Fear and Dread
“1 God blessed Noah and his sons: He said, “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill the Earth! 2 Every living creature – birds, animals, fish – will fall under your spell and be afraid of you. You’re responsible for them. 3 All living creatures are yours for food; just as I gave you the plants, now I give you everything else.
(Genesis 9:1-3, from The Message).
The NIV uses fear and dread in the place of fear in this passage. I have found that respect and awe are also synonymous with fear.
I thought of how animals fear us. I understand that undomesticated animals are afraid of us at first.
They are likely to flee or fight when they realize we are near. I think it is only when they realize we are in dominion over them that they willingly submit to us out of respect and awe.
They will gladly obey us and even risk their own lives in fighting for us if they realize we love them.
My fear and dread of God is similar to that of animals for mankind. I was originally afraid of God, but I wanted positive relationship with Him. I eventually realized I could not please Him in my own strength. Only then did I see a need to me to trust Christ for my salvation. Now, in awe, I love and serve Him because He first loved me.
“8 But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.” (Romans 5:8, from The Message).
Now my fear is only when I know I have displeased Him. That is taken away when I confess my sins and realize He has already forgiven me because of the faith in Christ which He Himself gave me. As the old hymn expresses, “What a wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord.”
“I Worried and Was Afraid”
Was someone right about worry? “It must pay to worry. Most of the things about which I worry never happen.”
I have resolved to try to read and meditate every day in 2010 on at least one reference in the Bible about worry or fear. There are more than one for each day of the year.
I believe I read a story like the following in one of the daily jokes e-mailed me from “You Make Me Laugh” from crosswalk.com.
A pastor knocked on a church member’s door Saturday morning. No one answered the door. He wrote the reference, “Matthew 7:7”, on the back of his business card and wedged it between the door and the door jamb. That verse contains the promise, …”knock and it shall be opened to you.”
The deacons found the member’s business card in the offering on Sunday morning and gave it to the pastor. The member had written another reference on the back of his card, “Genesis 3:10”. That verse includes Adam’s reply to God when God asked him where he was after he ate fruit from the forbidden tree, “He said, ‘I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.’ “(Genesis 3:10, from “The Message”)..
That is the first reference to anyone being fearful or afraid in the Bible. Adam was afraid when he had sinned. I am also afraid when I realize I have sinned, but I also praise God. The death of Jesus Christ paid God’s just penalty for all of my sins in the past, the present, and the future. “Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing!” (Ephesians 2:8-9, from “The Message”).
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