Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

These are hidden rocky reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you, shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.
Jude 1:12-13 (emphasis added)

The Lord God Almighty is perfect love. Perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). We are also to cast out fear and dwell in the perfect peace of God (Isaiah 26:3). While there is to be no fear, there IS to be reverence. “He who walks in his uprightness fears the LORD, but he who is perverse in his ways despises him” (Proverbs 14:2). The word for fear in Hebrew means morally or reverent. If we are to fear the Lord it means we are to be reverent to the Lord and moral to the Lord. To be righteous as He is righteous (1 John 3:7). Sadly, we are human. We are flesh. Flesh is selfish. And we get arrogant. We get arrogant in our own selves and we get arrogant in the things of the Lord. Worse, we combine the two. Which is what we get in this verse. Men who were so without fear that they also left behind their reverence for the Lord.

I would hope that we don’t get as bad as these men. I strive to reject fear, but I don’t ever want to be so fearless that I also become senseless. The Lord is great and mighty. And He loves us. He loves us so much. No matter what we do, He loves us. Before we knew Him, He loves us. Even should we never choose to follow Him, He loves us. He loves the sinners. He loves the saints. He loves the wafflers. He loves. He IS love. But do you know what that doesn’t do? It doesn’t change who He is. It doesn’t change that He is mighty. He is magnificent. He is above all. He is righteous and holy. No matter how much He loves us—and He loves us more than we can possibly imagine—it does not remove one jot or tiddle from His righteousness. Because He is righteous, He has no patience for unrighteousness. Unrighteousness is sin. That is what sin is. Sin is against righteousness. God is wrathful toward sin. Jesus came and paid the price for sin, but if we don’t accept what Jesus did we are still saturated in something that the Lord God is wrathful toward.

If the Lord wasn’t merciful, none of us would have a chance. He is waiting. Waiting to see if we will choose Him. Waiting to see if we repent. Waiting to see how many of us will choose the narrow way. The door that is Jesus the Christ. To see how many will come to Him. To see how many will turn from their wicked ways. But there will come a time that the time is up. The time will come when sin and all that it touches will be done away with. Yes, Jesus paid for sin. Those who believe in Him and follow Him are covered. But sin still exists and there will come a time when it will no longer exist. That it will be washed away and all that it touches with it (Revelation 20:7-15). God has not changed His stance toward sin, it is just that in Jesus He sees Jesus in us and not the sin that used to be there. We need to never forget that He has no patience for sin. No acceptance of it. God hates sin. HATES it. That fact alone should give us pause before we choose to do anything that is against God and His morals and commands.

But we are arrogant. We get full of ourselves. We sing songs every Sunday. We do our fifteen minutes of devotions every day. We even mentioned Jesus to that guy who bumped into us in the grocery store. We’re awesome, right? Super Christians. We do the things. We’re righteous people. So much better than the sinners. We aren’t under judgment. We aren’t being yelled at by God. We felt the holy tingles in our toes. We listen to the sermons. We volunteer. We tithe. We even visit the old folks homes at Christmas and sing carols. Pardon us while we strut. While we do the holy ghost shuffle. And when that new believer comes in, they’d better not sit in my pew. They better realise that I am someone important in this church. They better be polite and ask me what is what, because I am a Christian-christian, you know?

Sounds silly? We do it. We don’t have patience for those who are new. We have no patience for their bad habits. We don’t have patience for their sanctification journey, forgetting that in many, many ways we are still undergoing ours. We look down on the teaching of the pastor. We know that story. We know that lesson. We’ve heard it before. But ask yourself. Are you walking in that teaching? If you hear about how Jesus healed the blind and you are wearing glasses for your poor eyesight, don’t look down on the story. Is there anything wrong with wearing glasses? Not at all. But if Jesus can heal eyesight and you have poor eyesight, there is something there left for you to learn, receive, and walk in. You’re not a cheater so hearing about adultery is a waste of your time. But you’re covenanted with Jesus in a marriage relationship. Do you cheat on Him? Do you ever put anything at all before Him? Like sitting in church daydreaming instead of paying attention? Then there is value in hearing those stories teaching about adultery. “Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

How dare we be arrogant in our faith! How dare we treat another as inferior to us in any way. Is someone gay? Are you opposed to that? Are you so opposed to that, that you get sick thinking about it? How does that give you the right to treat them bad? They are the same as you. They are in sin if they’re acting on their homosexual feelings. You are in sin if you’re acting on your judgmental feelings. “Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged. For with whatever judgement you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but don’t consider the beam that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:1-3). Jesus was perfect in every way. Kept the whole Law in word and deed. He was devoted to His Father and did only what the Father showed Him, saying only what the Father told Him to say. He was obedient and pure and holy and He did not judge. He could have, but did not. He did NOT condone sin. But He did not judge the sinner.

How dare we go for the best pew, get refreshments first, take the good parking spot, tell people things will go the way you want them to at the annual general meeting because you have friends on the board and know the pastor personally? How is it we expect to sing the solo? Collect the offering? Get thanked for our contributions of time and energy? Why do we get so puffed up about this stuff? Because we’re flesh and flesh is selfish. Jesus was none of this. Jesus was humble. Jesus did not indulge fear, but He did not let His lack of fear interfere with His humility. Jesus constantly challenged His disciples, but never in relation to Himself. He spoke about what He did and how He thought, but never putting Himself above those He taught. He was stating facts, not puffing Himself up. The limelight was always put on the Father. The glory was always passed along. He had a LOT of opportunity to be prideful, but He walked away from all of them.

Are you being a stumbling block? Is your pride, your judgment, your scorn causing someone else to question whether they should follow Jesus? Are you presenting Jesus to the world or are you presenting the world slightly cleaned up? These men in today’s verse were false teachers. They were actively leading people astray. They had lost fear in such a way as to think themselves above everything. They were mature enough in time that they should have been producing fruit, but they were not connected to the Lord. They were not abiding in Jesus. They were not looking to Him for anything. They had NO fruit. They were dead branches waiting to be pruned. I pray that no one is like that. I pray that there is no one here who is actively leading people astray.

I also pray that we are not leading anyone astray passively. That our witness is not turning people away. That we are not showing the wrong example. It is easy to do. It is so simple to do things incorrectly because it is so easy to stop asking the Lord for guidance. There is a reason God commands us to keep His Word before our eyes day and night (Deuteronomy 11:18-19). There is a reason that God should be foremost in our hearts (Matthew 22:37). If we are not letting Him direct our paths, we are going to go crooked. We have NO sense of direction. We’re like toddlers shopping in a store. Have you ever tried walking beside one of those? They cut you off, walk in front of you, walk on top of you, fall down, switch direction without notice, and go as fast as they can all of the time regardless of the need to actually shop. It should be an Olympic event.

The Lord does not need us. We need the Lord. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we would live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age; looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works” (Titus 2:11-14). We cannot live godly lives if we are full of ourselves. We can only live godly if we are humbly modelling Jesus. Jesus said we need to be servants (John 13:10-20). Not full of ourselves, but full of the idea that we are to be blessings to others. That we are to empower them to prosper and succeed. We should be lifting each other up as we all together submit to the Word of God.

Let yourself be corrected. Don’t let your pushing away of fear also push away your common sense. Don’t ever lose sight of true reverence of God. It will keep you humble, because seeing God as He really is puts us in our place. Not in a negative way. Not in a humiliating way. But in a factual actual way. It is reality and we submit to it. Almighty God truly is almighty and holy and as magnificent and He is merciful. Praise Him, help your fellow brothers and sisters, and be a humble witness for the Lord. Putting the glory back on Him, thanking Him, acknowledging Him, and always shining the light on the Father. Do not be a cloud drifting around by whim, not even good for giving rain. Stay in Jesus. Abide in Jesus. He is the vine, be a branch connected to Him, bearing the fruit He wants to see ripen. Reverence the Lord and respect all those you come into contact with. Amen.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Isaiah 57:15

We’re hot stuff. We’re accomplished. We’re obedient. We can sing a psalm at the drop of a hat. We can quote John 3:16. We can elucidate all the major points of sanctification and the sacrament. But we are dust. We’re not even good enough to be dirt. We’re the waste product lying on the top of the soil. We’re dust. It’s what we are made of. So tell me, why are we so prideful? Angels wondered why God bothered with us (Psalm 8:4-8). They wouldn’t do that if we were something special. Angels have seen the dust of a million planets. They have been all over this creation in every dimension that there is. And they are fascinated that of all the dust in all the places and spaces of the worlds that are, this dust is the dust that the Lord spends time with. Does that mean that we should moan and groan? Mope about because we’re dust? No. Because God pays attention to us. God breathed into us. God gave this dust motility—in both senses of the word. God has spent time with us and wants to spend more. How can we be arrogant if 1) we’re dust and 2) we only have the ability to move and live because God gives it to us? I don’t know, but we do. Frequently. God loves a humble person. Someone who realised that they are not the best. Someone who does not wallow in being the worst. Someone who sees the place that the Lord has placed them and rejoices in their place. Eager and ever willing to give the Lord the glory. Not false humility in order to get more praise, but real humility where they honestly know and believe and acknowledge that God did it all. God loves the humble so much, He makes a home there. God lives in the hearts of the humble in a way He lives in no other heart. We need to strive to be humble. We can’t unless we know our place. We can’t know our place unless we know God. Unless we know who we are in Him. Unless we seek Him with all that we have. Start your journey to humbleness today if you haven’t already. Know Him and make a home in your heart for His Son.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.