Do You Fear What I Fear?

"My biggest fear for you is not that you will be an atheist, but that you will create a picture of God that accommodates what you want, and you will collect verses to back that up, and you will build your own system of knowledge, and you will worship an idol, and you will call it Jesus - a god who has no power, a god who has no authority, a god who has no justice, a god who has no strength, a god who sort of winks at evil, a god who is just like us. And the thing that I fear, I fear for those people that don't fear God. If you don't fear God, I fear for you." - Mark Driscoll

It is too easy to focus first or only on the aspects of God we like and practically or totally ignore those we don't.

In doing that we make God out to be a Santa Claus who winks at evil like its no big deal.

Instead we should first focus on the power, the authority, the sovereignty, the righteous judgment, and the wrath of God who hates evil and crushes his enemies, and that we can't measure up to our own standards of goodness, let alone His.

In doing that and developing a healthy fear of God first, we are more equipped to love what he loves, hate what he hates, and then his love means something real to us.

I didn't connect the dots at the time when I first cried out to Jesus and had an overnight transformation, but I remember what I tried to suppress while I was living for myself, proud of all the time and money I had to waste, loving pornography more than real intimacy, and making false gods out of everything in my life - that voice of God very clear in the back of my head telling me that if I kept this up and didn't change, I was going to hell.

How wonderful it is to think that while I was rebelling against him with my entire life, God was already pursuing me and setting me on a path that led straight through the cross of Jesus Christ into his loving arms! There is no way I'd be there without God first giving me a glimpse of who he is, and that picture looks nothing like an old grandpa who loves but lacks power.

Fear God and love God.

Grace and Peace friends.