Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Fear God

I mentioned, in the exhortation portion of the service, that fear holds a prominent place in all of our lives. And this is quite true. God condemns fearing the wrong things in this world, but God also commands us to fear—something that is good to fear—himself. We are to fear God.

There is a sense in which fearing God looks just like fearing things. For example when we fear things they te our thoughts and our lives; and when we fear God, He tes our thoughts and our lives. The things we fear control us and cause us to become like them. When we fear God, he controls us and we become like him. When we fear created things our lives change. When we fear God, our lives change.

You see God created us to fear—Him. He must be the center of our world, he must te our lives, he must control and be the one exalted above all else. He is God. We are supposed to fear him.

The difference in the two kinds of fear is that God is full of grace, kind, gentle, merciful, and abounding in love. When we fear God our fear turns to joyful, exuberant, glorious worship. He is our slave master, but he is a benevolent slave master, seeking ways to promote us and make us like his perfect Son Jesus Christ. The fear of ungodly things produces , angst, panic, all sorts of physical problems. But the fear of God produces trust, joy, peace and love—which casts out fear.

This meal we are arranged her to participate in is an act done out of fear for a holy and just God. But it is also a meal joined in out of love for that same merciful, grace filled, glorious God. Fearing God is loving God. It is setting aside our lives so that God will be all in all; wonderful in our estimation.

There is a lot going on in this meal, and one of those things is that we are participating in the family of God, the body of Christ as brothers and sister, members of one another. We are not acting like a family, like a body, we are a family and a body. This is where it starts and we take it out from here—loving and giving to one another in love.

Father, we are very grateful for your wonderful gift of love. We thank you that you allow us to come into your presence every week and worship you, and more, to join you in the meal you have set before us. We are indeed humbled and blessed. In Jesus’ great name we pray, amen.

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