Good morning, I am meditating on the fear of God and I tremble as I sense how many of today's believers no longer give God the glory He deserves. No, they don't even show their elders or their parents the honor and respect they deserve. Everywhere nowadays you are treated as a first name and like a buddy or a school friend.
We humans no longer have reverence, respect or fear of God, and instead of showing due reverence to God, we take our great ruler and creator lightly. Many forget that our God, the Father of Jesus Christ, is our Redeemer. They also think that Jesus is their friend and buddy. Yes, Jesus wants to be our friend and our brother, but he deserves great respect because, after all, he is our King of kings and our High Priest. He is our representative and our advocate before our holy and eternal God.
The Bible says our cardinal sin is not having "the fear of God at all"! (Romans 3:18)
What does this mean for us? Are we GOD FEARING? Are we in the churches now just as LUKEWARM as the church from Laodicea (Rev 3:14 ff) is described? Or even worse? Let's even think that there is no more hell or, as I just heard recently, that since Jesus died on the cross, evil no longer exists or has been destroyed! It would be nice if the time of tribulation would no longer approach us! Then we wouldn't have to go through the tribulation of the end times.
There is evil and above all there is Satan - the angel Lucifer, who rose above God, who is now, together with his other fallen angels and demons, still doing great and resisting leaving Jesus the throne on earth. It is time that satan and evil were cast out of this earth and that he face God's just punishment.
Do we pay attention to God's Word? Do we heed his commandments? Are we showing due reverence and respect to God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit? Do we actually still realize today how big and mighty our God is?
The Israelites trembled at Mount Sinai after the Exodus from Egypt when they heard loud thunder, the earth prayed, God's voice was raised and ran away in fear. They were filled with panic and terror. They feared the consuming fire of God. Also John, the apostle and writer of Revelation, fell down trembling for the fear of God before our Lord Jesus and worshiped him.
God urges us:
Repent, keep my commandments, especially the first and fourth commandments.
YHWH our God does not only speak of Jesus Summary of the Commandments. He speaks of His Ten Commandments, which He wrote with His finger on the tablets of stone prepared by Moses (Exodus 20)
I ask you, give our God the glory that is due to Him alone and keep His commandments. How else will you ever manage to sanctify yourselves and then appear before His throne in court. As? Keeping the commandments is an extremely important part of your ticket to heaven, along with surrendering your life to Jesus Christ, our sacrificial Lamb.
God is merciful (full of grace) because He was willing to sacrifice His Son Jesus Christ for our guilt and sins. After our surrender of life, we have become free from our previous sins; we are also promised the resurrection from the dead, but we must now also keep ourselves clean and holy. In the Gospel of John 13, we read that our Lord Jesus washed the disciples' feet. Everyone who follows Jesus defiles himself daily. We soil ourselves with small sins or with big sins. god is merciful He will be forgiven when we ask His forgiveness, when we allow ourselves to be cleansed of our daily filth - when we wash away new sins with Jesus' blood. Let the Holy Spirit lead us to repentance daily. Purify yourselves, sanctify yourselves, or would you appear in a defiled bridal gown before your bridegroom and before our holy and eternal Father? Take communion regularly and remember what our Lord Jesus Christ died for on the cross.
Turn away from evil! EVERYONE will be judged. EVERYONE - including the followers of Jesus - will stand before the judgment seat of God. Our task is to purify and sanctify ourselves, i.e. to behave blamelessly.
Many will say now, but in Pauls letter to the Romans it says we are under grace and we no longer have to follow the law. When we were baptized with the Holy Spirit, our hearts of stone were changed to flesh. The commandments are written on our hearts, and with the help of the Holy Ghost we can easily obey those commandments. The Holy Spirit leads us into daily repentance - this is grace. We are allowed to let the Lord cleanse us voluntarily and we do it gladly, because we are GOD'S CHILDREN and FOLLOW HIS RULES - voluntarily and without it being or becoming a burden. This is grace.
Give glory to God, return to your first love; follow his commandments and you will see how merciful our God is. Amen
