When we hear the phrase “put the fear of God into someone,” we know “someone” is, or will be very frightened. Does God want his people to be very frightened?
Of course not.
Jesus identified the most important commandment as “love your God.” How can we love what frightens us?
And yet the Bible commands the fear of God in many places and many ways. Why should we live in the fear of God?
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We prepare to go to church. That’s not quite the same as preparing for worship. It is quite possible to come to church and go home without having worshiped.
Some churches make it nearly impossible for anyone to worship.
I’m thinking in particular of a service where the sermon was little more than a book review and the congregation had little chance to participate. Or of other services where the sermon has consisted of the preacher explaining away what the Scripture lesson clearly taught.
But even in churches where the content of the service is good and the congregation has ample ways to participate, it is too easy just to go through the motions and leave unmoved.… Read the rest
In Jesus, God came into the world as a baby. Who doesn’t like babies? Even the non-Christian world likes Jesus the baby. The modern church always seems comfortable with Jesus the baby, Jesus the kind man who was nice to children, Jesus the storyteller, even Jesus the corpse taken down from the cross.
But Jesus’ birth as a baby was the beginning of God’s sneak attack against sin, evil, the devil, and death itself. The supernatural Jesus makes everyone uncomfortable, even the church, even his closest friends.
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