Fear
“I, I am he that comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker?” (Isaiah 51:12–13)
Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the LORD’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the men and so I gave in to them. (1 Samuel 15:24)
When we look out into the world and the things that make this place what it is, there is one common denominator. Fear! Fear of consequences drives a bulk of our decisions. Fear is so destructive and toxic as it eats away at the soul of a person, breaking them down into a mindless shell of a human making them a slave to another’s approval, preferences, and demands. The new slaves merely serves to lift up the esteem of the other. You lose your self-confidence and your identity given to you by God as you become whatever label that is placed on you by the one demanding respect. Fear called respect makes you a puppet that will turn against God. Fear called respect will create a hunger for it greater than our passions for Christ and we will turn from Him. Teaching others using fear is sin and using fear to get glory is sin. In Isaiah, the Lord first says that He is the one that comforts us. All that we think we need from other people, God says that it can be found in Him. Because of this we don’t have to feel obligated to submit ourselves to those who seek to make us slaves to their approval in order that they feel respected. Also we who feel that we need to make people fear us in order to feel confident about ourselves can find that confidence in Jesus Christ. The Lord further states that we are fearing these men who are nothing more than grass. In addition to their short life, a man who seeks to make you fear him has forgotten the Lord and thus his life is already over. As I mentioned earlier, our trying to respect others and their approval becoming the utmost importance will lead us to not do what God says to do but what they say because of the fear of upsetting them or disagreeing with them. When we are presented with situations that clearly go against God’s commandments, rob Him of His glory, or don’t fall in line with the gospel and choose to uphold someone’s respect giving into fear for their approval; we sin. Just King Saul gave into what the people wanted and didn’t do as God commanded. We demand others to see our approval as we tell the world that respect is earned by doing things that please us. Do we not see how this goes against the nature of God? God saved us well we were still sinners deserving death not earning a thing. And we say, “We are not God” True, but is it not Jesus Christ living through us? Doesn’t God the Holy Spirit dwell in us? What about Galatians 2:20?
1 John 4
16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 19We love, because He first loved us.…
All that we do is centered on Jesus Christ, our source, our reference, and our example is the Son of God. The love of God that a believer has casts out fear and destroys it so how can we even try to use it against one another? The word of God says that fear has to do with punishment and all punishment has been taken by Christ. We all are the same needing the same forgiveness and don’t have a leg to stand on to enslave each other because we are “better”. We don’t make each other earn what we can’t earn ourselves. We are all prostitutes made into wives by the bridegroom. We love, we respect, we esteem, and we honor others because God has done all these things first for us by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. So I respect you as an image bearer of God because you are his creation and in all of things that the world don’t see as fit shines His glory on display in our weakness.
Anointed Place Ministries 