All About GOD - Growing Relationships with Jesus and Others
Fear or Love?
Did you know God gives us a choice? You can choose to walk in fear of God or walk in the love of God. If you walk in the Love of God fear dissipates and love grows. If you walk in the fear of God the love of God seems elusive.
What say you?
(Note: By fear I mean afraid of being punished for every little thing that you seek to establish a recreation of the pharisaic 3000+ laws. I am not talking about a reverent fear that acknowledges our God as holy)
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Carla on
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I agree.
"You can choose to walk in fear of God or walk in the love of God. If you walk in the Love of God fear dissipates and love grows. If you walk in the fear of God the love of God seems elusive."
Amen.
I'm studying the book of REV right now, and am currently looking at Matthew chapter 12 where the Pharisees blaspheme the Holy Spirit with their rejection of Messiah and National sin of unbelief. With their influence, they lead to the National Sin of rejection of the Messiah for the Nation as a whole. They were fearful to leave their own written laws and traditions. They continue on with demanding a sign and Jesus responds with the sign of Jonah being the only sign HE will give from here on. He calls them an 'evil and adulterous generation' craving for a sign. We know they knew the scriptures well and accepted God's Word as inspired, but unfortunately they also treated their own laws as equal to God's word and ended up adding to God's word. They should have known better because they did know the scriptures. I say this because I liken their behavior to fear rather than love. Fear strives, and worries and elevates self. It is self righteous and rooted in pride (meaning 'superior' sense of self) but it is also riddled with doubt. Fear can't trust. It is uneasy and nervous. They walked the earth the same time as our Lord and completely missed HIM despite all of the OT prophecies which they knew well. Having said that, we must guard our hearts, because if it can happen to them, it can happen to us.
If anyone finds themselves in this position of fear rather than love they should spend time getting to know Jesus. A good place to start would be to study His names and character traits. Also, read the book of John.
Blessings, Carla
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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on
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Along with what you said, and is basically what you said, the study of God's attributes revealed in Scripture is an awesome, enlightening and inspiring study.
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Permalink Reply by JB on
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Good to see you back LT. been praying for you, not knowing what happened to you, asking others, but no one seemed to know. Happy to see a little more action on this discussion forum.
I thank God that He has given us choices, unlike those that preach predestination and foreknowledge of God, which I don’t limit God, but to try to understand all there is to know about it, can become very confusing and even fearful to those that don’t know if they are one of the chosen. I know that God is not the author of confusion, “1Cor.14:33” so I try to distance myself from those subjects. 2 Tim.2:23, says “But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strife’s”. But when we learn that we are accepted in the beloved. Eph. 1:6, and that God has called us by His Word, and we have that inner witness, it alleviates all fears. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free, Jo.8:32.
James 24:15 “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve”. He also gives choices in De.30:19 and Jer.21:8. But when we don’t know for sure God’s will in certain situations, we will waver in our choices’ as in healing for instance, we pray for healing, but if we don’t know if it’s God’s will to heal me or not, then we have a choice, whether to believe what the bible say about it, or we can believe what our bodies are telling us. So with a wavering faith James 1 tells us not to expect anything of the Lord. QT “with a wavering faith… Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord” So for a person to make a choice in anything pertaining to a Christian’s life, it is very important that we know what the Word says about it so he can pray in faith based on the Word of God and not observation.
JB
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Permalink Reply by journeyman on
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I'm in agreement with both you and Carla on this. God is transforming and enlightening his children when we stay close to him through his word.
journeyman
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Hey JB,
I believe in the complete sovereignty of God and that a sovereign God can allow his creation to make choices without having surrendered one iota of His sovereignty. For me it has never been an either-or, but both coexist.
Short story: For various reasons I made a decision to withdraw (right or wrong), at least for a season. I cannot explain it except I felt I needed to hide for a while from almost all forms of interaction. I know that may come across a little weird and I don't fully understand it myself ... I think the season has passed ... I hope so ...
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Thanks LT, I too believe in the complete sovereignty of God, but probably with a little different view. Who could not believe in the one that created all things, and for His pleasure all things were created. Rev.4:11
Thanks again for clarification, I was really concerned.
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Dearest Brother, Happy to have you back. Enough said. :-)
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Permalink Reply by thewatchman on
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Choosing to walk in the fear of the LORD and walk in the Love of God are both the same things. FEAR NOT are repeated 365 times throughout the Bible, but we FEAR NOT when we are with the LORD. When we walk with HIM we have nothing to fear. I'm sorry, but I would be careless and disobedient if I were not to care about the things I have done. My LORD asks me to follow HIM what do you thing of those that don't?
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Watchman, as stated in the original post one must first define fear. and then secondly reconcile what it means to fear God and love God at the same time? Thirdly we must discern how God treats the created (separated from God) and how He treats His children (born of God, born of the Spirit).
There is no question that we are called to be holy as He is holy and to live out a holy life. The question is what motivates us to do so and how is this accomplished. (Not saying this of you, but the contrast into the discussion) If one is motivated by fear alone and seeks to accomplish to live holy in one's on strength and understanding they will fail.
The created should fear God, but do not and mostly cannot (eyes shut and spiritually dead), for they face eternal separation from God. The child of God's fear need not rise above the fear of consequences that comes from a Father who loves us and will discipline us for our good.
The motivation of a child of God must be first a motivation driven by love for Him and the desire to please God our Father. The child of God's strength is when we are weak then we are strong ... weak in our own strength and yet empowered by Holy Spirit. In order to live out a holy life one must be born again, and indwelt and surrendered to Holy Spirit. This ability to live out a holy life can only follow after one has been regenerated, transformed and indwelt ... for all of our holiness is not of self, but of God. There is a difference between state of being and that of action. Action must flow from the state of being, not action (on our part) leading to state of being. What I am saying is that unholy beings cannot live holy. Only holy beings can live holy ... and this is of God, not man. Man tried to build a tower once and that did not work out to well. The Pharisees (i believe were originally well intending and lost their way) built over 3000 extra laws to try and help them keep from breaking any of God's laws. Jesus' response was to reject them and go to the cross for the redemption of mankind leading to the opening of the door for the Holy Spirit to not only be on earth, but to quicken and indwell those who were lost, but are now His (and this opportunity was given to the Pharisees as well).
Thus, to assume one who claims to walk in the love of the Lord with a right view of fear is not concerned about what they do or have done would be in error. The motivation is love and a desire to please God as a child seeks to please one's parents, but on a grander scale.
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LT,
I love this summary:
"Thus, to assume one who claims to walk in the love of the Lord with a right view of fear is not concerned about what they do or have done would be in error. The motivation is love and a desire to please God as a child seeks to please one's parents, but on a grander scale."
Amen and Amen
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