Do Not Fear
How easy is it to read the above statement? I guess for anyone older than about 5, it
would be pretty easy to read and understand those 3 monosyllabic words.
Think again though, how easy is it to read this statement and take it on board?
The Bible says 'Do not fear' or words to that effect around 366 times (God didn't
forget about leap years either..) so that's more than enough for every day of the
year!
We all experience fear in some sense every day of our lives. These can range from
fear of spiders to darkness to flying to rejection, illness and death.
The thing is, a lot of the time, fears are the blighters that overcome us.
It's OK to be fearful. God knew, and KNOWS that we're going to face fears, hence
his sprinklings of encouragement against the spirit of fear all the way through the
Bible. What's not OK is when we acknowledge our fears and refuse the rebuke them.
Thinking that it’s OK to not do the things that God has for you because you’re scared.
It’s not.
I’m not arguing that fear is a sin. In fact I don't believe that for a second. However,
I do believe that fear is a lie. It is a lie that can often stop us walking into our calling.
Each time God tells us to do something, and we don't do it, that’s when it becomes a
sin.
Many people have a fear of visiting doctors, not because of the actual physician
himself, but more about his knowledge, when a patient opens their mouth and
begins to explain their symptoms, the doctor can begin to investigate the cause
of these symptoms. A fear of doctors is more to do with a fear of diagnosis. A fear
that the oblivious mind is enlightened as to what is wrong. In combating the fears,
we could question what lies underneath this fear. More fear? Probably. Mostly
suppressed memories and emotions whose fear has become the scar.
In order to remove the thorn that has been imbedded into your foot that causes you
great aggravation, a further incision has to be made. Yes, for a while, it will cause
more pain and discomfort, but once the thorn has been removed, and the wound
has healed, the hurt from the thorn is gone, it ceases to exist.
The road is never easy, you first have to acknowledge that the thorn in your foot
shouldn't really be there in order for it to be removed. If ignored, the thorn starts to
be the cause of so much aggravation and discomfort and can prevent you from doing
so much.
The sin then, you could suppose, is to let the fear overcome you, to let the lies of
the enemy rule over the calling of God. ‘Do not fear’ in the Bible is often followed
by ‘For I am with you’ ( Isaiah 41:10, for example) The comforting voice of your
Heavenly Father gently whispering; ‘Come on child, don’t be scared, It’s OK, Daddy’s
here.’
Proverbs 27:1 says 'Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day
might bring' We fear the future, because we have so little idea about what is around
the corner, we do not know exactly how an order of events may pan out, or exactly
what we will be doing in a years time. We will ALWAYS have fears to overcome. We
will always have to go that place which is just that little bit further out of our comfort
zone that we might like in order to reach those goals.
Do not fear, do not worry.
I believe in a God who knows me better than I know myself and loves me, in spite of
that. I believe in a God who is ALWAYS faithful to me, no matter how many times
I muck up, or deal with things in my life in the wrong way. I believe in a God who
longs for me to trust that He knows what He’s doing, and will often shock me by
doing things in my life that I can’t even begin to imagine. I believe in a God who is
kind, compassionate and will always come to me, day and night, in my sorrow and
joy. And most importantly, I believe in a God who did not give us a spirit of fear and
timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.
Shockingly, this God who I believe in, believes in us too!
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
This is my God
If only. If only you knew my God!
The thing is you think you know Him; He’s the Christian God, the one who loves churches, organs, hymn books, being well behaved, and hates sex, rule breakers and modern technology. But in fact you’ve got the wrong guy.
My God loves crazy risk takers, sinners, bad singing and dad-dancing, disorganisation, parties, science, he even loves Richard Dawkins!
In the same way people seem to have the wrong idea about the Christian message. The Bible can be read in many ways, but I believe that the Christians I share life with are getting to grips with the right way of understanding the Gospel. Jesus was not concerned with whether people followed religious rules; he had much more pressing priorities. Jesus came to fulfil the prophecy foretold in Isaiah 61:1-2: “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners”. Jesus declares this in Luke 4:18-19, but not only does he just open a scroll and read out this historical message, he goes out into the towns and villages and does just as it says. He tells the poor they can have riches, he releases people from their burdens of sin and heals the sick; making the lame walk, the blind see, and even the dead rise. On top of this he tramples upon the Jewish rituals he was brought up to respect; he works on the Sabbath, comes into contact with those deemed unclean and sees no need for animal sacrifices.
Jesus’ message? Forget trying to please God, he’s not impressed with piety and fake politeness. Go and find the people who are so sick and sinful that they are unable to repay you. Find the people who don’t value your kindness and be compassionate to them anyway. Turn culture on its head and pray for your enemies instead of punish them. Sit down on the street with that homeless woman rather than trying to bring her up to your ‘ever so desirable’ social level. Understand the criminal’s motives rather than condemning his actions. Invite the deviant to sit with your friends instead of locking them away and deeming them unacceptable.
Do you get it? With Jesus there’s no one you cannot love. If we fully understood God’s love and loved like Jesus does, we’d never be able to walk down a street without being compelled to sit down with the beggar or lay hands on the woman with a walking stick! The only thing that would ever get done would be the Kingdom. And bingo – we’ve got it!
The Kingdom is not some future ideal dreamt up by religious leaders as a carrot on a string for Christians desperate to see fruitfulness. The Kingdom is in fact at your fingertips. Jesus told us exactly what to do, he didn’t leave us guessing, he wants to see the Kingdom come so much he laid it out plain and simple for us simpletons to understand. You want to see the Kingdom? Believe in your God-given authority over the darkness of this world - then love people! Surely it’s got to be more complicated than that? No. Sorry. Just love. Think about it, if everyone showed love to everyone else, this world would be a lot less broken. I know what you’re thinking, but maybe Jesus was a bit of a hippy (if you ask me that’s much more desirable than some other things he has been labelled as).
Scrap religious language, spiritual eliteness and deep philosophical quandaries, the Christian message is in fact a whole lot less mystical and delusional than some make out. Love is the resolve of evil. There are two ‘kingdoms’; God and Darkness. Plainly, there is good and bad, and if everyone always chose good over bad then we’d see a dramatic transformative effect upon our world. We know that as soon as people start to talk like this they are laughed at. For the new atheists of our time, thinking that love and faith will save this messed up rock hurtling meaninglessly through space is an absurdity, believed in only by the unintelligent and unthinking. But this is only because the culture we have grown up in has conditioned us to think we are all beyond help; that those too dysfunctional for society should be locked away for life or just put on death row. But spare a little faith! Try believing that we are all capable of being saved and the future prospect of this globe will start to look a little sunnier.
The thing is you think you know Him; He’s the Christian God, the one who loves churches, organs, hymn books, being well behaved, and hates sex, rule breakers and modern technology. But in fact you’ve got the wrong guy.
My God loves crazy risk takers, sinners, bad singing and dad-dancing, disorganisation, parties, science, he even loves Richard Dawkins!
In the same way people seem to have the wrong idea about the Christian message. The Bible can be read in many ways, but I believe that the Christians I share life with are getting to grips with the right way of understanding the Gospel. Jesus was not concerned with whether people followed religious rules; he had much more pressing priorities. Jesus came to fulfil the prophecy foretold in Isaiah 61:1-2: “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners”. Jesus declares this in Luke 4:18-19, but not only does he just open a scroll and read out this historical message, he goes out into the towns and villages and does just as it says. He tells the poor they can have riches, he releases people from their burdens of sin and heals the sick; making the lame walk, the blind see, and even the dead rise. On top of this he tramples upon the Jewish rituals he was brought up to respect; he works on the Sabbath, comes into contact with those deemed unclean and sees no need for animal sacrifices.
Jesus’ message? Forget trying to please God, he’s not impressed with piety and fake politeness. Go and find the people who are so sick and sinful that they are unable to repay you. Find the people who don’t value your kindness and be compassionate to them anyway. Turn culture on its head and pray for your enemies instead of punish them. Sit down on the street with that homeless woman rather than trying to bring her up to your ‘ever so desirable’ social level. Understand the criminal’s motives rather than condemning his actions. Invite the deviant to sit with your friends instead of locking them away and deeming them unacceptable.
Do you get it? With Jesus there’s no one you cannot love. If we fully understood God’s love and loved like Jesus does, we’d never be able to walk down a street without being compelled to sit down with the beggar or lay hands on the woman with a walking stick! The only thing that would ever get done would be the Kingdom. And bingo – we’ve got it!
The Kingdom is not some future ideal dreamt up by religious leaders as a carrot on a string for Christians desperate to see fruitfulness. The Kingdom is in fact at your fingertips. Jesus told us exactly what to do, he didn’t leave us guessing, he wants to see the Kingdom come so much he laid it out plain and simple for us simpletons to understand. You want to see the Kingdom? Believe in your God-given authority over the darkness of this world - then love people! Surely it’s got to be more complicated than that? No. Sorry. Just love. Think about it, if everyone showed love to everyone else, this world would be a lot less broken. I know what you’re thinking, but maybe Jesus was a bit of a hippy (if you ask me that’s much more desirable than some other things he has been labelled as).
Scrap religious language, spiritual eliteness and deep philosophical quandaries, the Christian message is in fact a whole lot less mystical and delusional than some make out. Love is the resolve of evil. There are two ‘kingdoms’; God and Darkness. Plainly, there is good and bad, and if everyone always chose good over bad then we’d see a dramatic transformative effect upon our world. We know that as soon as people start to talk like this they are laughed at. For the new atheists of our time, thinking that love and faith will save this messed up rock hurtling meaninglessly through space is an absurdity, believed in only by the unintelligent and unthinking. But this is only because the culture we have grown up in has conditioned us to think we are all beyond help; that those too dysfunctional for society should be locked away for life or just put on death row. But spare a little faith! Try believing that we are all capable of being saved and the future prospect of this globe will start to look a little sunnier.
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