Should we be scared of God

Rescue the Captives
A Ministry of the Well
Should we be scared of God?

As I drive through the mountains on my weekly runs my favorite places are the many turn outs or the scenic overlooks. I love to look out and see God’s awesome, creation spread before me. Imagine you are sitting there beside me and we can see the beauty, the majesty of the scenery and let it overtake us as the smell the beautiful chilly smell of the pure, crisp mountain air. We can only imagine that we are part of the mountain. One with it, suddenly we have a desire to fly. We are the only one to have sat here on this mountain. Certainly we have the right to it all! We have a grim determination come over us as we crouch to fly away, crouched like a mountain lion before it goes for the kill. Then we launch ourselves from the mountain. The rush of the wind overwhelms us as we fly away. Of course, then, we suddenly realize that we will not be enjoying the rush of the wind for much longer. We are, let’s see now, not really a bird, and going to get really, badly hurt. After all, our body is not designed for flight. This is when we realize that we do have our limits after all. We are at least bound to one law, the law of gravity.

Now as you ride along with me in my 18 wheeler you are caught in the highway in a not so rush hour. One of the few sounds you can hear is this big diesel engine. Ah, the roar. A sense of power flows through your veins as you see a lone car ahead of you, it's a 70's Toyota Celica. A burst of adrenaline fills your blood and you think to yourself two words, pole position. You step on the gas, the roar of that big engine screams as we lift off the ground, and rush to overtake that little foreign car. The little man in the other car is obviously surprised as you whoosh past, but that doesn't lessen your celebration as the Toyota is nothing but a distant speck on the rear view mirror of your brand new Corvette, and you are left basking in your victory! Ahh! How sweet it is!! Not even the squealing siren of increasing frequency or the blue lights flashing can stop your joy. Until you realize that the person in the car with the siren is motioning you to pull over. Yup, you guessed it, you've broken a law of the land.

I know you are thinking what is this idiot trying to say? Well, my friend, in both cases you were breaking a law. In the first story, you were trying to break a law that has been responsible for keeping the atmosphere on earth and helping to sustain life on earth since creation. In the second story, you were certainly not considerate enough to think what might happen to innocent people who might have been in your way or even killed on that road, were you? Without going into further examples, we can say that you were trying to break a law that was put into effect to protect and help people and creatures.

Even if you haven't been in any of the situations listed above, you probably realize that there are natural and physical laws. Are these the only laws? No, there are others. As far as human beings are concerned, I believe that the most important are spiritual laws, the most important laws since they have to deal with your soul. (If you have trouble here, just consider for a moment that most illnesses are related to the mind, something that people are still trying to locate. (Especially my mine) I consider the mind, soul and the heart to be intimately related. When one breaks spiritual laws, one is just as sure to face the consequences. Now the Bible says that this consequence is death (Romans 6:23). This is something that one must realize, and the realization can cause one to fear God tremendously. I myself used to think that if I walked through the church doors again God would send a bolt from heaven and strike me down. Vivid pictures of a vengeful, painful and even hateful God would come to mind. But, please bear with me though as we take a look at the rest of the story.

Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love, first of all, love God with all one's heart and soul; second, we should love one's neighbor as oneself. He also said that the second commandment was equal to the first. In other verses in the Bible, it is stated that love is the fulfillment of the law. The Bible also indicates that we know that we love when we follow His commandments. 1 John 4:12 says No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:16 says And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. 1 John 4:18 says there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear hath torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love. Need we forget John 3:16? For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Why am I providing all these verses? Simply because of this reason, now I know that God is not a God that is out to cause fear, He is a God of Love.

At the same time, I do realize that He is also a righteous God before Who no human can compare, for all have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). He is Holy and hates unrighteousness which tries to break the Laws that He set up to benefit His creation. We can definitely expect Him to enforce the laws that He created to help and protect those who love Him, but how can all this tie in to a loving God? Well, love should not come because God causes fear; rather people should fear God because of His love. Think about your loving father or mother for a moment; think about the time they punished you; wasn't it for your good? Yet, when they threatened to punish you, you got scared, didn't you?

We all break the commandments at some point or the other, and as such we must face the cost of sin which the Bible says is death. As the Bible says, all have sinned. But the wages of sin is death: how then can we be saved? This is a quandary indeed, much like the analogy of a camel passing through the eye of a needle, an analogy Jesus recognized. Who then can be saved?, Jesus' disciples asked. Jesus replied and said that with humans it is impossible, but not for God!

Consider this, if our weak human selves prevent us from attaining righteousness, we must look to someone superhuman, someone who can actually fulfill the commandments to save us. That could only be God, since He must be perfection itself. Now according to the Bible, Jesus was the personification of God, the fulfillment of the Law. He lived out His life as a man here on earth, faced the trials and temptations that we go through, and overcame the world without ever sinning. To top it all off, He died for doing that!

Now I hope that this is not too mushy for some of you, because it shouldn't be. Love is beautiful, and beauty is a thing to be admired, especially if there is nothing greater than Love as Paul said. The simple fact is that Christ did it because He loved us (John 3:16)! By bearing the brunt of all of humanity's sin, He reconciled us back to God. So even though God's punishment for sin is terrible, there is a Way out! All one has to do is make Christ Lord of his or her life.

The conquering king establishes his laws in the vanquished land, and the people thereby must abide by these rules. Similarly, when Jesus comes into our lives, the laws that bind our soul to death are changed irrevocably. We are changed as the Bible says, and are new creatures, ones that will still have to endure trials and temptations no doubt, but ones that will have been freed from the bondage to death simply because we believed that the Lord would save us! If this does bring feelings and emotions bursting from the depths of your soul into your heart and erupting with pure joy in your mind! Lord have mercy!

The key word is believe. You simply have to have faith, the very faith given to all who believe by a loving and gracious Father. I can tell you that I certainly felt this love, a love I’ve never known and I'm a very different person compared to the person I once was. It is true; Jesus brings us back to God. This is exactly why I feel that God and I are buddies and Jesus is my hero and my best friend.

Lord, I pray every man woman and child be filled with this awesome love that comes from a loving merciful Father who lives and reigns in every believing heart, soul and mind. Amen.

In His service,
Sandy Perry
10/22/08

If ya think you have arrived, ya better think again!

Colossians 1: 9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy,12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

We are all on the path to spiritual maturity as the Spirit opens our hearts to Him day by day. Each day offers us the chance to worship and praise God, to ignore God, or to turn away from the things He lays on our hearts to accomplish in His name that day. We can find in our lives when we worship Him in my prayers, our words, and our thoughts and in all we do that day we are blessed by the fullness, joy and peace of our relationship with the Father. But, if we ignore God and turn from Him or intentionally rebel against the commandments we rob ourselves of His blessings.

Yet, if we daily study God’s Word, if we obey His commandments and live in the midst of His will we will not be like a pond with no outlet that the Word flows into but never flows out and just becomes stagnant. We will instead be growing in our faith and sharing the Word that flows in with others as it flows out of us. That is exactly what God wants for our lives. Many of my life’s most important lessons were painful to learn, but in this pain I have found that spiritual growth does not take place only in times of trouble.

We must seek to grow in His wisdom, knowledge and love of Jesus in every situation in our life. This is what a Biblical worldview teaches us let all our thoughts be taken captive by our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus. Thankful always that He is there, never changing and never leaving our hearts, when we call His name, there He is.

I find in these quiet times when my heart is open to the Father, the Creator, that made us and continues to make us daily to be more like His Son, our Savior,. Jesus. He gives us direction, His joyful perspective, His wisdom and His courage. And, the perfect time to accept these awesome gifts from a gracious, loving Father is in this moment right now.

Are we as spiritually mature as we’re ever gonna be? I think not, I know I have a long way to go!
But, when it comes to our faith, God does not intend for us to be fully grown, at least not in this lifetime. We are and will continue to be taught many lessons by the Father until we are seen as Jesus is. So let’s wake to every new day we are given asking, Father teach me what You want me to learn today?

Lord, when we open ourselves to You, we are truly blessed. Let us accept Your love, Your wisdom and teach us Your knowledge. Father, show us Your way and deliver us when we make the painful mistakes that we make when we rebel against You and turn from Your commandments. We pray You guide us according to Your Word and help us to grow more in our faith and become more like Christ Jesus everyday, and it is in His powerful name we pray. Amen.

Totally filled with His love,
Sandy Perry
11/2/08