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Holy Fear

Those Who Fear God Have Nothing To Fear!

Too many people today are trying to live a God-confident life without a God-fearing life. It can’t be done! Living without deep reverence for God and healthy respect for his laws, including awareness of the consequences of breaking them—will only produce the other kind of fear: fear that our past will catch up to us, high anxiety because of what we’re going through today, and terror of what might happen tomorrow.

Enduring Truth // Focus: Proverbs 9:10-11

Fear of the Lord is the foundation of wisdom. Knowledge of the Holy One results in good judgment. Wisdom will multiply your days and add years to your life

“Be afraid! Be very afraid!”

That’s probably the most famous line from the 1986 movie The Fly. In the movie, as Jeff Goldblum, who plays a brilliant but quirky scientist, is turning into an insect — how cute! — he exhorts the lovely reporter, played by Geena Davis, not to be worried by his metamorphosis: “Don’t be afraid.”

That’s why Geena tells Jeff to bug off—if you know what I mean.

Fear! The word doesn’t conjure up very positive images does it? These days in our cultural context, parents don’t usually teach their kids to live in fear of anything and teachers don’t instruct their students to be afraid. So why should preachers stand in pulpits and preach the “fear of the Lord” to their congregations? That seems a bit incongruent with our image of a loving and gracious God.

The problem is that we misunderstand what the Bible means when it talks about the fear of the Lord. A better way to think of it is the old term used a generation or two ago: God fearing. That simply meant to have a deep reverence of God and a healthy respect for his laws. It did not mean to cower in terror because a capricious and vengeful Deity was fixing to squash you like a bug if you displeased him in the least. Rather, while acknowledging that disobeying God’s law would bring painful consequences—just try ignoring his universal law of gravity and see how that works for you—it recognized that obeying that very same law would bring life-giving benefits.

To live with a healthy and holy fear of God provided that foundation for a prosperous journey through this life as well as preparation for entering into the joy of the eternal kingdom in the life to come. The fear of the Lord was what enabled people to navigate daily challenges with good judgment and grace. And the icing on the cake for a fear-of-the-Lord approach to living was the promise that God would add years to our life—and better yet, life to our years.

Too many people today are trying to live a God-confident life without a God-fearing life. It can’t be done! Living without deep reverence for God and healthy respect for his laws, including awareness of the consequences of breaking them—will only produce the other kind of fear: fear that our past will catch up to us, high anxiety because of what we’re going through today, and terror of what might happen tomorrow.

If you don’t learn to have a healthy and holy fear of the Lord, my advice to you is, “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” But if you can wrap yourself around what it means to be God-fearing, this gracious God himself will not only add years to your life, he’ll give life to your years.

Those who fear the Lord have nothing to fear!

Thrive: What kind of fear is your fear of the Lord? A healthy and holy fear, or one that is unhealthy and unholy? Spend some time today thinking about what it means to be a God-fearing person—and what changes you may need to make to be one.

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What Matters Most To God

Why Heaven Throws A Party

What God prioritizes we must make our priority! If heaven celebrates repentant sinners, we ought to throw a party when one finds salvation. Lost people matter to God; they must matter to us as well!

Enduring Truth // Focus: Luke 15:7

In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

The message of this chapter is unmistakable: Lost people matter to God!

Jesus tells three parables that make up the entirety of Luke 15: The parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. Each story features something lost—something of such value—that no expense and no effort are spared to see to their return.

At the end of each of these three stories Jesus uses a line to speak of the unmitigated joy expressed in their recovery:

In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away! (Luke 15:7)

In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents. (Luke 15:10)

We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found! (Luke 15:32)

Again, the message is clear: God’s highest priority is the reclamation of lost people. They matter to God. And all of heaven celebrates their return.

Likewise, there is a clear application of utmost importance here for you and me: Since lost people matter to God, they ought to matter to us as well. No expense and no effort should be spared to aid in their recovery. Furthermore, we ought also to celebrate what heaven celebrates—the return of even one sinner to God.

But with these stories comes a clear warning: Watch out for we might call E.B.S.—the Elder Brother Syndrome (see Luke 15:25-30). E.B.S. resents the attention and effort made in the recovery and repentance of the sinner, and it is so easy to slip into it. It grows out of self-righteousness. It questions the authenticity of the sinner’s repentance. It refuses to rejoice at what heaven celebrates. And it couldn’t be further from what is at the very the heart of heaven, and our Father who resides there.

The call of Luke 15 must be our calling, too! What God prioritizes we must make our priority! If heaven celebrates repentant sinners, we ought to throw a party when one finds salvation. Lost people matter to God; they must matter to us as well!

Thrive: Honestly, have you been infected with E.B.S., even just a little? Perhaps you should go to God and ask for forgiveness, and his help in getting a right attitude.

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Beware Of Cheap Forgiveness

God's Transactional Reset for Broken Relationships

Forgiveness alone may not restore a broken relationship. It may led to relational détente, but God’s reset for reconciled relationships requires a transaction of confession with repentance and restitution.

Enduring Truth // Focus: Mark 11:24-26

I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours. But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too. But if you refuse to forgive, your Father in heaven will not forgive your sins.

Don’t skip past these words too quickly! Far too many Christians claim an exemption on this one—to the Lord’s dismay and their own harm.

Having said that, there is another side to the forgiveness coin that we need to consider if we are going to have theological balance in this matter. The question that always comes up when you begin to talk about forgiveness is: Do we have to forgive everyone who has offended us?

I think there is a fair amount of confusion on this, and a lot of misguided theology is to blame. Perhaps you’ve been taught that you are to forgive others even when they don’t repent of the wrong they have committed. And the scriptural justification for that is Jesus’ words we read here. That might be leveraged, for instance, to say to the wife of a chronically unfaithful husband, “You gotta’ forgive him, or God won’t forgive you.”

But that interpretation fails to reconcile Jesus’ teachings with the rest of scripture, best summarized in Colossians 3:13 and Ephesians 4:32, where we are commanded to forgive others in the same manner that God forgives us.

How does God forgive us? Only when we confess. Confession opens the door to forgiveness. I John 1:9 says, “If…” underscore that conditional clause, “…if we confess our sins…” then comes the apodosis, or the consequence, “God will forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Nothing in the Bible indicates that God forgives sin if people don’t confess and repent of the sin.

Furthermore, the Bible always calls the sinner to repentance—that is, a radical reversal of the attitudes and actions that resulted in the sin. Confession without repentance is always hollow. (Matthew 3:7-8, Acts 2:37-38)

So when a wife is encouraged to forgive her adulterous husband while he’s continuing in his sin, she’s being asked to do something that God himself doesn’t require. What Scripture does teach is that we must always be ready and willing, as God is always ready and willing, to forgive those who repent.

But forgiveness without confession and repentance doesn’t lead to reconciliation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great theologian who was martyred by hanging in a Nazis concentration camp in 1945, said forgiveness without repentance is “cheap grace… which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner.”

Let me suggest that when there is no confession for a moral wrong committed against you, the better response would be to release that person to God’s justice in hopes that God will deal with them in a way that brings them to repentance and reconciliation. Further, we are never to give into bitterness, hold grudges, or let anger over sin pull us into sin. We must be very alert when we find ourselves in such a situation.

If you forgive cheaply, as Bonhoeffer warns, you may very well circumvent God’s process to bring that person to repentance and in so doing, close the door to reconciliation in your relationship.

Be very discerning about cheap grace. Genuine forgiveness and Biblical reconciliation require a two-person transaction that is enabled by the confession and repentance.

Yes, forgive! Do it early and often, quickly and fully. Be a forgiver, for sure, but don’t go beyond what Scripture teaches.

Thrive: Is there someone you have not forgiven? Why? Did their offense against you rise to the level of a moral offense? Are they continuing in harmful behavior against you or others? If the offense doesn’t rise to that high threshold, then go before the Lord and ask him to help you forgive. If the offense does meet that threshold, make sure you are not holding on to destructive anger, allowing bitterness to take root in your soul, or nursing a grudge. Don’t let their sin pull you into the sin.

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Desperate For God

He Waits To Be Wanted

How desperate is your faith? Not very, you say. Perhaps that’s the reason God doesn’t seem to do as much in our lives as we read about in the Bible or hear about in third-world Christianity. When we become truly desperate for God, maybe we will see God move as he did in days of old. May the God who waits to be wanted set us ablaze with a desperate desire for his holy presence!

Enduring Truth // Focus: Mark 2:2-5

Soon the house where Jesus was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room, even outside the door. While he was preaching God’s word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.”

I am not recommending that you knock over the pews to get to the altar or anything, but I wonder what you would be willing to do just to touch Jesus—either for yourself or someone you care about very deeply. I personally like things a little more calm and controlled than that, but there was just something about a person’s holy desperation that seemed to move Jesus to action:

The blind man named Bartimaeus who wouldn’t shut up until Jesus healed him…

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.”Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. (Mark 10:46-52)

The Canaanite woman who wouldn’t back down just to get Jesus to deliver her demonized daughter…

A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment. (Matthew 15:22-28)

The woman with the issue of blood that pressed through the crowd just to touch Jesus …

A large crowd followed Jesus and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” (Mark 5:24-34)

The guy named Zacchaeus who shimmied up a tree just to see Jesus…

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything,I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:1-10)

So how desperate is your faith?

Not very, you say. Well, perhaps that is the reason God doesn’t seem to do as much in your life, and mine, as we read about in Scripture or hear about in third-world Christianity. When we become truly desperate for God, maybe we will see God move as he did in days of old.

May the God who waits to be wanted set us a blaze with a desperate desire for his holy presence!

Thrive: Are you desperate for God? If you would like to have the kind of desperation that the men in Mark 2 had, a good place to begin would be to simply go to God and ask him to give you that kind of holy desire.

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Delayed, Not Denied

The God Who Promises is the God Who Fulfills

God always keeps his promises. They may be so slow in coming, but they are never late. God’s promises may seem delayed, but they are never denied to the faithful. So every time you read a Biblical promise, just know this: in his sovereign timing, he will fulfill what he has promised. The God who made 7,000 promises in his Word, many of them direct promises to you, will fulfill them all! It doesn’t matter when he fulfills them or how, it only matters that he will. And he will, because he’s the God who fulfills!

Enduring Truth // Focus: Matthew 1:1-2

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren.

Back in the day when I was growing up, you had two choices in Bible versions: The King James or the King James. And the King James used the word “begat” when listing the genealogies of the Bible, as is the case in this chapter. To read through these seemingly unending lists of mostly boring and meaningless names in the genealogical records took real commitment. Matthew 1 is a case in point: “Judah begat Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez begat Hezron, and Hezron begat Ram…” and so forth.

Perhaps you were tempted to skip over the genealogies and the begats in the Bible, or maybe just to just read through these names a little faster than normal. That’s what we tend to do with names and lists that are, honestly, meaningless to us. If we read them at all, we just breeze through them. They are to be endured, not enjoyed; tolerated, not celebrated. That’s understandable. The names are hard to pronounce. We don’t have any historical context for most of these people. Reading these names is akin of reading from the phone book.

Yet we believe the inspired Word of God, inerrant in all it affirms, the only authoritative and infallible rule of faith and conduct. That means every chapter, every verse and every line is God’s perfect Word for us—even the genealogies. They are not here by mistake; they are not here just as filler. They are here by God’s design for our benefit. So, in a sense, these genealogies are truly “Designer genes”.

If you have ever researched your genealogy by looking up your family tree, you know that what you are looking at is the historical thumbprint that provides context to the ongoing story of your life. That’s why God spent valuable ink in His Word passing these genealogies to us. And this genealogy in Matthew is important because these names not only remind us how Jesus got here. They tell us the story of who God is. And since God is our Father, the stories behind these names reveal the “Designer genes” that make us, spiritually speaking, who we are.

This particular genealogy tells a wonderful story—a very important story that you and I really need to know: It tells the story that God is the God of promise.

The very first line in Matthew 1:1 says, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham.” The birth of Jesus was the result of a Divine promise made thousands of years before his birth. The God of the Bible is a God who makes promises—and is faithful to keep them—every one! The Bible contains about 7,000 promises, and two of them stand head and shoulders above the rest: The Abrahamic and the Davidic covenants. Abraham and David are two significant Old Testament characters. God made promises to them in response to their faithfulness.

To David, God made the promise of an everlasting throne I Chronicles 17:11-14, “When your days are over and you go to be with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom…I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son…I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.”

But God not only promised David an enduring throne, he promised Abraham a universal seed. God told Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 that through his genealogy the whole world would be blessed. That didn’t happen for Abraham through Isaac, or Jacob, or Judah. It didn’t even happen for David through Solomon. The enduring throne and the universal blessing were revealed and fulfilled hundreds of years later through Jesus Christ.

The point is that in this genealogy, we see that God always keeps his promises. They may be so slow in coming, but they are never late. God’s promises may seem delayed, but they are never denied. And every time you read this genealogy, or any Bible genealogy for that matter, you are seeing how the God of history, in his sovereign timing, fulfills what he has promised.

And the God who made 7,000 promises in his Word, many of them direct promises to you, will fulfill them all in his sovereign time! It doesn’t matter when he fulfills them or how…it only matters that he will.

And he will, because he’s the God who fulfills!

Thrive: If there are over 7,000 promises that God has made to his people in the Bible, shouldn’t you be claiming one or two of them for yourself? Look up a couple of promises in God’s Word, memorize them and pray them back to God every day this week.

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God, Where Are You?

He Will Never Leave You High and Dry

The best part of our walk with God is not what he does for us, as glorious as that may be, it is what he does in us! Faith, humility, trust, dependence—all the qualities of Christ-likeness—are best forged in the crucible of adversity. That is what God has done to and for all the greats—Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, Job, Daniel, Paul… Why should you be any different? Out of the fire of adversity comes the tempered treasures of righteousness.

Enduring Truth // Focus: Psalm 74:9

We are given no miraculous signs; no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this will be.

“God, it seems like you’ve left me high and dry!” That is the essence of this psalm. Have you ever talked to God like the writer of Psalm 74 did? I have! I am not talking about being disrespectful, but I am talking about being desperate.

There have been times of desperation in my life—when a loved one far too young to die was on her death-bed, when a conflict arose that seemed to have no resolution, when a financial need was staring me in the eyes and I had absolutely no answer for it, when an attack came from out of nowhere that just sucked the life out of me—and to be frank, I felt all alone. God was nowhere to be found from the human perspective, overrun with fear, anxiety and hopelessness, through which I was viewing all of life.

You have had those moments, too. And if we dared to be brutally honest with God, we said something to the effect, “God, where are you? You are really letting me down on this one!” Or worse!

Well, if you are having second thoughts about your unfiltered prayer to God, don’t fret. Jesus had a moment like that, too: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

Perhaps your desperate cry to God has been more general—like the one in this particular verse. Your holy discontent has led you to prayerfully complain to God that he never seems to show up in his power and glory, with signs, wonders and miracles, like he did in days of old—and there seems to be no indication that he will anytime soon. You are desperate for God, but he doesn’t seem desperate for you.

The writer of this psalm most likely penned this prayerful lament after the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. The Jews were deported to Babylon, the Holy Land had been overrun and defiled by pagans, and God’s people were in a bad way—with no end in sight. Worst of all, God was silent—he wasn’t acting (“no miracles”), he wasn’t talking (“no prophets”) and there was no game plan except for more of the same (“we don’t know how long this will be”).

So the psalmist poured out his complaint—which is always a good thing. And even though it wasn’t in this psalm, God did give his people some profound advice (I guess his advice is always profound since, after all, he is God) through a prophet that served around the same time as the palmist. His words are recorded in Jeremiah 29:1-23. I hope you will take the time to read them.

Of course, this passage contains the verse that everyone loves: Jeremiah 29:11—I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and give you a hope and a future. But read the context. God is, in essence, saying to them, “this difficult time is going to take a while—and yes, I will see you through it—but in the meantime, bloom where I’ve planted you. Even though you don’t hear me or see me, I am still at work. I’m doing my part, so you do your part by staying faithful and useful to me.”

Here’s the deal: The best part of our walk with God is not what he does for us, as glorious as that may be; it is what he does in us! Faith, humility, trust, dependence—all the qualities of Christ-likeness—are best forged in the crucible of adversity. That is what God has done to and for all the greats—Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, Job, Daniel, Paul… Why should you be any different? Out of the fire of adversity comes the tempered treasures of righteousness.

Thrive: Frustrating times may last for a long time, but faithful people will endure forever. Restate your unequivocal trust in God. Tell the Lord, that no matter what, you will be faithful to him.

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The Searching Father

A Glimpse Into God's Heart

Whoever you are, wherever you have been, whatever you’ve done, your Heavenly Father doesn’t want you to be distanced from him or to return to him only to live under a cloud of guilt and a burden of regret. He wants you as his fully loved, fully accepted daughter or son. This is the heart of the Father.

Enduring Truth // Focus: Luke 15:20

And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.

The parable of the Prodigal Son is a story for the ages. It is one of Jesus’ most revered stories, even in non-Christian societies. People of all faiths love this parable because of its profound and moving message of love, forgiveness and reconciliation. But Jesus’ story is not so much about the prodigal son, or even the elder brother, this is a story meant to give us a look inside the heart of God. So a more appropriate title would be “the searching father.”

You know the story well: A selfish son demands his inheritance from his father—in essence, declaring that he wishes to live as if his father were already dead. The son spends all the inheritance money on wasteful living. Finally, at the end of his ropes, the desperate son comes back home utterly crushed, knowing he will face humiliation from his father, hostility from his family and hatred from his scandalized community. Maybe he will be mocked—and rightly so—perhaps even beaten for the embarrassment he has caused his loved ones. As the prodigal reaches the outskirts of the village, word spreads in the community that this foolish boy has come back.

Then, something very dramatic happens as Jesus tells this story. As the people gather to watch his return, “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20, NLT)

Don’t quickly pass by those words: “He ran to his son.” That is a stunning statement. A nobleman in the ancient Middle East would never run. It would be a violation of his dignity. Aristotle wrote, “Great men never run…Great men are run to.” People run to them. Children run, those who are desperate or afraid may run. So Jesus has the wrong person running in this story.

Or does he? No, Jesus is revealing something very important about the heart of God. The heart of this prodigal son’s father—which represents God’s heart—is so full that he forgets everything: he forgets his dignity, he forgets everybody is watching, and he sees only the starving, exhausted, beaten down figure of a boy he had given up for dead, and the father takes off running toward his son like a homesick angel. And when he reaches him, he starts kissing him over and over again. The father then wants everyone to know that he will fully restore his son, so he has the servants dress the boy in his finest robe, he puts his ring on him as a sign of his authority, he gives him new shoes, and he has his servants prepare a feast.

The Jesus offers these amazing words in Luke 15:24, “So the party began”

That is the heart of God. That is why Jesus told this story. That is what Jesus wants you to know. Whoever you are, wherever you have been, whatever you’ve done, the Father doesn’t want you to be distanced from him or to return to him only to live under a cloud of guilt and a burden of regret. He wants you as his fully loved, fully accepted daughter or son.

Jesus wants you to know that whenever you return to God in heartfelt repentance, you are not returning to an unmoved deity, you are coming to a God who is scanning the horizon, looking for any sign that you are on your way home. And when he sees you, he doesn’t sit, he doesn’t wait, he doesn’t send his servants out to escort you home. No, he gets up and runs to you. When he reaches you, he throws his arms around you and kisses you and holds you like he will never let you go.

Then he says to all of heaven, “let’s party!” That is how much you mean to your searching Father.

Thrive: Do you need to “come home” to the Father? Don’t keep him waiting.