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Shelburne Free Press https://shelburnefreepress.ca/?p=14273 Export date: Wed Jul 3 13:26:29 2024 / +0000 GMT |
Crossroads Community ChurchSunday July 12th, 2015 Oh, what a glorious morning to be in the presence of the Lord! The Buzzing sound of joyful hearts filled the sanctuary and our worship was reverently exuberant. Pastor Don shared announcements and prayed, “Dear Father God, we come into your presence with trust and expectancy, we know you have the very best in store for us, we also thank you for carrying us through all things, we bow before you in awe and wonder and faithfully want to please you, give us your grace for the week ahead, in Jesus Name, Amen.” Today we will examine things “Old School”; we will discover what it means to have the Fear of the Lord. For many it may instill negative feelings, but rest assured God has but the best in mind for us, He wants us to boldly and confidently come to Him as a child approaches their father. The Fear of God is not as common a subject as it was 2 to 3 generations ago; most of society has lost respect and fear of God. Not too long ago it was often heard that a good person was a God Fearing person, one who was in reverent awe of God and expressed great respect towards Him and his fellowman. Proverbs 1:7 says, “The Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” We seem to see less and less of the first and increasingly more of the second don't we? (Proverbs 12:1). However God commands us to respect everyone and each other and above all Him,(1Peter 2:17). A God fearing attitude is described by King David in Psalms 33:8, “Let the whole world fear the Lord, and let everyone stand in awe of him!” Sounds like wise advice, after all He is sovereign, He is Holy, He is our mighty creator and holds our every breath, He knew us and thought of us before even one of our days came to be, (Luke 12:4-5, Genesis 2:7, Psalm 139:15-16). Malachi also advises on how to respect and love the Lord as a child would their own father's authority or a servant that wishes to please their master,(Malachi 1:6). The kind of fear the Lord wants from us is not a dreadful fear, we are not to fear being hurt or mistreated on the contrary, He wants us to Love Him because He first loved us, He wants our respect and honour for which He returns blessings ten-fold, what is there to be afraid of? He wants to bless us for our loving obedience, when we do so out of genuine love for Him. When we start living for God, He blesses us with His constant presence. Many have an unhealthy fear of God, they are afraid of what they will have to give up if they choose to follow Him, but we ought to be more afraid of what we will miss out on for not living with Him by our side. His eternal blessings outweigh what the world has to offer in our present and future. So how does one show their love and reverence for God? How do we practice a Holy Fear of God? We ought to fervently seek His direction, willingly follow His commands and passionately seek to please Him. The Lord loves us; this was the whole purpose for sending His Son so that our relationship with him would be restored. He forgives us when we receive Jesus and for this reason alone we should stand in awe, respect and humility. His relationship with us is so important that He personally wants to teach us all things, share all things, and reveal great unsearchable things that we do not know, what a loving Father! (Psalm 25:13-14, Jeremiah 33:3). One undeniable way to show our reverence is by our faithful obedience, even when we don't understand if we fully trust Him our very act of obedience will bring the understanding. When God tells us not to do something it is for our own good even if we don't yet see it as such, but we need to hate what He hates and love what He loves, follow His path; for what relationship does evil have with good or what fellowship does light have with darkness? (Proverbs 14:2). Sadly many around us seem to accept immorality as the norm and reject God's sound teaching, (Proverbs 8:13, 2Peter 2:6-9, Isaiah 5:20).Today we live in times very similar to Lot and God did not leave him in the midst of it. Lot was troubled and sick of seeing all the wickedness around him, he was not perfect but he sought God, therefore God saved Lot out of the immoral decay that surrounded him. The Lord will do the same for those who remain faithful to Him. Beloved, God is always thinking of us, He longs to bless us, He waits for us to come to Him with our struggles, our desires and needs and He will surely fulfill them for He withholds no good thing from those who love and honour Him, (Psalm 33:18, 115: 12-13, Matthew 19:17). He wishes to help us get rid of what troubles and corrupts us, He wants to remove anything that keeps us away from His loving presence and it should be our greatest desire,(2 Corinthians 7:1). If we love Him then we will choose Him and long to please Him. When we revere Him with a holy fear and praise Him for all he has done and honor Him as our King, then obeying His commands will become an act of love. Living for Him out of a pure heart will bring eternal life, (Proverbs 22:4, Jeremiah 10:6-7, Psalm 103:17-18). The Lord is with those who love Him with all their heart, all their mind, all their soul and strength so let us put our hope and trust in the Lord all mighty, Asherey Shalom! |
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Post date: 2015-07-16 19:34:54 Post date GMT: 2015-07-16 23:34:54 Post modified date: 2015-07-23 09:54:44 Post modified date GMT: 2015-07-23 13:54:44 |
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