What a loving, merciful, gracious God we serve! He is so patient with us. He is the giver of all that is good. Jesus was even sent from heaven and born among men to walk with us fulfilling prophecy, dying for our sins and rising again! We certainly have a lot to be praising Him about. I enjoy going to church and celebrating God’s goodness with other believers.
Somewhere in all the celebrating and political correctness of many churches, there seems to be a lack of correction and striving for holiness. Sadly, I see it in my great church too. Many churches today seem to be more about numbers than feeding the congregation with truth in the Word when it’s not comfortable. One exception to this seems to be the subject of tithing. It isn’t always comfortable to hear correction. All of us are in need of it though because there is not one of us that are perfect.
This next scripture is one that puts a holy fear in me and always provides me with a wake up call. In Revelation 3:15-16 Jesus says, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.”
- “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”(Proverbs 1:7)
The Bible tells us in 2 Timothy chapter 3 how people will be in the last days before the second coming of Christ. We learn that people will become more selfish, lovers of money, proud, blasphemous, disrespectful to parents, ungrateful, unforgiving, will lack self-control, despise good, love pleasure over God… It continues to reveal in chapter 3:5, “having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!”
Has our society increasingly lost its respect for the holiness of God? Have we forgotten what 2 Corinthians 5:9-10 tells us, “Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”?
The later part of Philippians 2:12 states to, “…work out you own salvation with fear and trembling”.
I know the Bible says God is slow to wrath (Nehemiah 9:17, Numbers 14:18). When you look back through the Bible, there is a boiling point with God. Consider the story of the Great Flood, or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Consider too the book of Revelation.
There really does need to be a healthy balance of the portrayal of God in the church. He truly is merciful to us. I think the more we understand the Lord’s almightiness and why He’s worth the utmost respect, the more we will see why he’s worthy of so much praise, honor and celebration.
There is currently a thread on this topic of fearing God that I’d like to invite you to participate in. It is located in the “Christian-Evangelical Families” section of the forums.
All scripture references have been quoted from the NKJV.