To Fear God...

What does that even mean…To fear God? Are we supposed to be afraid of Him as if we saw a ghost? Or as if we were being robbed at gunpoint??..scary! Is THAT the kind of fear we should have for God? How can we be expected to love Him if we fear Him?

I just talked to a friend about this today, and since she never understood what fearing the Lord really meant (and I didn't either for a long time) I figured it was time to put it out there.

So here's my understanding of fearing the Lord.

As a child, were you ever afraid of doing something wrong because you feared your parent's reaction or punishment for you?? 

I'm sure we ALL know what that feels like..we can share stories later.

But THAT is the same kind of fear we should have for the Lord. Not being afraid of Him for no reason, but being afraid to sin because we are afraid of His wrath. Just like being afraid of a spanking from dad or a "talkin' to" from mom, the wrath of God can allow uncomfortable and sometimes painful things to happen as a punishment for sin. Psalm 76:8 says, "From the heavens you uttered judgment; the earth feared and was still,"

Make sense? It's a healthy dose of fear that gets our attention and helps us want to obey Him. Fear also leads to wisdom. Proverbs 9:10 says, 

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (NIV)

So fearing God is the beginning of wisdom. Meaning if we are living our lives fearing Him in a way where we heed His instruction, and we try not to sin, then we will actually gain wisdom. And the only way to know God's instructions is to be immersed in God's Word, the Bible. 

So the more we know God, the more we love Him, and the more we love Him, the more we will want to fear and obey Him. 

Which leads us to the second part of the verse, "and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." So by knowing more about Him, we will understand more about His ways and His purposes, especially in regards to our life and what He wants us to do with it!

So actually, fearing God benefits us more than we realize! He's not some selfish and mean God way up on a throne yelling at His people to fear Him! He is a kind and compassionate father who wants what's best for His children. Psalm 103:13 says,

 

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; (NIV)

Quick story about my 4 year old daughter. The only time she really gets mad at me is when I tell her to do something she doesn't want to do. She says, (with arms crossed) "But mom I don't want to!", or my new favorite is when she gets the biggest frown her little face can muster and she says, "Mom. Look at my face. I not happy with you!" That's right, "I" not happy with you. We are working on her grammar. In the meantime, I try not to laugh because she is frowning so much that she can't even see out from under her brow. Last time she actually bonked her forehead on the table because she was concentrating so hard on frowning. (Pray for her. Or rather, pray for my husband and I!) 

Anyways back to the story. When she acts this way I hold my ground and tell her she needs to do what I say or she will be in trouble, and that usually does the trick. Being "in trouble" is enough for her and she begrudgingly does what I tell her. And since she's 4, she is over it in about 10 seconds and moving on to the next bout of trouble she can get herself into. 

But this little moment with her made me think about us and God. How many times do we cross our arms and fight Him on what He wants for us? Where did our fear go? Does God always have to dangle a consequence in front of us to get us to obey? And when we do finally obey are we doing it with a sour attitude? 

When I am trying to get my daughter to do something she doesn't want to do, it's always something that is good for her. Like taking more bites of dinner so she's not hungry during the night, or refraining from doing cartwheels from one side of the couch to other because she might break her neck, these are things that if she listened and heeded my advice she would be healthy and safe. If an earthly parent wants that for her child, how much more does our Heavenly Father want that for us?

Matthew 7:11 says this: So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. (NLT)

Psalm 84:11, For the LORD God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The LORD will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right. (NLT)

Proverbs 3:11-12, My child, don’t reject the LORD’s discipline,

and don’t be upset when he corrects you.

For the LORD corrects those he loves,

just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights. (NLT)

So when you look at your life today, are you fearing the Lord as you should, or are you living life not really caring about what He says? These verses are there to encourage us, He delights in us! He wants to correct us because He LOVES us! I hope you can take this today and remember, fearing God is not a bad thing, it is a way to express love and experience the greatest Love you will ever know. Don't be a 4 year old with a frowny face and crossed arms. Open your arms wide and fear God the way He designed it: to bring you closer to Him and to live out the amazing plans He has for you, His precious child!

A Love letter for YOU

I am writing you this today because this is what I should've said to someone I was stuck in a debate with last week, but in my emotional response I did not. 

Jesus LOVES you. With a deep, wide, passionate, everlasting, relentless, desperate, longing, fatherly, sacrificial, selfless, LOVE.

He spent time creating you in your mother's womb. The Bible says He knit you together, can you imagine that with me for a moment? I see His gentle hands forming you like you would form clay, almost like magic coming from His fingers except it's something way more powerful and real and pure than that. He made you perfect, even with your flaws because He had a purpose in mind for how you could use those imperfections for His glory. He thought about what a wonderful future and life He could have with you, if you would only come to Him and acknowledge Him.  He is sovereign so He knows the exact moment when you will either come to know Him as your Lord and Savior, or the moment when you will reject Him. I can imagine Him weeping as His loving hands form those of you who will never choose Him. I can see His heart bursting with agony as He whittles together your little fingers, only to hold them for the first and final time. How He longs to have forever with you, you are His creation!

I can see Him praying over you and sending you off with longing in His heart to be reunited with you again.

He loves you so much that He created a guide for you to follow, the Word of God, called the Bible. He breathed life into it through the hands of men so that it could get to you, but yet be without error. (2 Tim 3:16) He didn't create this book because He wanted to take all your fun away with a bunch of rules, He made it as a way for you to understand Him and learn to love Him. He created it as a passage to His heart, as a guideline for life, and a place to go when you desperately want to hear His voice.

You see, sin separates us from God. Sin leads to death. So these rules and guidelines are there to draw us closer to God, not tear us away! They should be looked at as a gift, not a burden.

It is humanly impossible for us to be in the presence of God because of our sin, so He had to make a way for us. Just as a hero finds a way to save the people in need, God found a Way to get us to Him, and that is through Jesus. (John 14:6)

He sent Jesus down to Earth to become human so that He would be able to say to you, "I know what you are going through. I know what pain feels like, I know what temptation feels like, I know what hunger and thirst and rejection feel like." He knows it all because He lived through it, and then He died because of it. You see, God is holy and pure; everything we are not. We are full of sin and lust and evil desires, not because He made us that way, but because He allowed us to have CHOICE. 

Jesus stood in the gap for us. Jesus paid the price for ALL of our sins, died in our place, took on the sinner's death that we deserve so that WE could go to Heaven, and be in the presence of the Lord forever. Do you see what a gift that is? What a gift HE is? He loves you so much that He died for you!

Do you love someone so much that you would die for them? If the answer is yes, then imagine if that person rejected you, hated you, spit on your face, beat you, and called you a liar and a hypocrite in front of the entire world. Would you still die for them?

THAT is what Jesus did for you. Even though He knew you might reject Him, He still died for you. Even if you were the only human on this planet, and even if He knew you would never come to accept God as your Creator, He STILL WOULD'VE DIED on the cross for you, so that you would at least have the chance to choose Him. (Romans 5:8)

Won't you give Him a chance? Won't you try talking to Him? I hope that this message struck a nerve inside you. I hope and pray that you will begin your journey to salvation today, right now. In fact it doesn't have to be a journey, it can happen RIGHT NOW. If you feel a pull inside you, that is the Holy Spirit drawing you to Him! You can talk to God right now and tell Him you want a life and eternity with Him. Here is an example of a prayer that might be on your heart:

"Dear God, I don't know everything about you just yet but I feel a pull toward You. I know something inside is making sense of this and I see now that You DO love me. Thank you for dying on the cross for ME. God, please forgive me for all of my sins, for the selfishness and pride that I wear sometimes. God I want you to be the Lord and Savior of my life. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit and teach me how to love and obey You and Your Word. Thank you God for saving me! I can't wait to spend eternity with you! In Jesus' Name, Amen"

If you just said that prayer or something like it, PRAISE GOD!!! Welcome to the family! You are a precious child of God, a son or daughter to the King! The bible says, "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" 2 Corinthians 5:17

You are a new creation! The angels are celebrating for you!! Please comment and tell me if you just accepted Christ so I can celebrate too! Your next step now is to get your hands on a Bible and start getting to know this God that loves you more than anyone ever could. I'm not going to leave you hanging so click here to learn more about where you go from here to start living as a follower of Christ. I am so excited for you!!

If you read this and have decided to turn away from it, then I just pray and hope you will come back  before it is too late. 

 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 6:23 ESV)

Above all else remember Jesus loves you and wants to be with you forever! God bless