A Life Without Fear

Life, when placed in to God's magnificent hands, becomes a series of moments woven into the most beautiful of tapestries.

Today, I will enjoy lunch with my youngest and a stroll about the neighborhood. During those same moments, a friend will be by her unconscious youngest's hospital bed, a result from a car accident yesterday.

Through it all, there is the full assurance God is working His plan.

I am thankful for the steadfast, deeply rooted belief (knowledge backed by action) NOTHING touches one of His own without HIS permission. THAT is what makes HIM the Great Shepherd.

I find too much emphasis in the Body is placed on the "thief."

Is what he is up to worthy of even a second glance when our GOD has care of us? NO!  A thousand times no!

God took him on on our behalf..... and WON! John 10 says, "I (Jesus) am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will GO IN and OUT and FIND pasture.  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I CAME that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

Commit to get the focus OFF the "thief." For some, this will take diligence and the breaking of habits because too much of your past thought life has been focused on him... and not on GOD.

Those who are IN Christ Jesus are commanded to walk full of faith. When we do so, there is NO room for fear, for fretting, or for looking over one's shoulder, because when one walks in faith, they are walking with the belief (knowledge backed by action) that the Great Shepherd IS their front, rear, and side guard. That they have full liberty - utterly absent of fear - to go IN AND OUT and FIND pasture because GOD is on watch!    Give Him a shout of praise!

May you command your faith to rise on JESUS' power and HIS promise! BUT understand that promise of divine protection and purpose -- the divine kind that is able to transform even hard to swallow events into a testimony of GOD's realness and goodness -- comes with a qualifier: you have to make the decision to go in through the door, Jesus. That means the leaving of one's will, thoughts, hopes, demands, striving, and provision OUTSIDE His gate, diligently and obediently positioning yourself UNDER Him. He is a GREAT God, and those who put their trust in Him will not be put to shame!

Gently, yet firmly, let me caution as I part. To rebel or to persist exercising one's wants without God's sanction is to intentionally bang one's self upon the brick wall labelled SIN. One does it to themselves when the choice is made to strive after something independent from Him and against His sanction. To do so while expecting His blessing and His protection is utter folly! Let's commit to leave toddler wills and demands behind and walk on in to growth and maturity in Him. It is foolish to think the created could ever possibly know better than the Creator!

Godspeed, dear ones! Godspeed!

Deborah
www.joyinthemorning.com