Praise, fear & obedience

Ps 112:1 – Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.

Praise, fear & obedience – three things that are ephasized all through the Bible. Praise is easy to understand, harder to do when things are going bad and sometimes you need to exercise doing it, it doesn’t always come naturally.

Fear is greatly misunderstood. On the one hand we must fear God, like it says in this verse and many others (Ecc 8:12, Ecc 12:13, Rev 14:7) but on the other hand we are told not to fear, God has not given us the spirit of fear (2Tim 1: 7), in love there is no fear (1John 4:18), not to mention the many times in the Bible it is written: Fear not! (+-170 times)..

So what is the contradiction? Many explain it that the fear they are talking about is deep reverence, not fear as in being scared. I don’t agree. When you read about what God looks like, He most certainly will instill great fear in you when you see Him. When you consider what He can do, you should be afraid.

But that’s where the point comes in: you should fear God – and nothing or no-one else.

When you’re scared of God, with a deep reverend sacred fear, and you understand who this God is, what He has done, is doing and is going to do and what He can do – you will obey Him, follow Him and not fall off the path of righteousness. You will not be scared of anything else, because there is nothing outside of this almighty God’s absolute control.

It’s exactly because there is no fear of God, that we believe we can take chances, God will always forgive us, and He is love – all warm and fuzzy and cute and loveable… I’m sorry, that’s not the God I serve. The God I serve has a face no-one has ever seen, or you’ll die. The God I serve holds the whole universe in His hands. The God I serve destroyed nations to save His chosen people (including women and children). His voice is like thunder (Job 40:9, Ps 77:18), and the sound of many waters (Ez 43:2). If you’ve ever heard that, it is something that frightens, that instills fear.

So how can I say you should fear God, when the Bible says there is no fear in Him? God is love and He fears no one and nothing. We are not love, we strive to love and we learn God’s love, but we need to fear God with a godly fear.

Because that fear leads to obedience. And obedience to God is more important to Him than sacrifice. You want to show God you love Him? Then obey His commandments. Do what He tells you to do. Be obedient, no matter what. Yes, you can do a lot for God, you can be a prophet or give all your money away or fast every week, or face the wrath of the other religions while you spread the Good Word… but if you’re not obedient to what God asks of you, it doesn’t matter. (He will still use you and what you do, God doesn’t waste anything, including actions and effort). But what really makes Him happy, what really pleases Him – is obedience.

Read Deut 10. I think it explains it quite well.

I am the Vine

John 15:5 – I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

The vine is like the trunk of tree – it is the part that connects with the earth, that gets the water and the food and distributes it to the branches and leaves. It is the part that keeps it upright and strong. When the vine is dead, the branches die also. The branches grow from the vine and new branches gets pruned and twisted to grow in the way the vignerons need it to, to produce the best, highest quality grapes.

The vigneron – or husbandman – is Father God. Jesus, the son, is the vine and we are the branches. Jesus was pruned and twisted while in human form on earth, enduring unimaginable torture, to be purified of OUR sins. A vine, once established, does not get pruned. The branches gets pruned. And it only bears good fruit when it is pruned hard.

We get sustenance, life, when we stay in Jesus. We grow well, producing good fruit, when the Father prunes us. Unlike an actual grapevine where the branches can’t exactly choose for themselves to stay or to go, we have that ability, that privilege, to choose to stay connected to Jesus, or not. The most merciful thing about God, is that He understands us and even when we do choose to go our own way and leave Him, He waits for us to come back. And when we do, He greets us with open arms! (Luke 15:11-32)

We get angry with God when things get hard, and then we turn our back on Him, decide to do our own thing, ’cause let’s face it: God isn’t doing anything to better our lives, now is He? And when things get worse, as they surely will, we can’t understand why God feels so far… We turned our backs on Him, it’s we who need to turn back to Him. He didn’t leave us, He’s still waiting for us to turn back to Him. He will never force Himself on you, He will never coerce you into choosing Him – you have to choose Him because YOU choose Him.

And when you turn back, He’s waiting for you. He will embrace you and hold you and keep you. But He will not make life “easier”, He will not prevent hardships, He is not going to give you that Ferrari and three storey mansion (He’s not against wealth, but making you rich is not His job or priority or prerogative). Daniel’s friends still had to go through the fire!! He was with them IN the fire, and the fire did not burn them, but they had to go through it. Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den – he wasn’t magically prevented from that. But he was magically – rather, miraculously – saved from the lions. But he had to go through it.

When you remain ROOTED in Jesus, you will get pruned by the Father. But you will be safe and nourished and protected. Bad things will still happen to you… On this earth, that is inevitable. The devil will attack you. You will suffer loss, sadness, heartache… Your car will still break down. Your geyser will still burst. You will still forget your purse at home which you only realise at the till… God doesn’t wish bad things on you. But He uses it to teach you. He allows it, so you can learn and grow and become strong. How you experience these setbacks changes, when you are IN Him.

When His power flows through you, you can do anything – through Christ who strengthens you (Phil 4:13).

God's still here

It’s been a couple of months since I set aside time for God, time to pray, time to read the Bible. I started to feel anxious and I really felt a need to do it again.

It’s not like I didn’t pray – I pray during the day, I pray as and when things happen, short prayers. My desire still is to live the life God wants me to live, to do what He requires of me. But because I haven’t really spent time with Him, the path became fainter, and I started to succumb to the attacks against me.

Due to various things happening around me, and to me – from personal struggles about my marriage, to professional rejection in my job – I was feeling lost and dejected. I spent hours and hours trying to perform at work, neglecting my family, my faith and myself. Only to be shot down quite violently.

The rejection cut to my soul and spilled over to every other area of my life. It’s very clear to me that I need to address the constant rejection and shame from the past 7 years of unemployment and failed businesses, as this has definitely caused a very large wound inside me. I can’t stand the slightest critique – I literally burst into tears, with feelings of failure and thoughts of shame and even suicide, filling my mind.

However, in the midst of this, I got the clear direction to make a change and to take charge of even just one aspect, and that was my body. No matter what I did, I didn’t lose weight. And because of the hours I put in, I didn’t sleep enough and didn’t allow myself the time to exercise. So I chose to make the change: I started exercising in the morning while watching 1 episode of one of my favourite tv shows, and drinking water. Afterwards, I get dressed – nicely dressed. I decided also not to work past 22:00, and have since gone to bed even earlier, mostly not even working at night (at least not on the job that rejected me so badly).

And then, I made the effort to get up and do a Bible study, even though it felt so funny. I felt that because I hadn’t done it for so long, I wasn’t “allowed” to, I had to “work my way back”, like I had to do some preparatory things before I could open the Bible. But, I decided not to give in to those feelings and thoughts, and I just started.

Nothing around me changed.

But I did. I received blessings in doses of acceptance and patience, where there were struggle and resentment. My time stretched and I not only had time to do the things I wanted, I also had the drive and energy to tackle the ones I didn’t.

The attacks didn’t stop. The critique at work is ongoing and immense, and I still need to deal with that rejection monster.

But in one day of turning back to God, He has shown His mercy.

When you feel that God is far away, remember this: it is not Him that is far away, it is you. He is waiting – literally waiting!! – for you to turn back to Him. You need to give the first step – He is a gentleman and will not force you to do anything. So He’ll wait until YOU decide to go back to Him. He hasn’t left you.

He’s still here.