Enjoy Life, Enjoy God
BE VERY AFRAID
May 11, 2011
In his teaching, we learn that Jesus is impatient with religious hypocrisy, and fear. Yet sometimes people were afraid of Jesus. What's up with that?
They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"
- Mark 4:41 TNIV
Jesus calms the storm, and his disciples, once afraid of the storm, then become afraid of Jesus. "Who is this?" Not only is this an important question, but it prompts us to consider just what is it we fear? Jesus invites his faithful to cast aside the routine fears of this world, and trust him. But such a change, does not eliminate fear, but redirects it, perhaps.
Maybe it's time for us to do likewise. There used to be a commonly-used expression. "The fear of the Lord." It wasn't eliminated from the Bible, or significance. It just no longer is cool. Yet the Proverbs teach us that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
Joyfully,
Dale Patterson