For the video, go HERE. This is a gift that I always felt weird about when I was growing up. My thought usually went along the lines of "why are we supposed to fear someone we love?" This continually ran as a paradox in my mind, even until I became an adult. This whole concept of fearing God while loving Him just did not make sense to me.
Fortunately, in the church we have the amazing opportunity to be able to look things up and find answers. So when I was making my way back to the church, this became one of the many topics I wanted to figure out. Fear of the Lord is not being solely terrified of God, but rather it is also a reverence of God and knowing His greatness. It is an acknowledgement that God is vast and that we are so small in comparison, and this humbles us and helps us to realize that despite us being so seemingly insignificant in comparison, He loves us so unconditionally. Another aspect of this gift is that it calls us away from sin. In the same way that we really don't want to disappoint our parents, we don't want to sin. With our parents, we are afraid that when we do something wrong that there will be a consequence. There is the same idea with sin. We are afraid of the consequence of being disobedient to God (sin), which is Hell. This convicts us to do our best each day to avoid sin, and in the event that we do sin (because we are sinners), we become convicted to attend the sacrament of reconciliation. The beauty of this gift is that it proves to us that we are fallible people (people who can be wrong) and that through our perseverance, we are able to continue the battle against sin. It also shows us that God is infinite in His glory, and as such, we are unable to even begin to comprehend the entirety of Him. In this, we are able to maintain the reverence we need to continue to live our lives in humility. As we are approaching Holy Week, we need to keep our eyes open to the amazing work that God has done in our lives and throughout history. Our reverence of God is made ever more when we begin to look at the sacrifice of love that happened at Calvary through the crucifixion of Jesus. There is a reason that an angel always declares "Do not be afraid," when it appears to someone in scripture. That person is filled with a holy fear at the sight of an angel, and that is only a drop in the ocean of the greatness of God. From this we can see that this gift helps us to understand our place with God and how He calls us to go forth; unafraid of the journey, cognizant of actions, and humbly with God.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
PulsePulse is our Jr High group (Grades 6-9) for those who want to be journeying to learn more about God and how He fits into this crazy thing called life! From Saint of the Day to talks to activities, we work to understand more about our faith and its importance in our everyday lives as we all work to become modern day saints. Categories
All
|