Fear of God

The fear of the Lord is something a lot of modern christians have a hard time understanding. I've come to love this phrase because of some insight I've received. We think of fear as being scared of something and our God isn't something of which we'd like to be scared. I've learned to think of fear in a new way, though. Fear is the proper response to something which is aweful. So in stating this we're going to redefine a few words.
First we'll redefine aweful. Aweful comes from the same root word as awesome, and even awe. If we look at aweful as full of awe we start to realize aweful isn't purely bad as we like to present it. I present a grizzly bear as evidence. Aweful, in regards to a grizzly bear, is fear, terror, beauty, and commanding of respect. Fear makes a little more sense now but we're going to look at a different phrase here. This creature, because of it's power, commands respect. There are even consequences for a lack of respect for it, including death. God is aweful, in a sense that he commands respect. He has no choice. He is so holy compared to us. Holy= above or set apart. He is so holy that for us to approach him is impossible. He sent Jesus to bridge that divide by being a blameless human, clean, pure, HOLY. God can only be approached through Jesus, the "bear tamer". This phrase is actually funny because anyone who tames animals will tell you the animals are never tamed, they just tolerate the human when the humans show them respect. God, even through the expert at approaching him, Jesus, must be respected.
In a sense we've already redefined fear. We've redefined it to mean respect but it entails more than that. A healthy fear brings out respect, reverence, awe. Jesus prayed this way when he taught his disciples how to pray. He said hallowed be your name. Hallowed, revered. Feared, producing awe. So I leave you saying fear your aweful God.

Are we doctors?

Jesus said he came to heal the sick; that it is the sick who need a doctor. In thinking about this why do we insist on trying to cure the healthy, over and over again. The church in America, as a whole, is so self centered. We offer help to those in our inner circle who need it, and we give to the charities so they can give for us. We pass the person on the side of the road whose car broke down because they may not be safe. We offer no assistance to the homeless beggars we come across because the government has put in programs which keep us from having to get our hands dirty. We have become the Pharisees who refuse to mingle with the world's outcasts. This is our battlefield. Do we believe that our Jesus can overcome the powers of this world's Ruler? We should! Because he already has. Do we believe the Adversary holds no power, that it has been confiscated. These people, the downcast, need only see in us the power of Christ.

Yet, instead, we insist on mingling with the powerful, and partake in the greed that is America's consumerism/market economy. America, like every other nation, is a harvest waiting to happen. Our problem is we've been Westernized so we are blind to our blindness. The American's everyday life oozes greed from its pores. Aldous Huxley and Orwell were right, we've been socially conditioned through commercials, the "American Dream", through our "Christian" president calling for Americans to help the economy post 9-11 by buying things, even through "Christian" bookstores and the rest of Christian subculture. In our churches we seek out the money because it has the influence to get done the things we think should be done. We have built mega-churches which if they outreach at all outreach to the creme de la creme of our society. We have worship services that feed our upper middle class's craving for entertainment. We have building projects that will make our church more appealing to those who have money and think things should look as if we've spent money. I have another challenge from Jesus. One can serve only God or Money. One cannot serve two masters, he will either love the one and hate the other, or serve the one and despise the other. I've heard many arguments that we can be rich and use those resources to reach the lost but the more I read these verses the less I believe that is true.

So, here's my challenge, to those few of you who bother to keep checking my blog, though I rarely write. Uncondition yourselves that you might love and follow our Jesus whole heartedly. Start today to give of yourself, your time, and your possessions (be they money or something more substantial) to those less fortunate than you. My suggestion would be to seek out the most desolate people for they are the sick to whom Jesus refered. In doing so, you may be saving your own soul without realizing it. You say to me that we are justified by God's grace by faith. I couldn't agree more, but faith without works is dead. Let us love the dying, hurting, sick, needy, imprisoned people of this world, so we may be known as his disciples by our love. Without this love, so often dubbed Charity, we are a clanging cymbal.