Be Not Afraid -Jesus is With Us!
Dear Parents and Friends of CCS,
I recently had the pleasure and privilege of speaking at Elementary Community Chapel, one of my favorite events. My text was Matt. 28, specifically verses 8-10 and 16-20. The message, in a nutshell, was this:
Jesus tells us not to be afraid, because He is with us.
This is an especially difficult teaching because everywhere we look it's scary. It's also true that there is much beauty in the world. Yet the sheer volume of brokenness in our family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, wars, AI, injustice, and economic challenges are indeed frightening. They seem to come at us in waves. Into this reality (which by the way has always been with us in some form since the dawn of time) Jesus speaks life-altering words of hope, peace and freedom.
It's important to get the message straight. It's not that He's saying there's nothing to be afraid of. There is. But Jesus tells us to not focus on that, but rather to focus on the fact that “I am with you, so you don't have to walk in fear.”
This is a countercultural view, and the truth becomes obscured because we wake up every day fighting to maintain some semblance of control. And technology extends our sense of control, or at least appears to. But at the end of the day, we know that this is not true. Most of our control is an illusion. And that in itself is scary.
Of course, it is also true that if Jesus is not who he says He is, the only logical destination is despair. Fortunately for all of us humans, Jesus is exactly who he said he is. And through His Holy Spirit, He is with each one of us who call Him Savior and Lord.
What happens if we believe this in our heads but we can't feel it? Knowing it in our heads is important, but that doesn't help much when your world is crumbling around you. The truth is we can't avoid Jesus or pay Him lip service and then expect to meet Him in those crushing moments.
He can and sometimes does choose to override our stubbornness, but most often it’s too late then to suddenly realize we need to rest in Jesus and his promises. Our faith is weak and cannot withstand the barrage of the enemy of our souls, the godlessness of the world, and our own sin.
So what then?
We have to walk with Him on a daily basis. We commit to reading and meditating on His word and asking to be filled with His Spirit. We stop asking how little time we need to spend with Him to get the results we want (this is not human optimization – it's a relationship being built), but how much.
If we do that over time, we will find that our very vocabulary becomes laced with His words and our spirit lives in tune with the Holy Spirit on a moment by moment basis. Often the problem in seeing Him work through us is our own desire for control, and our own desire to feed ourselves with something other than the food God has intended: His word.
Jesus desires a total surrender of our body and soul and our mind. As we do this, He has promised to use us as a conduit for His love and mercy and grace and truth. As we begin and continue the spiritual practice of immersing ourselves in the Word and the Spirit over time, His command “Do not be afraid, because I'm with you” actually begins to make sense. And then we can begin to connect the dots that so often seem disconnected, between what our senses tell us and what our heart feels and what we know to be true.
The Holy Spirit bridges those gaps and uses the truth of the word to minister to our hearts and minds as we serve Him every day. I am on that journey with all of you. I have definitely not arrived.
But lately God has been showing me in His grace that I don't have to be afraid anymore. That He is indeed with me and He will never leave or forget or forsake me. And either I believe this or I don't, every minute of every day.
My prayer today for those who are reading this is that you too will allow God to do His work through His Word and Spirit in your life - even though it will mean becoming more vulnerable than you’ve ever been.
He loves you and will not cause you harm. His “thundering velvet hand” of correction may hurt for a while, but the glory and joy that follow in its wake make the process so worth it in the end. Then you will be able to say: “I'm not afraid, Jesus – because you are with me.”
For CCS and the Kingdom.
Tom