{"id":1538,"date":"2022-06-01T15:35:20","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T06:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/203.170.86.202\/wildeden.com.au\/news\/?p=1538"},"modified":"2022-06-01T15:35:20","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T06:35:20","slug":"fear-of-god-is-not-reverence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/soul-food\/for-thought\/2022\/fear-of-god-is-not-reverence\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear of God is not Reverence"},"content":{"rendered":"

That stance \/ doctrine of ‘fear means reverence’ is at least partly to blame in my opinion. At times the word translated fear means terror,<\/em> not ‘just’ fear, let alone reverence.<\/p>\n

No fear of God = no wisdom, no restraint, no repentance<\/p>\n

It has long been a grievance to me that people would focus on one element continually (love \/ grace \/ forgiveness) and quote things like ‘it’s God’s love that controls us (2 Corinthians 5:14)<\/em>, forgetting (or deliberately suppressing) the rest of the verse:
“Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.”<\/p>\n

‘Died to our old life’ is past tense, and according to Paul that means we don\u2019t keep sinning (Rom 6:12)<\/em>.\u00a0He also commands us to put to death our sinful nature (Rom 8:13, Col 3:5)<\/em>, but keeping to the topic, a\u00a0few verses earlier we are told of something other than ‘love controlling us\u2019. The Fear of God! Literally the terror of God. What?!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the verse after touches on people in ministry having the wrong focus: something other than a sincere heart before God. Holiness is far more important than ministry of any size!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Because we understand our fearful responsibility to the Lord, we work hard to persuade others. God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this, too. 12 Are we commending ourselves to you again? No, we are giving you a reason to be proud of us, so you can answer those who brag about having a spectacular ministry rather than having a sincere heart.<\/em>\u00a02 Corinthians 5:11-12 (NLT)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I have heard people say that this stance produces legalism and condemnation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For me though, God opening my eyes, convicting me of my sin, His righteousness and the coming judgement (John 16:8)<\/em> was the most powerful of my life. (As a former drug addict alcoholic that stole cars I don\u2019t say that lightly.) Today, 21\u00bd years later, that fact still evokes joy: knowing I am a friend of this terrifying and Holy being, all based in His love and what Jesus has done. Incredible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I know my heart changed forever in that moment. I had love for others instead of hate. I suddenly knew without doubt that the God I so earnestly disbelieved in actually existed\u2026 and loved me despite my untold failures. I wanted to please Him and still do, however, without the knowledge of His coming judgment I believe I would make far more worse choices. Maybe I am not truly converted? Or is this revelation of His justice part of the very ‘system’ He has set up so that we can actually repent: to turn away willingly from the actions that our sinful natures still loves and craves?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t be misled\u2014you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. 8 Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature.\u00a0Galatians 6:7-8 (NLT)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.\u00a0<\/em>(Romans 6:2-4 (NLT))<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don\u2019t, the Advocate won\u2019t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God\u2019s righteousness, and of the coming judgment.\u00a0<\/em>John 16:7-8 (NLT)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That stance \/ doctrine of ‘fear means reverence’ is at least partly to blame in my opinion. At times the word translated fear means terror, not ‘just’ fear, let alone reverence. No fear of God = no wisdom, no restraint, no repentance It has long been a grievance to me that people would focus on one element continually (love \/ grace \/ forgiveness) and quote things like ‘it’s God’s love that controls us (2 Corinthians 5:14), forgetting (or deliberately suppressing) the rest of the verse: “Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,117],"tags":[148,223,228],"class_list":["post-1538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-thought","category-preaching","tag-judgement","tag-repentance","tag-sin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pasDCW-oO","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1539,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions\/1539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}