Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Fear defined

Je 46:28 - Fear not, O Jacob my servant, declares the Lord, for I am with you. I will make a full end of all the nations to which I have driven you, but of you I will not make a full end. I will discipline you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished.”

This promise to discipline but not destroy Israel is a promise later confirmed by Paul in Romans 11. Despite their exile and the bleak future, when all seems lost, God again, gives them a promise that He will save them and so they do not need to fear! When it is true that even in discipline and bleak days that we do not need to fear, when ever should we fear?

2 Ch 19:7 - Now let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Judge carefully, for with the Lord our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery.”

If the fear of the Lord is upon us, we will have no reason to fear anything. To often our worries are upon us, or our stresses, or our fears or our burdens. We must do what Peter commands us in 1 Peter 5:7: Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Fear is believing that you are without help in the world. Fear is belief in something that is not God, that is bigger than God, that threatens God's sovereignty. Fearing God is belief in a God. Fearing people or circumstances or systems or governments is belief that there is no God.