The Fear of The Lord- part 1

 There are approximately 20 Major religions around the world today and a countless number of new ones that pop up every day. But why? Why are there so many new religions every single day? People are missing something, there is something that they are not getting and they want to have their cake and eat it too. People hate feeling like they are being judged every time they set foot outside their doors, that is why they try to come up with their own religions every single day. They want to find a way to be happy with who they are or what they have become without being judged by what they have done to get there.

I was the same way myself, I did not understand how to be perfect..how could you live this "Holy Life" in the type of world that we are living in today? I mean there is no way right? Its almost impossible for us to be the people that God or Allah or whoever wants us to be right? It doesn't matter what religion you pick your going to have to be a good person that gets rewarded by all the good things or deeds you have done. No matter if its Christianity or even Hinduism, you will one day be judged or are being judged every single day by some sort of Higher power or Being. What happens when you fall short or you don't complete your task? What happens when you cant do all the great things that your "Religion" wants you to do? According to some religions, you get punished in different forms. For some it is being thrown in to a lake of Fire and burning up for all eternity, for others its being demoted to a lower life form in the evolutionary chain. No matter what the punishment there is always going to be some sort of cause and affect for anything you do right?

What if I told you that we got it wrong? What if I said that since the death of Jesus Christ people have been going about religion in pretty much the wrong way. Most of it was designed to control the people and give Kings & Rulers more power over their own people.Christianity back in the old times was a tool that was used by rulers to help govern their people and persuade them in to doing or not doing things. Basically it was a form of "Unwritten Law" that they were using besides their own laws, as well as a way for them to justify the laws that they were putting in to place. If someone would question a law , a lot of the times they would just reference laws out of the bible or whatever it was they used for their religions and the same goes for Christianity even today.

Why do most Christians who know they are christian and have even accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, find it hard to get up and go to church on Sunday morning? It is not because they are lazy, that's not it at all because most people would get up at 5 am on a Sunday morning if they had to to watch the Superbowl or even The World Cup. It is the feeling they get when they walk through those doors, automatically they feel like they are being judged! Why is it that they feel this way? Well lets see.. when we tell people that Judgement day they will stand before God and answer for their sins after they die, or that God will bless them according to how much good works they have done and even according to how they live their daily lives. Where is all this coming from? Did God tell us that if we don't live the perfect life then we will not be rewarded in heaven? Did he say that we need to be holy and pure or else we will be punished?

Actually yes he did, before Jesus Christ came along and died for our sins God was having a pretty rough time dealing with the people he had created. If you look all over the old testament in the Bible you will see God's wrath. One example is of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.(Gen:19:24.NIV) God had seen enough and heard enough about those two cities that he could no longer stand it anymore, so what happened, he destroyed them. Wow, isn't that a powerful message to send right? I mean if God saw the way they were all acting and the things they were doing and destroyed them what would he do to us? What a great way to keep Christians in line and try to keep them doing the things of God, tell them stories of God's wrath. It is the same way we teach our children as parents, do something wrong and you will be punished for it. Well what is this "tool" then that we are using? It is called FEAR.

Read -The Fear of the Lord pt.2 - Tomorrow

The Fear of The Lord - part 2

   Fear is a tool that can be used in many different ways, it is something that is used every single day, without Fear our world would be in utter chaos. It is not the written laws that keep people from breaking them, but rather the punishment of breaking them that creates fear. When you drive up to a street light and stop when the light turns red, it is the fear of getting a ticket or even crashing in to another car that keeps you from running the red light. Naturally we would teach believers that with crime (created by law) there is punishment. God created the ten commandments so there has to be some sort of punishment for breaking those commandments right? Yes, God did reign down Fire and brimstone on those that he felt were no longer worthy of holding his commandments. Why? To create fear in the hearts of man so that they would understand that God was not playing around when it came to his word.

What else is created when you create Fear? There is a positive and negative for everything in this world, a good and evil, a yin and a yang. With fear there is always a hint of trust. when that red light turns green you are trusting that the other street light is red for the other drivers and you will be able to drive straight ahead without fear of an accident. So in a way you remove Fear and replace it with trust. But what happens when you combine the two? If you are about to walk across the street and the light across from you is blinking saying that it is okay to cross the street now because all the lights are red, how do you know that the person driving the car coming towards you will stop? You don't, you trust that the lights are all red because you see that they are red, but you fear that if the person driving that car doesn't stop , they might end up hitting you. So what is it that gets you to walk across the street then? FAITH! It is what I like to call the By-product of Fear and Trust.

Let's define Faith, Trust and Fear - according to the World Enlgish Dictionary on Dictionary.com

Trust is:
1.Confidence or trust in a person or thing
2.Belief that is not based on proof
3.a person or thing in which confidence or faith is placed
4.the obligation of someone in a responsible position:
5.reliance on and confidence in the truth, worth, reliability, etc, of a person or thing; faith Related

Fear is:
1.reverential awe, especially toward God: the fear of God.
2.something that causes feelings of dread or apprehension; something a person is afraid of
3.concern or anxiety

Faith is:
1. strong or unshakeable belief in something, especially without proof or evidence
2. a specific system of religious beliefs: the Jewish faith
3. Christianity-  trust in God and in his actions and promises
4. a conviction of the truth of certain doctrines of religion, especially when this is not based on reason
5. complete confidence or trust in a person, remedy, etc
6. Any set of firmly held principles or beliefs

Let us take the first definition and apply it to how we operate today. We have complete faith in police officers or officers of the law, to do the right thing and punish those who have broken the laws. That is an example of having trust in a person. Now the second two definitions can pretty much go together, because you cant really physically prove the existence of God right? I mean nobody has seen his face, the only evidence we have of a living physical God on earth was Jesus Christ and none of us were around to see and speak to Jesus. To me there is always that slight Fear of the unknown when it comes to Faith, I mean if you cant prove something then how do you know it exists right? If someone tells you don't worry I will take care of it, how do you know for sure the job is going to get done? You don't really know, but you "hope" that he will do his best but you still have "concern" or even "anxiety" towards him not getting it done.

What do all three definitions have in common? They are all used in some reference towards God. You cant talk about Trust without talking about Faith and when you talk about Faith it is almost always referenced to religion and God. What happens when we talk about God? We talk about people or religions needing to have the "The Fear of God".

So all these things are tied together in one way or another, fear will help to create faith and within faith we can find trust. Isn't it funny how that works out? People think all the time that fearing God means to fear his wrath, but that could not be further from the truth at all. I was brought up to think that way as well, my father always would talk about having the fear of God or "Putting the Fear of God" in someone. People would associate that as being a bad thing, that without the "Fear of God" believers would go off the path and do horrible things. That is not what God has been trying to tell us at all, I have been trying to figure this out for myself for a long time now, and it has finally come to me, through the prayers of myself and my father, and the wisdom that God has blessed me with, in studying his word with an open mind. Having the Fear of God is just the beginning of what God wants in his relationship with you!


Read - The Fear of The Lord part 3 - Tomorrow!
Be sure to read Part 1 as well!

The Fear of The Lord - part 3

Fear is the stepping stone used to find trust in God! With Fear you can find Faith and with Faith you will end up with Trust! God wants you to trust him! Think about it, when you meet someone for the first time , there is that fear or anxiety, which is one of  the definitions of fear. Then after you overcome that fear, you will then be able to have faith in them and from that faith a bond or trust can be created. That applies to pretty much anything we do in life. When God was talking about the Fear of the Lord he wasn't talking about punishment or his wrath like most believers like to think, he meant for us to use it as a place to start, a place to begin our journey into faith, which will end in our trust in him.

With that being said, you can now look back at some of the scriptures and see what God was trying to say.

(Proverbs 9:10)"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding".

What does God say Fear is? The Beginning! It is the start of something, like I  said before, the stepping stone.. to what? Wisdom and knowledge, of who? The Holy One, meaning God of course. With that knowledge and wisdom we can gain an understanding of him, and when you understand someone what happens? you can begin to have faith in their abilities as a person or in this case God. once we understand what God is really trying to do for us and who he really is we can place that faith in him and turn it into trust.

(Proverbs 19:23)"The fear of the Lord leads to life;

then one rests content, untouched by trouble."

Again, what is it that leads to life? The FEAR of the Lord. After you have moved passed that fear you can do what? Rest content untouched by trouble. The only way you can do that is by having faith and trust in someone right? I mean how could you rest content and untouched by any trouble unless you have complete faith and trust in someone. So having absolute faith in God and trusting in him you can rest without being touched by trouble. Wouldn't everyone like to have that ability, to rest knowing that God is going to take care of them no matter what?

(Isaiah 33:6)" He will be the sure foundation for your times,

a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge;

the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure"

Here we have another example of this, He will be the sure foundation for your times. What is a foundation? it is something you build on, the base where everything starts. What is going to be built on this foundation? A store of Salvation, wisdom and knowledge. In order to get to all of this and open up this store full of treasures you need a key, and God says that "The Fear of the Lord is the KEY to this treasure". Before you can walk into your house, you need a key to open the door, before you can even get into your car and get it started you need a key! The fear of the Lord is the key to all the treasures God has for us, it is the Beginning, where we can get to know him better so we can get to all the riches he has stored up for us, so we can get to our salvation so we can get to that wisdom and knowledge of HIM!

(Proverbs 2:5)"Then you will understand the fear of the Lord

and find the knowledge of God."

I never knew what that scripture meant until now, to Understand the Fear of the Lord and in doing so I would find the Knowledge of God. I mean what is so hard to understand about fearing the Lord right? either you do what God asks or you will feel his wrath, that was my thinking for so long, my entire life growing up as a kid. Why do so many people turn away from God even when they have spent years in church and even grew up as a Christian? Because they did not completely understand what it means to fear the Lord. Like I said before, some preachers use the Fear of the Lord to put actual FEAR of the Lord into their hearts, but that is not what he wants anymore. The days of the old Testament are gone and done with , they are no more. The Old Testament was written to remind us of all the things that God is saving us from, to show how he has bestowed his mercy on us. How else would we know how blessed we really are if we do not know where we came from or what God has saved us from? People miss that part of the Bible and they say, that we are supposed to be living according to what the old Testament says. Some Preachers and Pastors believe that The Fear of the Lord means " The Wrath of God", but that is not true for us anymore. You mean to tell me that there are no cities today in our present time that are more wicked than Sodom and Gomorrah? Turn on the news and within about an hour of watching you will soon understand the mercy that God has shown us. If we are still living under the same Laws and principles as before then why hasn't God destroyed any of these major cities yet? Why have we not seen fire and brimstone from the sky being rained down anywhere in our world? It is because the Blood of Jesus that God has shown mercy upon us! God wiped all of that away when Jesus Christ died on the cross! We preach it why don't we believe in it!

Read The Fear of The Lord - Part 4 tomorrow

Be sure to read Part 1 & Part 2 as well