Be Not Afraid

April 16

And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him! Luke 12:4-5

Jesus knew the Author of life. He understood death. Because He was perfect in the entirety of His being, He did not suffer the anxiety of mere man; He did not share our dread of death.

Man spends a lifetime seeking to avoid the inevitable, endeavoring to prolong his life and to make his life rich and full. Jesus knew that none of that is important. In fact, He said, “Give no thought to what you will eat or what you will drink or what you will wear; do not concern yourselves with the fleeting things of this life,” Matthew 6:25, Luke 12:22.

Jesus wanted our focus to be on the things of God, on the things that abide forever. Proverbs 23:5 asks, “Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; They fly away like an eagle toward heaven,” and Jesus emphasized the veracity of those words in His ministry.

Because His focus was on our eternal salvation rather than on His own temporal well-being, He was able to go steadfastly toward Jerusalem at a time when there was seething animosity against Him there on the part of those who were conspiring His death (see Matthew 19:1 and Mark 9:30).

Jesus knew the fate that awaited Him. In John 12:32 He said, “And if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me.” He knew that He had to die in order for the plan of salvation to unfold according to the intent of the Heavenly counsel that set it in place. Therefore, He did not evade death and He did not want those who follow after Him to dread that unavoidable eventuality.

No matter what life brings to the believer, whether “persecution or peril or nakedness or sword,” Romans 8:35, none of that can “separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Romans 8:38, 39. Jesus wants us to live with the courage of the ages to gird us for whatever time allots to us, and He demonstrated that resolve to us.

Let us allow Him to fill us with Himself so we may exude His strength and His conviction and His fearlessness at our own time of challenge.