I'm still not sure about the fear of the Lord. How do you reconcile that with Jesus' life on earth? He wasn't feared.
Also, how do we have a personal realtionship with God and fear Him?
When I think of Jesus' life on earth, "He came to serve, not to be served, and to give His life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). His purpose, as foretold by scripture, was to preach, proclaiming justice and peace to the nations, and to heal. He taught, performed many miracles, and healed many. People were amazed at his teachings as someone who had authority (Matthew 7:28,29).
He was completely humble, the ultimate servant always ready to the requests of the distressed and sick. What a picture of our Savior.
Yet, He was despised, rejected and ultimately beaten beyond recognition then killed, just as the scriptures said it would be.
Luke 9 tells us that Jesus said, "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life." His death and resurrection would be the ultimate proof of who He was~ the Messiah, Jesus Christ our Lord.
When Jesus was arrested Peter came forward in an attempt to maybe rescue/protect Jesus. Jesus' response was, "Do you think I cannot call on my Father and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" (Matthew 27:53,54).
Isaiah talks about Jesus as an ordinary man. There was nothing special about him. "He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2). He was not feared, respected. People hated him, rejected him. He took on our suffering though. He was peirced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5). This was the Lord's will. But, He was raised and lifted up and highly exalted (Isaiah 52:13).
"God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear" (Acts 2:32,33). Upon hearing this and the fact that God made Jesus, who they so ruthlessly crucified, to be Christ, the people were "cut to the heart" and asked Peter "what shall we do?" (Acts 2:37). The ultimate proof was in his death and resurrection. I can only imagine the regret they now were feeling over what they had done and their lack of belief.
Think about God's awesomeness. He knew from the very beginning of time that we would need a Savior. Jesus was from the very beginning. That's somewhat difficult for me to wrap my mind around. His will. His purpose. His foreknowledge and calling us to Him. These are all things that I can struggle with really comprehending. God is so much bigger than us. It's hard to grasp. I am in absolute awe of His mightiness. Speechless is another word that comes to mind. This is fear of the Lord~ reverential. But at the same time, while He is so much bigger than us, He is our Father~ loving, kind, generous, protecting, humorous, sensitive, comforting. He can be all these things to us yet still be Almighty God.
In our personal relationship with Him, we fear God through honoring, respecting, submitting, obeying and worshiping him. Fearing God can be a very intimate thing. For example, worshiping God through prayer.
And, there is definitely a dominoe effect. The more I worship God, praying, reading scripture, submitting to His will for me (and seeing the fruits from that submission), the more I fear Him. We all have the opportunity to have this kind of precious relationship with our Heavenly Father. That is absolutely pleasing to Him.
5 comments:
thank you for sharing your giftings Bridgett; what a blessing. I wasn't at the 1st teaching; but in reading your post I am blessed and have much to chew on. Thank you ....
*sighing somewhat heavily in exasperation with self*
So...Heidi, despite your very eloquent post, I find I'm still not getting it. What's funny is I'm sure I've "gotten it" in the past. I must be at a nice low point in my understanding, because I still feel confused. But then, I find I'm confused about a whole bunch of this sort of thing. It's seems, despite being all true, that the truth is full of seeming contradictions that I can't get my mind wrapped around right now.
So, I'm going to use Aslan (is that how it's spelled?) to explain my confusion.
So, yes, Aslan is a lion, untame and ferocious. But, he LOVES the children of Adam who come to visit. So, I'm afraid of lions, really truly, but this lion loves me (I'll pretend to be Lucy, how about?) and so even though I know he might eat my neighbor, or even my brother, I know he won't eat me, even though he could, and so...I'm not afraid of him. What's more, knowing what I think I know about God, erm...Aslan, if I'm one of his, I'm one of his, or rather, if he loves me, he loves me absolutely, and so I can't even piss him off enough to get him to eat me, no matter what I do. I'm not saying I'm interested in making God mad, but what's to be afraid of...you know? *shrug*
So, even though I know that God could snuff me out and consign me to hell, or, hmm, make my life really miserable for as long as he pleases, I also know he loves me and that if he kills me, that would be a good thing, and he won't send me to hell, and misery in life is just something we have to deal with, and thank goodness for hope.
I know that we are to fear the Lord, and I *respect* him, because he is, you know, my creator, and the definition of powerful, and I am a little tiny insignificant speck, but I just don't feel...afraid. Meh...there we go, I know, feelings aren't truth. I just can't get my mind around this. I bet I also can't communicate this well either...but there you go.
Hey Tanna, thanks for the kudos, but that was all Heidi...
Jen- in regards to your comment:
Proverbs 1:9, 9:10, Job 28:28, etc.."the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." This is good questioning, because the point of fearing God is the point from which understanding comes (because unless we understand His greatness, Awesomeness, etc. how can we know anything else?)
OK, so picture yourself as you are, even at your best, and then imagine yourself standing before the throne of God...You are stained with sin and the wrath of God HATES sin. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of me," romans 1:18.
So you must die.
BUT you won't, because Jesus is standing in front of you. God does love us, but it is Jesus' sacrifice that keeps God's wrath at bay.
I like an analogy of when I was driving over the pass and my car spun out and I was doing 360's across four lanes of traffic. My car flew into a snowbank, narrowly missing the guardrail and all those other cars. I forced my door open, feel on my knees in the snow and shook and cried with relief. I was scared and alive.
Does that make sense? Keep questioning if it doesn't. Its better to wrestle to find the answer then give up...
Hey, Bridget's cousin Kerry here. Bridget was telling me about this conversation and I was really intriged because, like Jen, I've always struggled with the whole fear-of-God thing. After reading everyone's posts I'd like to offer a thought.
I love Bridget's example of the car crash. In a situation where you could/should die but are spared you do feel humbled and afraid but also full of gratitude. This helps to understand where the fear comes in. But for my part (and please be patient as I'm just working all this out for myself) I find that, based on my life experiences, my personal experience with fear is limited and therefore not very helpful in relation to understanding God. What I'm saying is that, thus far, fear doesn't really inform my life and so I'm not able to use that emotion or image effectively in my faith life. I'm sure that this will change at some point and when that happens I can return to what I've learned here and in scripture and have that wealth to draw on.
I think what I'm getting at is that nothing in scripture or in our faith can be gotten in one day and there are so many pieces of the puzzle that it takes us a lifetime (both in terms of time and of experiences) to comprehend even some of it. What speaks to one person, may not speak to another just yet. And remember, God is wise and reveals insight to you not only when she's ready but when you are ready. So for my own part, I trust that when the time comes I will understand what it means to fear the Lord, but right now I'm going to continue to focus on God's vast love and being his instrument (which, quite frankly, should keep me busy for a good long time!).
Thank you for reading and I'd love feedback - it's not often I actually get to discuss theology :)
Thanks for your responses, Bridget and Kerry.
As much as I try, I still am not sure I get it. Maybe it's that I don't have a good definition of fear...or maybe I fear and I just don't name it that...same thing I guess.
It *does* clarify a bit, Bridget, to think that if it weren't for Christ, God's wrath would be fully upon me--it makes me think of that poor guy who reached up to try to keep the Ark of the Covenant from falling to the ground and was struck dead for his trouble. That particular story also helps with recognizing the bit about me at my best...whatshisname was trying to do a good thing, with good intentions, but he was still deserving of death, not the least of which was taking God too lightly, being too familiar.
That thought confuses me again, since Christ is our brother and our bridegroom and God is our Abba father--which are all really familiar, intimate relationships. See how confused I am?!
Anyway...the fearing God thing is a bit clearer...but I'm still not sure I'm fearing him...not because I don't want to, if that's what I'm supposed to be doing/feeling. But more because...even when I think about God's wrath against sin, and my own deep sinfulness, I can't be overtaken by fear because I know that I'm forgiven, and loved, and even if God decided to snuff me out, it would all be for the good. I don't know...I'm just...confused, I guess. I don't think any amount of hashing it out is going to change that right now. I'm just in a confused state of being, I suppose. Hopefully I'm not causing too much confusion outside my own noggin.
Post a Comment