Fear, Serving and Obedience

Dec 25

Is 41:13 - For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”

We are commanded to “Fear Not!” But this command is surrounded by two comforting promises. This verse is broken into three parts, and for each part, God clarifies His authority and identity by saying “I”. I, the Lord your God. I Say to you. I am the one. And the two comforting promises that surround the command are that he holds our right hand, like a father to a child, to guide, protect and to offer assurance that he helps us. The reason we fear not is because he is intimately involved in the affairs of our life to protect and help us.

1 Sa 12:14-15 - If you fear the Lord and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the Lord your God—good! But if you do not obey the Lord, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.

It is impossible to separate our fearing the Lord, serving the Lord and obeying the Lord. These three seem to fit together as one. I do not think it is possible to do one without the other. You will not obey God without fearing Him. You cannot fear Him without serving Him. You will not serve Him if you do not obey Him. In this verse there is an encouragement and a warning. It is a striking image that when we fear Him, his hand his holding our hand. But when we do not fear him, his hand will be against us. It is so apparent how fear can be used for good or for bad. And, so much rides on how we treat this emotion. Will we in our lack of faith fear those circumstances around us? If we do, not only will our peace be disturbed, but God’s hand will be against us. But, if we seek Him in faith in our fear, God will hold our hand and He will help us.

Give and Help

Dec 24

Is 41:8-10 - But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”; fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Once again, God offers himself as a solution for his command not to fear. He has chosen them, called them and the led them. He is with them, He is their God, He will strengthen, help and uphold them in righteousness and in intimacy. It helps when the one giving the command is able to back up their command with the help needed to obey the command. There is one things commanded in this situation, “Fear not!” Everything else is accomplished by our Father in Heaven.

Dt 31:12-13 - Assemble the people—men, women and children, and the aliens living in your towns—so they can listen and learn to fear the Lord your God and follow carefully all the words of this law. Their children, who do not know this law, must hear it and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

In order to fear the Lord, they must first listen to His words, and then they must learn to fear the Lord and then carefully follow all the words of the Lord. There is a process to fearing the Lord, and it comes by knowing not only how God has acted on behalf of the people and what He has commanded the people but by also being obedient to his commands. Fearing God leads to obedience. When we know who it is we are fearing, it changes our actions. Thus, God is both the giver of the commands and the helper in the commands. These two connect because it is the words of the Lord that leads us to fear the Lord so that we will not fear anything.

Rightsizing fear

Dec 23

Is 40:9-10 - Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

In the midst of difficult and captivity as the Babylonian captivity would be, there is good news for all which removes any fear. The cure for this fear is that God will come with might and His arm rules. He will provide reward and justice for all people. How many fears would be relieved if we would just proclaim, “Behold our God!” in all situations. To truly size him up against the fears, the anxieties and the discourgement that we may feel at any moment, I believe, would do wonders for our fears. What is there to fear next to an almighty, sovereign, good and faithful God?

Dt 28:58-60 - If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name—the Lord your God— the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.

The warning is clear. And the opposite truth is also clear: Follow the words of the law and revere the glorious and awesome God and He will bless you. Size up our God and it will help you rightsize your fears.

Who is stronger?

Dec 22

Is 37:5-7 - When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the young men of the king of Assyria have reviled me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’ ”

Who is stronger than the Lord? King Hezekiah is warned not to be afraid because of words and the reason he is not to be afraid is because God will send rumor and will personally see that the king and his men do not live. The answer to all our fears are God’s words. How foolish I am when I face fears and do not go to God’s word to find the remedy. There is nothing to fear but God because he is in control of everything.

Dt 25:17-19 - Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. When the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!

Those who do no fear God sin ruthlessly against God and His people. God will act in vengeance, therefore we need not be afraid of unfulfilled injustice. Vengeance is mine says the Lord, and in this case the Israelites were going to be the ones to blot out the memory of these evil men forever. Truly, God is in control.

fearfully at peace

Dec 21

Is 35:3-4 - Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”

Fear produces anxiety. The answer to anxiety is that God will come and He will save us. It is promise that we can bank on. Therefore we are to strengthen our hands and our knees and walk confidently in the power of our God. The answer to our fears is God. As Php 4:6-7 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Dt 17:19 - It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees

Reverence leads to obedience. Simple as that.

12 stones of faith

December 20, 2007

Is 10:24-27 - Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts: “O my people, who dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrians when they strike with the rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did. For in a very little while my fury will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their destruction. And the Lord of hosts will wield against them a whip, as when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb. And his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it as he did in Egypt. And in that day his burden will depart from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck; and the yoke will be broken because of the fat.”

God’s encouragement to the Israelites really shows the absolute power of the Lord God Almighty. He can do what He wants, when He wants, how He wants. It provides great perspective that His timing is always His timing and His hand is never too short in accomplishing what he desires to accomplish. We can believe Him when he tells us not to fear. Nothing happens apart from His will.

Jos 4:19-24 - On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho. And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their fathers, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.”

The 12 stones are reminders of God’s power to part the Jordan River so that the Israelites could walk through them. The reason God commanded these stones to be put in the water was so that they would know the Lord is powerful and learn to fear the Lord. They were to learn to fear God so that will not fear anything else that they were about to accomplish. They would need the fear of God to not only keep from sin, but also to defeat the many enemies that they were about to accomplish Just as God reminds the Israelites in the first passage about Egypt and Midian to show his strength, he orders these rocks to remind them in the future about what God had done in the past. When we remember and act on God’s accomplishment in the past, we will be victorious and fruitful in the present. When God’s accomplishments in the past produce fear, we will live fearless in the present.

Faith and Fear

December 19, 2007

Is 7:3-4,9b - And the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer’s Field. And say to him, ‘Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah… If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.

The context of this passage is regarding God’s message to Ahaz, in that the two invading kings will not prevail. It is a practical message for us that in times of fear, we are to be careful that we do not do anything or say anything out of fear, that we quiet our hearts and our souls in His goodness and faithfulness, and not allow our hearts to be faint, but to grow strong in courage and trust. The last line is worth gold to our lives if we heed it. Faith will allow us to remain firm in our times of fear, but without faith, we will not be firm at all.

Dt 17:19-20 - It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

All the rules for a king boiled down to this, “Remember who is the true King.” This is a great parallel to the passage for Ahaz because both are commands to trust in the true King to lead and save you. This passage is a stipulation of how Israelites are to choose their kings. Most of all, they are to fear God and follow carefully all the commands of God. They are not above their fellow Israelities and they are not to turn to the left or right. They are commanded to not let pride diminish your fear of God.