Fear Not part 1
There's a pretty big discrepency between the Old Testament of the Bible and the New Testament of the Bible. For example, there are three verses in the Old Testament with the phrase "The fear of the LORD of the beginning of wisdom." Psalm 111:10, Proverbs 1:7, and Proverbs 9:10. Any time the Bible repeats itself, it's pretty important. So on the surface it seems like the idea here is that it's wise to be afraid of God. Which is what a lot of religious folk still preach to this day. "Get right or get left." Clean up your act or suffer for eternity. Be afraid of a mean, angry God. But let's contrast that. Psalm 27:1 says, "The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" Or Isaiah 41:10, "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." Just to name a few. And those are Old Testament verses. See, the tricky part about the Old Testament is that without the indwelling Holy Spirit... there was a lot more of man making God in OUR image than the revelation that God made us in HIS image. We filtered everything through our own experience and our own understanding of things. And can I just say, clearly, for the record, that "fear" in Psalm 111:10 is number 3373 in Strong's Hebrew Concordance and it means, "Moral reverence." There are connotations of dread or fear, but it's not supposed to be us running FROM God because we're afraid of Him. It's about us taking Him seriously. Taking God seriously--giving Him reverence--is the beginning of wisdom. Because if you start at the right place, it's much easier to get to (or stay in) the right place. From glory to glory, right? Where you start has a big impact on where you go. And, listen, what I'm saying is... start where you're at. Don't wait for... anything, really. God can turn your mess into a message. He can bring you out of, and through, and into. He allows U-turns. So right where you're at is the best place to start. Don't be afraid of Godly rejection. I don't believe there is any such thing. I believe God loves us all. He created us so that He could express His love. To us, and in us, and through us, and as us. We were created to be loved, and to love. To be known, and to know. That's our purpose. And everything else flows from that. And true love will never cause you to be afraid or to run away from it. Look at 1 John 4:18, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." There is no fear in love. Fearing God is not about being afraid of God. Almost every time an angel of the Lord appeared to someone it started with "Fear not." Our "natural" inclination is to be afraid of things we don't understand. But that's why the reverance of God is the beginning of wisdom. That's why we can start to understand Him on HIS level. When you be still and know that HE is God, things really start to come into revelation. You really start to see things clearly--because the light of the world begins to shine. It shines on you... and in you... and through you! We don't have to be afraid of our heavenly Father. We can run TO Him instead of running FROM Him!