by RobertCummins | Oct 29, 2014 | 44. Fear
Genesis 3:6-10
And Adam said, “I heard the sound of Thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.
From what we know from scripture about man’s origins and early history, this passage marks the entrance of fear into human affairs. Maybe we can better understand its impact upon us by taking a look at man’s condition before fear took hold.
A few things stand out boldly in our passage. God is revealed for the first time as a being with a personality. He possessed all knowledge and was moving about on earth in a body interacting with man, provoking them to think, explore and discover everything he had created and had placed inside of them. God had intended this to be a grand and enjoyable affair. Since He had created them in His image, there was going to be some very big discoveries!
The most beautiful scene however is created by man’s relationship to God – something, by all accounts, that was taken for granted by Adam and Eve. But prior to their disobedience God and man were on intimate terms. This is where the Bible story begins and it appears that after a season of torment caused by fallen angels, this is where the story will also end up as God puts all things to rights through Jesus Christ.
It appears Satan, a bitter and proud angel was already a resident of earth when Adam and Eve were created. We do not know completely what the consequence of his fall was to his personality and powers other than his involvement in human affairs has proven him to be a liar, a murderer and thief. It is safe to assume He hates God, God’s people and has a singular mission to disrupt and destroy God’s plans through masterfully placed deceptions he can plant into the human heart.
The first lie he sowed was the one He told to Eve that suggested to her, that God was withholding something that would make her wise, like Him. The poison Eve and her husband ingested contained knowledge about both good and evil – knowledge God had warned them would cause their death. As they ate and the toxins were absorbed into their being, their capacity to live comfortably in God’s presence without fear died. The forbidden substance, now operative within them, obscured their awareness of God and left them instead with an acute awareness of themselves. Their new found knowledge informed their consciousness that they were inadequate and inferior in their appearance, and I presume in their being, and that God was one that they must fear and hide from.
Adam and Eve feared the Lord. So, was this the beginning of their wisdom? We are told in Ps 111:10 that fearing God is a prerequisite to having wisdom. I believe it was the beginning of a worldly type of wisdom that equips the sons of Adam with a genius in dealing with their fears; their fear of isolation, failure, intimacy and on and on. Deep down in our hearts, I believe we live out of the root system of one tree or the other; the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or the Tree of Life.
Fear, born of the knowledge of good and evil, can birth both good deeds and evil deeds. This self-oriented and fearful illumination can produce both the devout and the devious. The motive for both the alms giver or the murderer could have a common denominator in fear – causing them to always be shoring up and compensating for their acute insecurities born in Eden, sometimes in socially approved behavior and sometimes in socially condemned behavior.
Yesterday’s passage was 1 John 4:16-20. There we found that “perfect love casts out fear“. Where the root of fear produces the toxic fruit of religion, the root of love produces relationship. It reestablishes the capacity of the human spirit to commune with God and each other. The fatal wound from Eden was remedied by the wounds absorbed at Calvary by Christ Jesus. From what is rooted in the cross we learn a new definition of fear. The old definition that anticipated punishment from an angry God was cast out by love.
By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgement; because as He is, so also are we in the world.
There is a wisdom available to us that will allow us to once again think, explore and discover in the context of a relationship with God where we do not need to hide ourselves in fear of punishment. There is no condemnation for us who are in Christ because Christ absorbed the punishment due us. God desires that we avail ourselves of this costly gift which has made it once again possible to walk with Him and others in intimacy.
Father, may we see with new eyes that you have laid the axe to the root of our old nature that was rooted in fear. May we absorb into our heart’s deepest understanding, that even now, if we are in Christ, we are deeply rooted into the love of God and legally immune to accusations of inferiority. Thank you that we are completely acceptable and welcomed into Your presence. Let us resume our conversation with you.
“Now to Him, who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy.” Amen.
Note; I have included a beautiful passage from James 3:13-18 regarding the wisdom from above which is born of love. It is contrasted with the worldly wisdom I referenced earlier. From the Message….
Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom—it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats.
Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.
by RobertCummins | Oct 28, 2014 | 44. Fear
1 John 4:16-21
We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
There is often a time in the early stages of the reborn spirit where “GOD LOVES ME” seems to just naturally resonate. It would seem the new born sons and daughters of God are suddenly liberated from fear and commissioned to go out with a joy and innocent faith that would seemingly conquer the world. It is as though life is flowing directly up through the root system into the new heart and flowers and fragrances are everywhere. Yet, even though the word of God will never fade nor wither, new Christians, too often, seem to eventually wilt. Its as though a winter overtakes the new plant, causing the flower to die, leaving the once festively adorned landscape without color or aroma. What has happened? Is our destiny to be an annual plant or a perennial plant?
An annual plant is enjoyed only for one season. When the first freeze comes it perishes. Perennial plants also appear to die at the first frost but they return each year because their root systems remain alive. I believe we are like perennial plants except that our above ground beauty and fragrance appear in much less predictable cycles than plants. I believe, because our root system lives, that we can bloom, provide color and aroma even in times of drought and harsh weather. (Think of Paul and Silas in prison.)
Many problems for the plant are created by a misunderstanding of the word “abide.” While this abiding process was initialy accomplished by the Master’s grafting skills, we get the notion (from religion) that it our job to cling to the root in order to abide. We are told to work this clinging- thing out with fear and trembling. Yikes! What happens if I can’t cling tight enough. Religion stands ready to offer input to this question as well.
In a thousand spoken and unspoken ways that are deeply embedded into our traditions, techniques and codes, religion informs us that if we do not comply with the established practices a cost will be incurred. It is this often vague (sometimes vivid) cost that we fear. The sentence revealing fear (which is seldom articulated in our conscious thoughts) goes something like this….
“If I do not do this right thing, then (……cost……)” Or, “If I do this wrong thing, then (….cost….)” Write the perceived cost in the blank from your own experience. If you are struggling with this exercise, identify your most hallowed practices or traditions (church attendance, baptism, bible study, prayer, the Rosary, Eucharist, Baptism of the Holy Spirit, that thing (or things) you think makes Christianity work for you). Now, project what would happen to your relationship with God if you were to cease this activity. The degree to which we begin sweating is the measure to which we are clinging to the root by our own strength. Thinking we could ever cling tight enough to secure ourselves to the root is folly. We cannot sustain in our own strength what God has miraculously done in his. We can’t sustain with works what was begun by grace. Just ask the Galatians.
We then may ask, “What is the Christian life if it is not working out these right’s and wrong’s in fear and trembling, always uncertain about the temporal and the eternal outcome. Isn’t this the fear of God?”
Back to abiding. We must abide to draw life from the root, but we first need to deliver this word from its service to religion. Until we do the flow of Life will be cut off. Abide means simply to remain in, to continue on in, to dwell in. To make my point I am going to recruit Wayne Jacobson (WB) – a great dispeller of the fear-laden, we-must-cling myth. I will be borrowing a paragraph from His book, He Loves Me. This book did as much as anything I have ever read or heard in terms of casting out fear and relieving me of the sweaty work of vine-clinging. Note: Instead of clinging-to-the-vine, WJ uses the emotional fallout of the clinging myth – our perception of how God feels about us when our right doing/wrong avoiding – clinging efforts falter and fail.
He loves me. He loves me not….He loves me. He loves me not.
A little girl stands in the backyard chanting as she plucks petals one by one from the daisy and drops them to the ground. At games end, the last petal tells all: whether or not the person desired returns the affection. (From Chapter 1; Daisy Petal Christianity)
This simple picture mirrors the alternating conscience that is driven by fear and manipulated by the enemy to undermine the natural joy and innocent faith that is the birthright of all God’s children. We must permanently break stride with our habit of thinking our behavior (good or bad) alters God’s love for us or our security in it. The “costs” were all paid by Jesus on the Cross. In honor of Jesus’ finished work at Calvary we should never subject our spirits to the shockwave of condemnation that Daisy Petal Christianity imposes.
I would like to introduce you to a new understanding of abiding. Abiding is not clinging. Its simply remaining and continuing in harmony with and resting in God’s grafting initiative. It means that (if we must pick daisies at all), that after every petal plucked we hear the same refrain, “He loves me. He loves me. He loves me. He loves me.”
Casting out the fearful religious spirit that would say, “He loves me not” will redeem 50% of our inner dialogue from the fear of doing wrong and the other 50% from the pride of thinking we are doing right. This creates a place of glorious rest where hearing God’s voice is not hard, recognizing his presence and enjoying his love is natural. When this happens saints graduate from Daisy Petal / Sin-Management Christianity to Abiding / Fruit Bearing Christianity because the blockage has been removed and the nutrients from the root can now flow upward into the plant making it strong, beautiful and fragrant.
Perhaps the most colorful and fragrant outcome of being free of religion is that we can come to rest in who we actually are. When we truly abide in Christ, we actually think of ourselves as his, with zero outstanding debts. Our identities are not created here at this religion-to-Life threshold; they are just revealed. Our identities were established back when we were grafted in. Every religious effort to please God or fear him only undermined our conscious appreciation of this established reality. Free of the back-breaking burden of religion, we realize we are permanently alive by virtue of Christ in us. We live out of the fundamental reality that Jesus Christ is our life as opposed to some flimsy scheme that is dependent on our right-knowing and doing or our ignorance and wrong-avoidance.
Father, let this be the day and the hour that you put your foot on religion’s neck. Expose every place this spirit has its clutches into your Bride. Liberate us from the constricting strongholds that works-oriented Christianity have placed upon us. Where evil has abounded in this way let grace abound all the more, revealing your sons and daughters in all of their predestined, Christ energized works and glory. Clarify to our deepest selves that in your love there is no basis for fear. Let us walk as you walked in this world, confident in the love of God that it has preceded and will conquer and outlast all things.
Addendum
Have you ever felt like Pastor was the quarterback in the kingdom of God and that you were more of a third string equipment manager? Well……listen to John Fogarty’s advise.
Well, a-beat the drum and hold the phone / The sun came out today / We’re born again, there’s new grass on the field……Oh, put me in coach, I’m ready to play today / Put me in coach, I’m ready to play today!
Three years ago a friend brought me a copy of He Loves Me. It so meshed with God’s work in my life and spoke such a clear and healing word to me about God’s love I got up off the bench and put myself in the lineup! I decided the implications of God’s word to me was that I could not wait for pastor to either feed me or commission me to go into all the wold to make disciples. I was just going to go out and see if I could put the bat on the ball. I bought a case of the book He Loves Me and distributed to anyone and everyone in my relational network. After all, He loves me! Even if I strike out, I’ll get another turn at bat.
If you like John Fogarty’s attitude, check out his song “Gunslinger”.
by RobertCummins | Oct 27, 2014 | 44. Fear
Mark 6:45-52
Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the crowd away. After bidding them farewell, He left for the mountain to pray. When it was evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and He was alone on the land. Seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea; and He intended to pass by them. But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw Him and were terrified. But immediately He spoke with them and said to them, “Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid.” Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished, for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.
If the disciples had gained the insight they should have from the incident with the loaves, what should their response have been to Jesus walking on the sea? Instead of astonishment what reaction would have been appropriate? Mild relief? “Master, if that is you, let us toss you a line. You can tow us. We are hardly making any progress!”
What did Jesus intend to convey to his disciples that would somehow mute astonishment and earn some other reaction? I have to conclude, at the very least, it was that the rules have been changed! Things just weren’t happening as they previously had; the sick are healed, food just materializes, Jesus walks on top of the waves, tax collectors repent. Suddenly there is a new baseline for normal; All things are apparently possible now with Jesus!
Could the disciples have just switched some volitional switch within and believed – simply clapping approval (instead of soiling their robes) at each successive miracle? There is a problem with this; it is their hearts. Jesus said they had not gained insight because “their hearts were hardened”. Oh what a troublesome phrase! Lord, surely you meant they hardened their hearts….right? They chose to switch off their “believer”….right? You didn’t do that to them did you?
I believe the plot thickens here for all of us. Regarding our hearts…Whose domain is our hearts, God’s or ours? Who has access and responsibility for the circuitry of our hearts? Who wired them in the first place? Let’s begin by agreeing (hopefully) that God was the Master Engineer on this project and that his prototype (Adam) was perfect. We could say that this heart is the CPU (Central Processing Unit) of every human and that God has a keen interest in how it functions.
If we are to watch over these hearts of ours with all diligence (as we are instructed in Pr 4:23), what would that look like? Are we to study and memorize the Bible in order to repair the damaged wiring? Are we to confess God’s words to solder all the loose ends back together and make things happen? Are we to just change fuses when we blow a circuit?
We know these disciples heart’s were hardened, but I wonder…whose heart is not hardened? Did we not all come out of the garden with our wiring harnesses fried? The disciples were just embarking on their lives of faith with Jesus. Perhaps they (and ourselves as well) are all hardened in our hearts, especially so as we take our initial steps with Him – walking in the Spirit.
When we are born again do we get a rebuilt heart -one that has been worked on, reissued and is now warrantied by the factory? I would abandon that line of thought altogether. We are not going to be made into the image of Christ with used parts. A crucial element of the New covenant is that we receive new hearts – hearts that are capable of relating rightly to God. I would like to say that since this new heart is nothing less than Christ in us, that the circuitry we need is now perfected and there will be no further heart problems, but I can’t. If this were so, then we could flip that switch, default to auto-heart pilot and cruise through life and right in through the pearly gates. No turbulence. No fear and trembling. This would preclude however our responsibility to watch over our hearts.
No, in the presence of commands (requiring a response), whatever goes on in our hearts is some kind of mysterious joint-venture between God and ourselves. There is now some type of shared responsibility for this domain. Since all life flows from our heart-CPU’s, it essential we have some idea of what our responsibility is and what is God’s.
When the first members of the human race disobeyed, they put their finger on the switch and they flipped it for the wrong reason. It is critical to keep in mind that God, in his fearfully mysterious way, arranged it such that it was essential that man have access to this switch. Man had to be able to choose. This was essential to the king’s children as well as to the ultimate kingdom power grid. Since the kingdom’s power was based in love and choice was essential to love, the plan necessitated human access to the switch.
In essence, God, who is Love, gave Adam and Eve the desires of their hearts. A no doubt heartbroken father and intimate friend watched his beloved turn out their own lights. Where God himself had been central in the wiring of their perfectly created hearts, they now were central. This shorted the circuitry and the currents of life that had been so native to them in the garden ceased to flow. You might say, the Bible (and human history) answers the question,”Oh Man, as a no-wattage bulb, how is this working out for you?”
At the core of our new hearts – our CPU’s, is Jesus himself. If you take away nothing else, understand this; Christ is our life. I promise you, this reality includes but is infinitely bigger than Jesus is our Savior. This is why the New Covenant is superior to the old. Jesus is now central in the wiring of our hearts. This was the mystery hidden from ages past, entrusted to the apostles and handed down through faithful saints to us.
While this wiring project is finished, we are left to work salvation out in our flesh. This is designed to happen in the context of relationship with God throughout the balance of our lives. Our part involves allowing God to show us where (phantom?) currents are still powering aspects of our lives. Why God has wired things so, I can only speculate that he is inviting us to exercise the right he preserved for us to access the switch (this time for the right reasons) since love is involved. When we let go of our right to flip this switch when and where we want (even with our unrestricted access) a grace is released within the new heart. Grace mysteriously makes a way for Jesus, from the central part of our being, to express himself outwardly to the world.
It is crude, but perhaps we can say that our part in watching over our heart-circuitry is to first recognize that Jesus is at the center and that our hearts are now good – formatted to process Truth. However, our minds are another matter. They must be renewed. There are synapses and relays in our minds that are being powered back up as they are properly reconnected to God through Jesus. As the connections are made, we are transformed, one circuit at a time, back into the image of God in Christ.
So our job as stewards (in joint-venture partnership with God) is to, in simple humility, yield those circuits to God where its obvious his abundant life is not yet flowing, asking him to have his way in restoring us to the original schematic – His image.
Father, I confess that I do not think a little terror or astonishment would at all hurt us. When the rules governing reality are altered, I am sure there will be some fear and trembling (at least on my part). Please let us be the generation who learns to live from your new baseline for normal -where our hearts are not hardened but have acknowledged that now all things are truly possible with you. Help us to see that in Christ, the kingdom is now within us and is expanding into all creation from that launching pad. Help us to see that as heirs, this kingdom is our domain – yours and ours. May we watch over this domain jealously as would a friend intent on nurturing a cherished relationship. Teach us to live the type of yielded and humble lives that allow grace to flow from the inside out to the world. Help us to renew our minds that we may be radiant with your glory and shine into all the dark places around us. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Nov 3, 2013 | 44. Fear
Romans 8:12-17
The phrase “so then” which is how the NAS begins this passage reminds me of why the apostle Paul is a hero of mine. Paul was not afraid to use his considerable powers of reason to communicate and influence. “So then” is evidence of Paul’s habit of connecting related ideas and building upon them to present inspired truth. In the case of this passage, “living” and “being led” are on his heart. But, its not just Paul’s intellectual prowess that attracts me. Stored away in his mind are encounters with the risen Christ and His Spirit that did not require an iota of logic. Paul was keenly aware that God was not averse to speaking directly to man even when the scrolls were unopened. Paul was a man who learned to honor, listen to and be led by both the Holy Spirit and the scrolls. I see Paul as one of those whom God sought that would worship Him in Spirit and Truth. In Paul, there was a beautiful marriage of the Word and the Spirit. That Paul was a mystic with a powerful mind attracts me to him.
The flesh, as I have come to understand it, is simply that unregenerate part of man that is still living by its wits and its self-oriented will. However, when many Christians hear the phrase “the flesh“, I think they have visions mostly of debauchery. While “the flesh” will certainly produce things like adultery, larceny, violence, and drunkenness, it is just as capable of producing brilliant reasoning, persuasive speech and socially beneficial deeds. My point is that “flesh” could be just as happy in a church building as it is in brothel, just as long as it gets its way and has its needs for attention met.
Having a definition of “the flesh” that transcends immoral behavior expands the meaning of this passage;
So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh – for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if, by the Spirit, you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.
In our experience with God, can we identify an occasion, or occasions, where by the Spirit, we have put to death he deeds of the flesh?
In our passage, I believe Paul provides us with the essential revelation of the Holy Spirit to our spirits;
For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
As one who has lived where the primary witness in my spirit was incomplete, I have an observation. In that season where I was somewhat insecure in my Abba-orientation, I clung to the scriptures nearly exclusively as my source of revelation. I would have shunned the notion that a communique from God could be a still small voice or that it could survive any prolonged exposure to my reasoning. Due to the spiritual culture I had been living in I would not have been encouraged that a directive from God could actually be a byproduct of sound reasoning and dialogue. (After all…..where is the the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing in that process?)
It is clearer to me now in retrospect that to maintain the thought of my union with God in that season, it was easier to posture myself before Him, Holy as He is and depraved as my flesh is, as a penitent servant casting myself continually on His mercy rather than as a son who could stand boldly without any fear in Abba’s presence (Jude 24) celebrating His love and acceptance.
Today, I still love the scriptures and consider them my primary source of revelation. But standing more securely in His love as a son, has given me freedom and liberty to trust that He can also speak to me by His Spirit as well. Today, for me, “living” and “being led” involves study as well as meditation. It involves listening to my own heart, where His Spirit dwells. It also involves my own reasoning and experimentation.
I once related to God more as servant whose means to revelation was exclusively by way of study. From what I would learned, as a student, I could then apply. The application of the principles I gleaned from scripture was the essence of my obedience. (Belated repentance: In retrospect, I do see where, in my obedience, my motives were often to fashion a life that worked efficiently as opposed to simply pleasing my Master.) Now I believe as a son, I am invited into a place with much greater freedom – a place where I am invited to also know His heart and to hear His voice. His Words are not just principles and standards to which I must conform. His Word transforms me from within.
Father, may your Spirit prevail over our flesh however productive and influential it may be. We declare our desire to live and be led by You. May our confidence as Your offspring give us such boldness as to rightly see ourselves as fellow-heirs with Christ. Strengthen us to accept and endure any suffering that we may inherit as well, that Your name will be glorified. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Nov 2, 2013 | 44. Fear
Isaiah 41:8-10
- Isaiah is speaking in God’s behalf to Jacob, one who had been called as a servant from the ends of the earth. It was Jacob’s and his ancestor’s good fortune to have been chosen instead of rejected. I think of a verse from Psalms, “What is man that God would consider him?” In light of who God is and where Jacob comes from, it seems that we have much in common with him regarding obscure origins and fortuitous circumstances.
Where as Jacob was a servant, He has called us sons and daughters. Servants, in the strictest sense, exist to carry out their master’s will often from a fear-based motivation to avoid punishment. Servants win favor by production and performance. Offspring on the other hand exist and delight their father simply by being born into the family and by presuming upon their favor. True offspring ultimately inherit their father’s attributes and carry out his will with a love-driven motivation born out of the essence of who they are by nature – inheritors, in Christ, of their Father’s DNA and resources.
Sadly, and I speak from experience (and observation), it is possible for the enemy to confuse the identities of even offspring by way of religion. If he can leverage our pasts, that are often filled with rejection, and get us to working to earn approval, he can deceptively condition a son or a daughter to function as a servant or even a slave. As the deceived offspring works he receives the approval of man. Over time, the believer can come to see his or herself as a disciple in good standing when it is not on the merit of God’s grace and selection any more that they stand; it is on the merits of the contribution they perceive they are making and by a moral standing they believe they have achieved. This is a subtle and powerful deception. How much of the Church’s activity is driven by this energy?
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”
Perhaps the litmus test for us in knowing if we are truly living in the fulness of God’s grace is whether or not we are anxiously looking about. We might ask if anxiety isn’t just a natural reaction to threatening circumstances? Can we really alter our level of anxiety as a matter of choice? If this were not so, God would have not commanded us to cease being anxious. So, following this line of reasoning, God must only think of the threat of our circumstances as an issue of perception on our part. He is saying when we see the threatening circumstance, we must not be tempted to fear them because He is our God; He will strengthen us and He will uphold us in the strength of His strong and capable hands.
Would your time alone with God today allow you to pause and list the things that are currently producing anxiety for you? It is not likely that our deceptions will be overthrown unless we can specifically name them. Unless we humble ourselves by owning these places in our hearts where we have not heeded the command, we cannot adequately repent of it. Let’s try and find the time to identify the place we are currently allowing anxiety to shape our thoughts and emotions. Let’s then offer them up to God and invite Him in to freshly occupy those spaces in our hearts. And let’s persevere until our identities, as offspring, are fully restored and we are staring down our circumstances, those within and those without, with bold confidence that we are by nature over-comers.
Father, you have forgiven us of our sin; forgive us for trafficking in performance-based religion where we have traded the joy and freedom of offspring for the approval and applause of men. Pour Your Spirit out upon Your children and deliver us from our deception. Show us each where we are anxiously looking about. Lay the axe to the works-oriented roots that defile our fruit. Rather than the noisy gong we have made with our busy, anxious- fear-driven religious lives, let the world soon hear the laughter of revival and song flowing from bold and celebrant hearts living in stunned awe at Your overwhelming love and Your undeserved mercy and kindness. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Nov 1, 2013 | 44. Fear
2 Timothy 1:6-12
In the 7th grade, a grade school classmate of mine lost control of his bowels during class. Sadly, he was never to be seen again. My own personal classroom catastrophe occurred the next year in Mr. Domnick’s speech class. I had two primary character traits when I was 14. I was lazy and I was painfully shy. These qualities merged on the fateful day I was to deliver my first speech.
When Robby Cummins’ name was called to come to the stage fear struck my soul like a lightening bolt. Although the sting is finally gone, I can still recall standing on the stage in front of this group that I had desperately wanted to accept me, with zero preparation and fear paralyzing my mind and powers of speech. What I might have said was lost – sucked up into the intensifying storm that was raging in my mind, composed mostly of self condemnation and self pity. In my own way, I had soiled my pants publicly and, in a sense, that was the last that was seen of me for a long long time.
Timothy, it seems, was also shy. He was fortunate to have an affectionate mentor to encourage and even goad him to acknowledge that his nature had been altered and that his timidity had been displaced by the presence of something (actually Someone) greater.
“For God has not given us a spirit of of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.”
That speech debacle confirmed my deepest fear, one that I had been flirting with since I was quite young and especially since going from a grade school class of 20 into a junior high class of 200. It was my conviction that I was worthless. The other thing I discovered when I was 13 was alcohol. For the following decade, I eased my agony in social settings with liquid courage. By the time I was 23, I was well on my way to alcoholism. By the time I met Christ as my Savior and my Lord in 1976, the dark thoughts that had attached themselves to me in the eight grade had progressively strengthened and coiled around my identity so tightly that I knew I would soon suffocate. I was not a spiritual person but I knew something evil and powerful held me in its power.
“Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.”
When I gave myself to Christ I held nothing back that I knew of and a miracle occurred. Whatever, or whoever, had a death grip on me was apparently evicted. When Christ came in, that thing left. There was never a more astonished soul than I was realizing that I had just been set free. Liberated prisoners tend to be grateful to their liberators. They tend to be vocal in their praises. That was me. A new spirit of boldness and strength and love had somehow won the battle for my soul. The shy introvert could not keep from sharing about the new Life he had found (or had found him).
It turns out the deepest and truest thing about me was not that I was shy and lazy. I went back to college which was the scene of another grand flameout, and discovered I was not stupid, which I forgot to mention was another core conviction of my old life. I was raised from the dead and began reading and cooperating, as best I knew how, with the new Spirit within me. It was a true 180 degree turnabout.
I was quite blessed to meet a company of others who had been raised to new life as well, who were there along side me reminding me and assisting me in “kindling afresh” the gifts that were in me by virtue of Christ’s presence. As a means of declaration and prayer, I like to personalize the scripture…….
Father, you have saved me and called me with a holy calling, not according to my works, but according to Your own purpose and grace which was granted me in Your Son from all eternity, but has now been revealed by the appearance of Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel….Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! I know You! I believe in You! I am convinced that You are able to guard what I have entrusted to You, which is all of me, until that day. Amen.
