One of the ways a
person can know that they are right before God is whether or not they fear
Him. Fear is one of the things that
characterized people before Calvary. The
law of God taught His children to fear Him.
It was very clear that if man did not obey God, there was an eternal
price to pay. God’s children understood
that you don’t mess with God. God is
holy and will not condone or tolerate sinful living by His children.
At Calvary Jesus took
upon himself the wrath of God. He did
for us what the law could not do; He provided a way for us to know God on a
personal level. We now live in grace and
therefore the edge of fear has gone away.
But, is that really a good thing?
I personally believe that we should still have a sense of fear for
God. If there were a greater fear for
God, there would be greater respect for Him shown. There would be more careful living; sin would
matter more to us than it tends to today.
We have lost the sense of need to strive to be holy since Jesus is our
holiness. We become spiritually lazy and
rest solely on the finished work of Christ at Calvary on our behalf.
Now, don’t get me
wrong. We cannot make ourselves holy by
what we do. We cannot save ourselves by
what we do. We cannot be accepted by God
as His own without our embracing the finished work of Christ on Calvary. We cannot do for ourselves what Christ has
done for us. We are saved by faith in
Christ alone; it is a gift of God. We
just cannot use our new relationship with God as an excuse for not fearing Him.
Those who try to get
to God another way than through Christ despise God. All other attempts to reach God are futile
and causes man to express his frustrations over the emptiness and hopelessness
of his life. Man tries to look good in
his own eyes; he tries to do his best to do things his way. He hates God and His ways because it brings
man up short. It is a slap in man’s face
to be told he is not good enough, that he will not enter into heaven without
Christ. Man wants to be in control and
when he is told he cannot be in control and be right with God, it causes him to
rebel and despise those who declare Jesus to be the way, truth and life.
Choose today the right
path. Fear God and turn away from evil
and you will make it to heaven when you die.
No comments:
Post a Comment