Devotions

Jesus didn’t mess around when he talked about fear. His core message was “I, not your fear, am in control.”

Are fear and anxiety part of our God-given makeup? Oddly, yes. Fear alerts us to danger, and anxiety is our physical response to those alerts. Life from birth to grave is filled with such moments. While on earth Jesus felt the anxiety of those to whom he ministered. His words about fear were designed to not only calm them but also to help them grow in their spiritual walk.

We are all plagued by fear at one time or another. In my younger years, most of my life decisions were in some way tied to my fears. Yes, I wanted to please God, but it was my own expectations and standards for success that I focused on. I was driven by a mighty fear of failure that threatened at times to consume me.

Your fears may be about a relationship, money or illness. You might suffer from depression, or maybe you just carry around a general anxiety about the state of the world. No matter the battle, Jesus invites us to view life through his divine lens. “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33, ESV).

Peace and freedom from fear come only when we disconnect our hearts and minds from the values of the world. This is a conscious, deliberate act. It is interrupting the endless stream of harassing thoughts to say, “Lord, give me your perspective, right here, right now. Help me to let go and see that it is all in your control. I will worship you, not my fears.”

Being attentive to what lies beneath our fears clues us in to what matters to us, and therefore what needs adjusting. “He’s got the whole world in his hands,” says the song. Do you believe it? Or are you mired in needless worry and fear?

It is when we seek the face of God our creator, when we turn our attention fully to him, that we find rest and safety. “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3).

Hopefully, you know a little bit about Peter from the gospels. He was kind of ahead of the curve when it came to bragging and arguing about who was the greatest with the other disciples. Obviously, he didn’t get what Christ was about in the beginning, but we’re all a work in progress.

Christ eventually made Peter into this excellent apostle and man of God. Peter preached the first sermon of the Christian era. Did you know that God anointed him so much that when he preached thousands came to faith during that first sermon? When you think about it, he was a very unlikely person to even be preaching in the first place. If less than two months before, you had denied the Lord three times, said you didn’t know him and even cursed the third time, would anyone pick you to be the first preacher of the new Christian era? Probably not.

God who is rich in mercy, though, chose Peter and chose each one of us. God delights in showing mercy. Peter was the trophy of his grace, and boy did he know it. He wrote to the early church, “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2, ESV).

Notice that this grace and peace comes through knowing, walking with and becoming more intimate with God and Jesus Christ. We don’t just want head knowledge about God. The people who knew scripture best in Jesus’ day were the ones who crucified him. We need heart knowledge of God. We’re called to fellowship with the Lord. As we do, there’s more grace and peace available for us.

Notice that this opening to Peter’s letter is more like a prayer. It’s not who he is yet. It’s not who’s writing to yet either. It’s a greeting that has a prayer for the future built into it. It’s a prayer we can all say. “Oh Lord, help us to know you better and better this year. As we do that, give us grace and peace in abundance!” As we open our Bibles, let’s pray, “Lord, I don’t want to just understand you intellectually. Reveal yourself to me through these scriptures. Reveal yourself to the eyes of my heart. Give me a deeper understanding of who you really are.” 

_{Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary Wilkerson.}

In Acts 9, we learn of a man called Saul of Tarsus, one of the most religious men who ever lived. He could boast, “I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.” What was his story?

Saul was a devout Jewish man whose family strictly adhered to law and tradition. We see him here in chapter nine on his way to Damascus, seeking to destroy the new Christians who were disrupting the religious world. He was so full of hatred toward Jesus and his followers that he fiercely and doggedly tracked down and persecuted Christians, even going after them outside Jewish territory. He was focused and deadly serious about his mission.

Consider God’s action. Saul was headed toward Damascus, and suddenly he was engulfed by a blinding light from heaven. He was terrified and confused. Why was this happening? Was God trying to make him feel guilt and condemnation? Was this the end of the road for Saul? Was God going to pour down wrath and judgment upon him for persecuting his people? No, God let down the light to get Saul’s attention because he was planning to make a profound and life-changing announcement. As a trembling Saul waited for judgment, he instead heard the voice of mercy. The Lord told Saul that the terrible things he had done to persecute the Christians was forgiven and that all of his sins were covered.

Surely Saul did not see that coming! Picture him lying flat on the ground in the blinding light and hearing the voice of Jesus.  Instead of hearing condemnation from a holy God for the path he was on, he heard, “I am Jesus!” There was not a word about Saul’s wickedness. Why? Because the one he persecuted was his greatest friend. The Lord even changed Saul’s name to Paul to cement this permanent change in his mind and in the minds of everyone he knew.

Beloved, this same Jesus offers us the same mercy. Deserving judgment and denunciation, we hear him say, “I am Jesus, your Redeemer.” Thank him this day for the mercy he has shown you.

We must once and for all understand what Christ did for us at the cross. He forever took away the sin which separated us from God; from here on, we will always have the right to enter his presence without hesitation. We are accepted in God's sight. There is not a single thing in his heart against us!

Stop and consider the sublime efficacy of Christ's blood. We are fully pardoned because the cross cleared us in God's eyes. We may lose sight of that, but God never does. The veil was torn to allow us to enter directly into God’s presence. He says, “You are accepted! Come boldly to my throne, for you are my beloved.”

Settle this in your heart. If God is satisfied, we should also be satisfied. Is there anything between you and your Father in heaven? You may say, “My heart condemns me! I've said and done things that would grieve the Spirit. I feel unworthy, and the heavens seem closed off to me.” To all this, you can answer, “But God is greater than my thoughts or feelings, and he has accepted me!”

Do you hate your sins? Have you confessed them? Do you believe that “that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins” (Acts 13:38 NKJV)?

Many Christians falter when it comes to accepting forgiveness. They live with unnecessary fear and bondage because they don’t understand the victory of the cross. There is now nothing blocking access to God except our fear and lack of knowledge. When the veil was split, he came out of the holiest of holies to directly commune with you and me.

How incredible! God was so anxious to forgive us that he made himself a sacrifice for our sins. Sin was judged and the offense was removed. Now God can say, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more” (Hebrews 8:12). He has closed the distance between us!

God does not desire to impute sin against us. Instead, he seeks to reconcile us to himself. He longs for us to live in the blessedness of knowing the sin question was forever settled at the cross.

I believe that ever since the cross, God has had but one great intention for his people, and it will not change until Christ returns in glory. His intention is for us to understand the mystery of the gospel, revealed first to Paul the apostle. “By revelation [God] made known to me the mystery...which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as has now been revealed...by the Spirit…. And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery...” (Ephesians 3:3-9, NKJV).

What is the “mystery?” It is simply this; Christ's body is still here on earth! The head is in heaven, but we who love and serve him are his hands and feet and heart, his visible body. Paul emphasizes this in his letters. “For we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones” (Ephesians 5:30). “And he is the head of the body, the church...” (Colossians 1:18).

God's full intention for these last days is that every member of his body, each one of us, must be a true expression of who Christ is. People who don’t know Jesus should be able to see him in us as clearly as if he were here in the flesh. We are called upon to appropriate so much of his character and glory that the world will be filled with hope and will find the answers to their needs.

That is a tall but essential order. It isn’t enough to know Christ. We are called upon to be full and true expressions of him. We must ask ourselves, “Do my actions represent who Christ is? Would Christ, in his physical body, abuse his body? Would he indulge in adultery or other sexual sins? Would he cheat, gossip or lie? Would he try to spread the light with a pocket of darkness in his own heart?”

God tells us to continually keep before our eyes his one great intention, that we as his body honestly and purely reflect who he is. Set your heart on being a true expression of Jesus Christ.