What do you fear?

Fear does not only come in the super-scary situations we experience, it comes in many milder yet more serious shapes and sizes. Let me give you an example. There is the fear we might experience when we are in a life and death situation, then there is the fear we have that people will make fun of us if we talk to them about God. Which is worse? We will all agree that the fear in the life and death situation is much worse than the other fear, but I say no, the other fear is the worst. Why? Well, just because the Bible warns us about this fear. Mat 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. See, we fear what people will think of us or do to us instead of fearing God. We fear that we might become the laughing stock at work, school or where ever we are. That means that we have not yet placed God first in our lives, we are still first, our ego, our reputations. It means that we have not yet realised how terrible the judgement of God will be. Once we realise how terrible the judgement of God will be, nothing will scare us more, and that fear will drive us to tell as many people as possible the truth about God and to be obedient to God. That fear will make all our other fears become null and void. Paul knew this, he spoke of God’s love in Ephesians and of God’s terrible judgement in 2 Corinthians 5. He knew there are two sides of God. God is not just the lovie-dovie baby Jesus that was born and now is our best friend. No, there is the other side that tells us that God is a just God and that He will judge all mankind and punish sin, cast it into hell. He is to be feared as much as He is to be loved. I believe that we have lost our fear for God in the church today. That is why churches deal so flippantly with the word, with the doctrines and all other things of God. That is why recent statistics in the USA show that the divorce rate is higher within the church than outside of it. It is time for us to start looking at the judgement of God again. We need to discover this truth again and become fearful of our God again. This will cause us to fear sin as well, which will lead to holier lives and God will be glorified through our lives.