Fear No Fear

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

“Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind,
“Who is this who darkens counsel
    by words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man,
    for I will question you, then you answer me!”
(Job 38:1-3)

“He appointed the moon for seasons.
    The sun knows when to set.
You make darkness, and it is night,
    in which all the animals of the forest prowl.
The young lions roar after their prey,
    and seek their food from God.
The sun rises, and they steal away,
    and lie down in their dens.
Man goes out to his work,
    to his labor until the evening.
Yahweh, how many are your works!
    In wisdom, you have made them all.
    The earth is full of your riches.”
(Psalm 104:19-24)

“For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, being made free from sin and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification and the result of eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
(Romans 6:20-23)

Job’s whole thinking in this situation has been that he had been treated wrongly because he was righteous and bad things were happening to him. He got to thinking that way because his cry has been that God cannot be approached by humanity and will not respond. Here God shows up in a storm that is visible to them all. Out of that storm God responds to Job. We may not be able to approach God, but God approaches us. God has always met us where we are and He does so here with Job and His friends. God doesn’t owe us an explanation, but God is always speaking with us. God responds to us just as He does here with Job. God is proving, through a series of rhetorical questions, that Job’s thinking has been founded on an incorrect perception of God and that made all his thinking go wrong.

God created everything. He set into motion the natural laws that govern everything around us. It is a truth that as we figure out one set of rules, another presents itself. As we discover one thing and ‘know’ it, something else is discovered that we have no idea how it works. God is amazing. He is good and merciful and true. He has created MARVELLOUS things. Each and every one speaks to His glory. To His magnificence. Everything we figure out leads to even more mysteries about how He set up this universe to run. There is always more to know. And each thing not only points to God’s abilities and grandeur, but they also point to how intimate God gets with each and every one of us. They each point to how much attention God is willing to give us – especially as we begin to realise how all those rules and processes benefit us specifically. God is amazing. And God has chosen to care about us.

God knew we needed a mediator. God knew we needed someone to interact with. Someone we could touch. God is righteous and knew we would never attain it on our own. Not in full. Not in the way that is needed for face to face encounters and communication with Him. Jesus came to open that Way. Jesus came to be the answer. That mediator. That part of God we can touch and see face to face. God made us like Him because Jesus was willing to become like us. Jesus did this without charging us. Without making us responsible for the payment. It is His gift. Because He loves us. Because He wants a relationship with us. Because He wants us to have what we need to be with Him and like Him. God provides it all.

Summary

God is FAR above us. God is TOTALLY righteous. We NEED Jesus. Not just once and done. We need Him every day. We need to choose Him. We need to interact with Him. We need to thank Him and worship Him and praise Him. We need to rely on Him. We need to connect with Him. Everything we are and everything we do revolves around Jesus. We live in Him and He lives in and through us. It is the lynch-pin on which everything hangs. Jesus didn’t come to remove the Law. Jesus came to fulfill the Law so that as we live in and through Jesus, we will obey the Law. Not a legalistic observance to prove how worthy we are. No. But an alignment with God’s point of view, God’s moral character, and the behaviours, words, and thoughts that God says are good, right, and proper. When we are loving Jesus and making that love our focus, we will obey His commands. We will endure the differences between us and the world, and we will shine as an example of what we can be. Jesus makes that light. Jesus shines that light. And our obedience to Him presents it to everyone we encounter. We need Jesus.