Tag Faith

Learning Godly Fear

Todd R Leave a comment

Does being forgiven by God cause us to fear Him less, or to fear Him more?  Perhaps it’s both.

Psalm 130:4 tells us this about God: “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.”  To one way of thinking, this seems backwards: why does knowing that God has forgiven us make us fear Him more?  Shouldn’t we fear Him less when forgiven?  It depends on what we mean by fear.

For me, getting Psalm 130:4 to make sense with the order of forgiveness and fear required a re-thinking of repentance.  My conclusion was: the one who has not been forgiven has not repented, and the reason they did not repent was that they did not fear God.  They did not understand Him properly.  They might be afraid of God, but that’s not the kind of fear referred to in Psalm 130.

In contrast, the one who has been forgiven has repented, and they repented because they understood it was the best thing for them to do, out of a fearful respect for God.  A proper understanding of God’s character makes us turn to Him with our guilt, rather than run away from Him.  We should not be afraid of God, where we are motivated to be passive – avoiding mistakes that would anger the one we fear.  We should fear God in that we revere Him and respect His authority, and therefore actively seek to please Him.

A lot goes into repentance.  When we pray and ask for forgiveness, it’s often a simple prayer made with the proverbial faith of a child, but there are a lot of assumptions we make when we say that prayer.  Every prayer of repentance directly or indirectly acknowledges some or all of these things:

1) God as the source of the law, the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong
2) Him as the righteous judge who is personally offended by our sin
3) His omniscience, knowing we cannot hide our sin
4) His uniqueness, as there is no other God to turn to
5) His steadfast love for us, knowing He bore the cost of our sin, therefore enabling us to approach Him
6) His compassion for us, since He lived as a man
7) His power and willingness to heal us of sin
8) His consistency of character: that He is not arbitrary

If we don’t implicitly or explicitly believe these things, why would we repent and ask forgiveness from God?  Why would we expect to get it?  Exploring that set of statements could fill multiple volumes of theology books, but we don’t need that knowledge.  In His grace, He honors our simple, heartfelt confessions.  He paid the price for all our inadequacies – even when we don’t fully understand our own prayers or who we’re praying to.  The Spirit pleads with the Father on our behalf[1].  Mercifully, our forgiveness is based on His faithfulness to us, not on our detailed theological knowledge.  1 John 1:9 tells us: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Even our faith is imperfect, but His faithfulness bridges the gap between our childlike faith and His omniscience.  He knows all our doubts and all their answers.  We come as we are, but with fearful respect, and are forgiven.

Only through acceptance of the cross, where Christ’s atoning blood was shed for us, can God in His Holiness commune with us.  Only through forgiveness will the Holy Spirit come and live in us.  Only by tasting of His goodness do we really know what He is like, not before.  And if we never repent, we don’t learn what it tastes like, we only know what you’ve been told about God, and we might not have been told the truth.

Psalm 130:4 shows us that genuine repentance leads to forgiveness and gives us a better appreciation of who God is.  As we experience Him more, we live Psalm 34:8 for ourselves:

“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
                        Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”

[1] Romans 8:26-27

Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad News?

Todd R 7 Comments

One day when my son was almost 4, he greeted me at the door after work, crying, and said “mommy turned on CNN!”  It wasn’t CNN in particular that was the problem.  It could have been any network, and we watch a variety of news outlets in our house.  While they each have their own point of view, the one thing they all seem to have in common is described in this 1974 quote from CBS journalist Eric Sevareid:

“The biggest big business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement and distribution of anxiety.”

It’s a sad truth that news outlets know that if they get an emotional response from us, we’re more likely to keep watching, which is how they make money.  This is nothing new.  They also know we’re more likely to respond to bad news than good news.  It’s sometimes enough to make anyone cry, not just a 3-year-old.

The problem also has a lot to do with the subjects covered.  Much of what’s in the news has to do with politics, which reminds me of this 1923 quote from H.L. Mencken:

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

Just like anxiety is big business for the media, keeping us “alarmed” is big business for politicians because if they can make us terrified of something and present themselves as the only solution, they can keep us hooked to their side, sometimes for life.  They’re after our undying allegiance and if fear of the enemy is what gets that allegiance, then fear of our enemy is what they’ll create.  The bigger the hobgoblin the better, even if it’s bad for the viewer’s health.

However, we don’t have to be anxious and alarmed by everything we see in the news.  Psalm 112:7 describes a particular sort of person:

“He is not afraid of bad news;
            his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.” – Psalm 112:7

Who is this fortunate person?  Does this person really exist in this hyper-partisan, 24-hour news cycle world?  The author (unnamed) begins Psalm 112 with this verse:

“Praise the LORD!
Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,
            who greatly delights in his commandments!”

So, who is not afraid of bad news?  The one who fears the LORD and delights in His commands.  With God’s help, we can overcome the fear and anxiety generated by our politicians and their media outlets.

The “man who fears the Lord” knows that God is capable of overcoming these problems, and if there’s something wrong in the world there’s a reason for it.  He’s in control.  They not only know that He is capable, but also that only He is capable.  No politician can do everything they promise to do, including getting rid of the hobgoblins.  Sometimes political promises are so outlandish that believing them would amount to idolatry.  Only God will keep all of His promises and can handle all of the world’s bad news.  If we really believe this, we will not be afraid of bad news.

The one who “greatly delights in his commandments” knows that nowhere does God command us to address every problem we’re aware of, everywhere in the world.  Nowhere does God command us to swear blind allegiance to any politician who warns us of “an endless series of hobgoblins,” because only He can ultimately deliver us.  They know that although God commands us to love our neighbor, we all have limits in what we are able to do.  But the person in Psalm 112:1 also knows that we have no excuse to ignore the problems we can address.  We don’t need to have anxiety about things we can do nothing about, because nothing escapes God’s attention and in His commands to His people, He has considered all possibilities.

So, does the news cause you alarm and anxiety?  If you do, you’re definitely not alone.  I struggle with it.  The solution can be found in cultivating a deeper relationship with, and reverent fear of, the Lord.  Spend regular time in the word, rather than in the TV, to build confidence in God’s character.  Spend time praying and meditating, sharing with God your concerns.  Spend time with God’s people and avoid rabid political partisans who draw your attention away from God’s peace to the hobgoblins and the pretend saviors.  It’s hard, because there’s an entire industry designed to make us fearful and anxious.  But over time, while we may take 2 steps forward and one step back, we always know that He is with us.

Does the news not cause you alarm and anxiety?  Count yourself blessed.  But for all of us:

“Praise the LORD!
Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,
            who greatly delights in his commandments!”

Weather or Not, God Loves Us

Todd R 1 Comment

Marylanders like to joke about how unpredictable our weather is.  People here sometimes say “if you don’t like the weather right now, wait 5 minutes.”  The weather might be different then.  There’s also this funny “chart” using the Maryland flag to make the same point:

We don’t get long, consistent seasons, only a few days or a couple weeks of the same weather at a time.  Maybe for Marylanders, Psalm 148:7-8 is harder to swallow.  It says:

“Praise the LORD from the earth,
            you great sea creatures and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and mist,
            stormy wind fulfilling his word!”

The second half of these verses describe weather, mostly bad weather, and says the different kinds of weather are all “fulfilling his word”!  To God, the weather isn’t unpredictable at all.  It’s doing exactly what He knows it will do.  I’m not saying we should praise God for devastating wildfires and hurricanes, but the Psalm is saying that the weather itself should praise the Lord.  Therefore, we should praise the Lord for the weather, whatever it is!

Also consider that the weather we might consider so unpredictably annoying is obeying God better than we do.  If we’re frustrated by the weather, imagine how frustrating we must be to God.  Fortunately, God is more than willing to forgive us for all the things we do or don’t do that dishonor Him.  Through the death of Jesus, God’s wrath is fulfilled, and through His resurrection we are given new life and in the future world, we will always be “fulfilling his word.”

Whether you’re frustrated with the weather today or not, remember that God loves you even if you’re as unpredictable as the weather (or more).  So, praise God today for the weather and praise God for the sacrifice of Jesus that reconciles us to Him.

God is Faithful in Trouble

Todd R 2 Comments

Fellow travelers,

Psalm 71 was likely written by an old man, looking back over his life and the many instances of God’s faithfulness.  Looking back over a lifetime of walking with God strengthens his current faith, and he writes to strengthen ours.  Although some might expect a testimony of God’s faithfulness to talk about uninterrupted good fortune and all the good times the Psalmist has had, in verse 20, they write:

“You who have made me see many troubles and calamities
            will revive me again;
from the depths of the earth
            you will bring me up again.”

This man’s life, like most people’s lives, was filled with “many troubles and calamities,” yet these only strengthen his faith because God has rescued him every time in the past.  Without allowing us to experience trouble, how could God develop a track record of rescuing us?  John Calvin comments on this verse that:

“Had he always enjoyed a uniform course of prosperity, he would no doubt have had good reason to rejoice; but in that case he would not have experienced what it is to be delivered from destruction by the stupendous power of God. We must be brought down even to the gates of death before God can be seen to be our deliverer.”

God is always faithful, but we experience it especially in bad times.

Amen.

Christianity is Not in Decline. Ever.

Todd R 1 Comment
The tomb is still empty!

Too much of what we hear and read in this world is filled with phrases like “post-Christian world,” or “Christianity’s decline.”  Or we could read that we’re “living in the ruins of Christendom.”  However, because Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” our hope is not based on any ruin or decline we see in the communities and world around us.  While other things may end up in ruins or in decline, Christianity does not.  It was not in decline on Good Friday when Jesus died on the cross and it is not in decline now.

The best of the kingdom of God is always in the future, never in the past.  His kingdom is advancing daily.

Today, many will hear the good news of the kingdom of Jesus, and some may hear and be saved!  Also today, none will be snatched out of His hand! (See John 10:28)