Fear God

The writer of Ecclesiastes begins his book by questioning the very point of life.  There is nothing new to discover, and all of life seems vain and temporary. He is very jaded. Twelve chapters later he tells us his conclusion; the only thing that lasts or has any real meaning is the fear or reverence of God and obedience to Him.  We would do well to listen.

“The conclusion, when all has been

heard, is; fear God, and

keep His commandments, because this applies to every person.”  Ecclesiastes 12:13

The fear of God is a rare commodity in our society.  Most people rarely think of God at all.  His name is used casually, as an expression of surprise or shock, or profanely, as an expression of anger or irritation.  Even among Christians, there is little reverence for the name of God.  One Christian leader routinely says “God bless America” to keep himself from swearing.  He doesn’t see this as profanity. 

I wonder if God would agree.  The Old Testament Jews certainly wouldn’t.  They held the name of God to be so sacred they would neither say it nor write it down.  Proverbs 9:10 reminds us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.  God Himself spends four chapters reminding Job of his position in comparison to God.  Job remembered to fear God! 

We do not fear God because we’ve forgotten or chosen to ignore the characteristics of God that are holy and righteous.  We choose to dwell on the characteristics of God’s nature that are love, that provide for us and give us peace.  We like to remember that God loved us so much that He died for us, but choose to forget that His death was necessary because in His very nature He cannot overlook or wink at sin. 

God has not changed.  He no more ignores sin now than when He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness or exiled Israel because of their unfaithfulness.  Ananias and Sapphira died because they lied to the Holy Spirit, and Herod was struck and eaten by worms for not giving God the glory that he was receiving. 

We have a wonderful intimacy with God because of the work of Christ on the cross.  Let’s not cheapen it by taking sin lightly, and forgetting God’s opinion of our sin.  Remember to fear and obey God, because He is God.

Father God, forgive us for taking You lightly.  Forgive our casualness with sin.  Help us to live with a right regard of You.  Help us to be holy, as You are holy.

How big is your heart?

“I shall run the way of Thy commandments, for Thou wilt enlarge my heart.”  Psalm 119:32

God desires obedience.  “Be holy as I am holy” says God in Lev. 19:2 and again in I Peter 1:16.  Holiness demands sinlessness, an adherence to God’s commands. We need to “run in the way” of His commandments, understanding and obeying them.  Many of us work hard to be obedient, believing that the key to obedience is self-discipline and prayer. I am a fairly disciplined person, but when I think of being sinless, of being holy, I am overwhelmed. There is not enough discipline in the world to make me always obedient.   The Psalmist suggests that the key is to be found elsewhere.

           

Jesus said that the whole of the law could be summed up in two phrases: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.  He also said that He didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.  The key to obedience to God is to embrace and live by the committed and self-sacrificing love to which Jesus refers. 

           

Love goes beyond the rules and straight to the heart.  Love tells us not only to love our neighbor, but to love our enemy and to pray for him.  Love tells us to go beyond human response and to instead respond like Jesus would the same situation.  Love does what the law could only hint at; it changes us at the heart level.  Love remakes us in the image of God because God is love and the author and originator of love.  Love obeys the spirit of the law, and so obedience is achieved.  We can run in the way of His commands because we reflect the image of Jesus, and fulfill the commands.

           

The reason we struggle to live in obedience is because our hearts are too small.  To become more obedient, we need to become more loving.  To overcome temptation, we need to see things through the eyes of the other, to love enough to do the right thing, to live as Jesus would.  We need Him to enlarge our hearts.

Dear God, enlarge my heart.  Give me enough love, for You and others, to be obedient.  Make me holy.

Post-Halloween

Once again, I am sitting in class, looking out the window instead of paying strict attention, like I should. This has been a problem for me my whole life, by the way. On nearly every report card was the comment, “Daydreams too much.” Or “engages her neighbor rather than paying attention.” Anyway, as I sit tuning out my professor, trying not to miss anything but really not focusing, there is a group of people who are walking by in costume. There is an aging Viking. It might be Thor, but if so he’s lacking a little. Like abs. A princess. Frankenstein. A whole mash of zombies. I have no idea what they were doing. My class didn’t dress up, and its not actually Halloween.

            I admit that I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween. Evil is such a present reality, and I don’t ever want to make light of the real evil that exists. People have real experience at the hand of evil. Halloween seems to make light of that. There are real monsters out there. Some of us are living with them or grew up with them. Some of us have suffered at their hands. History is full of them.

            On the other hand, dressing up and pretending to be scared, having things jump out at you while you know you are completely safe, and eating candy is fun! Decorating for Halloween is so much easier than for other holidays; the cobwebs are already up! Little people dressed up as some adult figure are so darned cute. I love seeing the princesses and cowboys and batmen that show up at the door. Even the pets get in on the dressing up these days.

            When my kids were little, our church dealt with this tension by having harvest parties where we bobbed for apples and ate doughnuts off a string and played carnival games, and where kids dressed up as Bible characters. Today, my kids are grown up and making their own choices about Halloween.

            However you feel about Halloween, I hope you are thinking about the issues. I hope you wrestle with how God would have you glorify him on that day.  Actually, that’s my hope for you everyday. Every day, we should be wrestling with how to live in this world, how to participate in culture, and how to do it with integrity of how we say we believe. How can I bring glory to God in my classes? (I know what you’re thinking; perhaps I should stop looking out the window!) How can I bring glory to God in my home, in my workplace, among my friends?

Beloved, do not imitate evil, but imitate good.

3 John 11

Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice… Amos 5:15

I elected not post this on Halloween because I wanted us to focus on the real issue. I don’t care how you address Halloween; I care that you address evil in every part of your life. Do you think about entertainment? How do you decide what TV shows or movies to watch? What about work ethics? Would you engage in practices for work that you wouldn’t engage in otherwise? Is it OK to lie to your boss about being sick? Is it OK to lie for your boss? Is your language different when you drive than it is at church? Do you smile at the lady you are gossiping about later?

            How do you make choices about how to live your life, every day?

Each moment, we get to choose what we will do or say, whether we will bring glory to God or not. We get to choose how to live for him. We decide what others around us will see and know about God. We decide whether we will draw closer or turn away from him.

            So its not whether we dress up and eat too much candy, its how we reflect him to the world around us in this moment. We need to address the evil around us, to armor up and be aware of the choices we are making. Evil is real. We don’t need to be afraid, but we do need to be aware, and not participate in it. It’s not who we are anymore.

Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness. Ephesians 4:22-24