follow.

Getting that horse to go in the right direction!

And so to another truth that never tires however many times we revisit it. Just as any vehicle needs to be steered in the right direction, so our life has a rudder that turns the whole ship, and we have our hand on the rudder together with the Holy Spirit.

Proverbs 18:21 puts it this way:

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.”

James says:

“A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse.
A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds.
A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it!”
James 3:3-5

The words we choose to speak have such a profound affect on the direction our emotions, out thoughts and our life will take.

Are you like Joshua, looking across to a promised land and wondering how to cross over from where you stand today and finally taste those grapes and honey? God had an answer for Joshua, and He has one for you and I today…

“This Book of the Law (the Word of God) shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate (think on, speak out) in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Joshua 1:8

Certainly the Bible is not shy to say that without God’s help we will find it difficult (impossible is the word) to keep out tongue in check, but praise God, with HIm all things are possible.

Here’s to your prosperity and good success in all the affairs of life. And that by grace!

Nicodemus came to Jesus and asked Him all sorts of questions. As so often happened Jesus then replies with a somewhat cryptic answer; “Nick, you really must be born again if you want to see and enter the Kingdom of God!” (John 3)

Nicodemus was unsurprisingly shocked at the thought of an old man like himself somehow trying to clamber back into his mother’s womb. The picture is pretty frightening so don’t even go there!

Fortunately Jesus set the man right and explained that He was talking about a spiritual experience that could best be described by comparing it to the crisis of being born. Jesus here was not just talking about a religious spruce up – this was a brand new beginning. The old had to go, and something completely new come into existence.

Elsewhere in the New Testament other grapple with trying to adequately describe something that in reality has to be experienced to really grasped. Paul says that it is like being delivered from one kingdom, a kingdom of darkness, into a beautiful Kingdom of the Son of God (Colossians 1:13).

This new identity Paul describes as a brand New Creation:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,”
(2 Corinthians 5:17–18 NKJV)

Peter, after describing how newborns need milk to grow, and similarly we need God’s Word to help us mature beyond babyhood, then describes this new reality and identity as a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people (he got that one right!) – a people who were once without God but are now his very children. Those who who had not obtained mercy but now bask in the joyful awareness of God’s love and forgiveness. (1 Peter 2:9-10)

And how is this experienced entered into? Through faith in Jesus Christ; who He is, what He said, and what He did!

“For with the heart one believes unto (or into) righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.””
(Romans 10:10–13 NKJV)

Faith always produces a definite change in those who profess it. Interestingly, when associated with the heart, the verb “to believe” becomes a verb of motion. That’s why Paul says… “Believe into righteousness” …When Jesus uses the verb “to believe” it is regularly followed by the preposition into, to express change or movement.

“you believe in [literally into] God, believe also in [literally into] Me.” (John 14:1)

Faith and belief in the Christian sense are not passive religious leanings, they are active, heartfelt realities that move the heart and affect profound change in our lives. I encourage you today – believe God with fresh expectation today as you walk with His Holy Spirit.

Overcoming Adversity