Fearing God, Pt. 2

We can be guilty of not fearing God enough, of dismissing His law or making Him into our own likeness. God is sovereign. Any investigation of Scripture will show a God who will not heed by the limitations, understandings, and demands of humanity.

I have seen many examples of people invoking God’s Name to defend their own comfortable life, or their political beliefs, or their oppression of others. We have used God to “protect our way of life.” Many have tried to take the timeless, eternal, and apolitical Kingdom of God and make it into an earthly kingdom. I have heard many times in conversations where people have tied the welfare of our nation into the health of the Lord’s church. I realize it is almost never intentional, but the Lord’s church will outlast any nation, government, political party, economic system, etc. During Jesus’ ministry, most of the misunderstandings He had with people was their expectation of the Messiah setting up an earthly kingdom. Again and again Jesus reminded them that His kingdom was not of this world. May we not fall into the same trap now, believing that the Lord’s church is tied to the prosperity of our country. To do that is to not fear the power of God. His Kingdom is bigger and much farther reaching.

I had a conversation with a friend who was involved in an adulterous affair. Her response to God’s teaching on marriage and adultery was in a nutshell, “This is okay, because now I am happy, and God wants me to be happy.” Absolute garbage! God wants us to be faithful. Happiness is not in the list of the fruit of the Spirit. To dismiss God’s law, the One who made us and understands us the best, the One who is holy and perfect, in the name of our momentary pleasure is idolatry. This person dismissed the law of the Lord for a temporary feeling. She had lost her fear of God.

God is big and can take care of Himself. He will not fall with human criticism or unbelief. His church will endure forever and overrun the gates of hell. He has conquered through the resurrection. This is a God who is worthy of our reverence and awe. If we do not fear Him in this sense, we do not yet know Him well enough. We must be shaped into the image of Christ. God is not to be trifled with, or manipulated to support a nationalistic belief, or a personal philosophy, or a comfortable way of life.

“Most of us are not really approaching the subject in order to find out what Christianity says: We are approaching it in the hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party. We are looking for an ally where we are offered either a Master or a Judge.”-C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity