Of Fear & fear...

There is a Fear We Should Embrace & One To Conquer - J Wilson

No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people - Acts 5:13

The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength – I Samuel 2:4

Every day in thousands of homes and offices across the globe, Christians testify of God's grace in their lives in some way. Sometimes it comes through a subtle performance of their duties with a smile and peace that non-believers cannot understand. In other cases, there might be more visible, unexplainable examples of God's work.

This calm assurance and steadfast commitment to right living and actions, these were the defining difference in believers in the early Church. They lived lives that followed with signs and wonders that could not be humanly explained. They seemed fearless.

It wasn’t about what they could attain to (after all, they had attained to the highest of all – we are seated in heavenly place in Christ Jesus – Ephesians 2:6).

The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's Colonnade. Some of them met in homes as well. In those early days however it says that, "No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number" - Acts 5:12-14

How often we have heard non-believers acknowledge their respect for the “Christian next door”, but they dare not join them in their persuasion.

It is this fear of the unknown that keeps many a non-believer on the path to personal and eternal destruction. Who has God placed in your path today to help detour from a path of eternal torment to a path of freedom and eternal life? There is someone. I can guarantee it. There is.

The Lord desires that each should come to knowledge of the truth so that they might live a saved life. As you go about your day today, ask the Lord for a divine appointment that might be the turning point for a lost soul; someone who does not have the internal strength to make a decision on their own.

There's no prayer the Lord will delight in more than this one, “Lord make me strength today for someone who has no strength. Make me the conduit through which they may to come to you Lord Jesus.”

Then there is the Biblical oxymoron that says that brokenness is strength. How can this be? How can brokenness be strength? In order to use men and women to their fullest extent, the Lord has to break His servants so that they might have a new kind of strength that is not human in origin. It is strength in spirit that is born only through brokenness. It begins with the fear of the Lord; the respect, adoration and recognition of his awesomeness.

Paul was broken on the Damascus road. He came to know a fear like none he had previously experienced in his prideful Hebrew life. Peter was broken after Jesus was taken prisoner. Jacob was broken at Peniel. David was broken after his sin with Bathsheba. The list could go on of those the Lord had to break in different ways before they could be used in the Kingdom. These were all who finally came to embrace the right and proper call of God on their lives.

When we are broken, we see the frailty of human strength and come to grips with the reality that we can do nothing in our own strength. We measure that against a limitless God and realize we can be crushed under the weight of just an aspect or two of His power (righteousness and holiness might be two things that can crush a human…) Then, new strength emerges that God uses mightily. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Do not fear brokenness. Rather, fear our awe inspiring God. Fear of God may be the missing ingredient to a life that emerges with a new kind of strength and experience not known before. Pray for a broken and contrite heart that God can bless. Pray for a right kind of fear…not fear from God but a reverent fear of not honoring and loving Him.

I remain…

InHISgrip,
~J~