Fear

More Ken Ulmer. Today's chapter talked about fear, or specifically Godly fear, and how we neglect to walk in fear in our relationship with God. Before I delve into greater detail - some highlights from the chapter. They will most likely be random and somewhat disconnected to you, so if they are, I guess you'll just have to read the book!

"Like any good parent, the Father establishes his sufficiency by responding to our needs. However, sufficiency alone is inadequate to ensure the safe, healthy development of His offspring. If we are driven soley by our needs, then Satan can and will provide any number of alternate sources to meet those needs, every one of them guaranteed to move us further away from God."

Wow, that one is fairly convicting. How easy is it for us, for me, to be driven by my needs, not by my need for God? Without having a healthy fear of God, though, how can we ever truly be driven soley by our need for God when our worldy needs are seemingly so much more appealing?

"When a child misbehaves, how do you punish that child? ...you want the pain of the punishment to correct the misbehavior.... A good parent disciplines his or her child. Will God discipline us? Yes. Will it hurt? Sometimes. But consider the alternative put forth in Hebrews 12:8.... If you're acting up and God's not disciplining you, you'd better check to see if you're His child, because parents only discipline their own children. As believers, we don't live in fear of God's judgement. But we should be very concerned with the correcting rod of His discipline."

A well-put and convicting look at God's 'wrath' or his judgement, I think. I've long thought about this idea of living in fear of God and how we do that whilst living a "full life" as Jesus talks about. I think, though, that the breakdown occurs when we live 'in fear of God's judgement' as Ulmer said. THIS is where I think so many Christ followers today find themselves living what I call the Gospel of Suck. You know these folks, life is always tough and they are driven by their guilt. If we live a life that is concerned w/the correcting rod, however, then I think we begin to approach situations by asking questions like - 'What am I doing to God by doing this?' or 'What does this say about what I think about God?'

And finally - "Everything that God wants you to be starts with your fearing Him.....Telling God that He's wonderful and powerful is not fearing Him. To consider your conduct in light of how wonderful and powerful He is - now, that's fearing Him."

I think that hits the mark right there for me. Ever sit around and think about your life and wonder why you're the same person in many respects that you were 5, 10, 15 years ago? Why you can't 'get over' some of the lifestyle issues, personality quirks, addictions or obessions that you've been trying to for years? I do. A lot. Maybe it's because God wants ME to be something better, someone more Godly, but he can't let me be those things until I conduct my life in those specific ares in light how who He is.
I think this gets right to the heart of the idea that we can't live individual faith lives that we have to go deeper, with God, with others, and with ourselves. We have to conduct our lives in response to what God has done for us and what he wants to do in us - not have the 'get my house in order first' mentality that is SO easy to adopt.