Monday, March 7, 2016
486 - Now Fear This
Spirituality Column #486
March 8, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” – 1 John 4:18
Everybody preaches it, but nobody believes it.
Or if they do believe it – that John is right when he says “God is love” and that Jesus is speaking truth when He says, “for God so loved the world …” – they’ll still sit perfectly still and listen to a Sunday sermon blasting forth on the wrath of God, the guilt and punishment of sinners, the shame of the unrighteous, the condemnation of all mankind and the fear of God that must be the foundation of one’s Christian life.
Because the Bible says we must “Fear God,” right?
Whew. That is some kind of screwed up marketing plan.
It is scripture’s seemingly perfect contradiction – God’s love vs. God’s wrath – and the most common stumbling block and joy-stealing paradox in Christianity. How can both be true? God loves you – “be humble;” but God is furiously angry with you – “beware.” Where in that spiritual eddy is there room for our joy becoming complete in Christ? Where is there opportunity for anything but relational wrong-footedness, behavioral confusion and doctrinal misunderstanding?
Mankind has built the bride of Christ, the church, into an institution quite often focused more on man’s sins than on God’s love. Sermons preach the “straight and narrow” – and oh, brothers and sisters, the road is straight and the gate is narrow – but we complicate the GPS (God’s Pro-active Salvation) coordinates with the chains of our earthbound journey. Applications and challenges abound promoting works and legalism rather than the grace of God’s love, Christ’s work, and the Spirit’s presence. The glorious, true freedom of a loving God and a saving Christ is muddled amid fear-mongering, transactional pulpit language of payment, punishment and purchase.
It’s mystifying to outsiders:
“This is a free gift but it comes at a cost! Any questions?”
“Um, yeah: Which is it?”
The answer appears in the opening verses of each of Paul’s 13 letters in the New Testament. “Grace and peace” is his signatory greeting, not “payment and fear.”
God has created each of us in His own image, endowed us with spiritual freedom, instilled in us a will to live, and implanted in our hearts and minds a basic knowledge of right and wrong, of good and evil. Jesus is God’s proof that He loves us, because Jesus cleans up the mess our imperfect fears create.
Our joy is complete when our worldly fear turns to trust in God’s perfect love.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) considers “Fear not” to be the most valuable yet underutilized advice in the Bible.
March 8, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Now Fear This
By Bob Walters"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” – 1 John 4:18
Everybody preaches it, but nobody believes it.
Or if they do believe it – that John is right when he says “God is love” and that Jesus is speaking truth when He says, “for God so loved the world …” – they’ll still sit perfectly still and listen to a Sunday sermon blasting forth on the wrath of God, the guilt and punishment of sinners, the shame of the unrighteous, the condemnation of all mankind and the fear of God that must be the foundation of one’s Christian life.
Because the Bible says we must “Fear God,” right?
Whew. That is some kind of screwed up marketing plan.
It is scripture’s seemingly perfect contradiction – God’s love vs. God’s wrath – and the most common stumbling block and joy-stealing paradox in Christianity. How can both be true? God loves you – “be humble;” but God is furiously angry with you – “beware.” Where in that spiritual eddy is there room for our joy becoming complete in Christ? Where is there opportunity for anything but relational wrong-footedness, behavioral confusion and doctrinal misunderstanding?
Mankind has built the bride of Christ, the church, into an institution quite often focused more on man’s sins than on God’s love. Sermons preach the “straight and narrow” – and oh, brothers and sisters, the road is straight and the gate is narrow – but we complicate the GPS (God’s Pro-active Salvation) coordinates with the chains of our earthbound journey. Applications and challenges abound promoting works and legalism rather than the grace of God’s love, Christ’s work, and the Spirit’s presence. The glorious, true freedom of a loving God and a saving Christ is muddled amid fear-mongering, transactional pulpit language of payment, punishment and purchase.
It’s mystifying to outsiders:
“This is a free gift but it comes at a cost! Any questions?”
“Um, yeah: Which is it?”
The answer appears in the opening verses of each of Paul’s 13 letters in the New Testament. “Grace and peace” is his signatory greeting, not “payment and fear.”
God has created each of us in His own image, endowed us with spiritual freedom, instilled in us a will to live, and implanted in our hearts and minds a basic knowledge of right and wrong, of good and evil. Jesus is God’s proof that He loves us, because Jesus cleans up the mess our imperfect fears create.
Our joy is complete when our worldly fear turns to trust in God’s perfect love.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) considers “Fear not” to be the most valuable yet underutilized advice in the Bible.
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