Hooray! You made it through 2018! Well, almost – you still have to survive another 24 hours or so, but you should be fine. You’ve made it through the last 8,736 hours. Seeing that 2018 is almost over, look back at everything that happened and recall your mistakes, your struggles, God’s victories in you, and your fears.
Yes, look back at your fears. How did address them? Did you rebuke them in Jesus’ name? If not, why? What held you back from deserting your fears? As Christians, God created us to love Him and others with the same love He showed us. When God’s love is perfected in you, all fear be cast out. If you are fearful, God’s love is not perfected in you.
Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears had not been made perfect in love. I John 4:17-18 (NKJV)
A couple days ago, I attended the CSB Leadership Advance 2018, and the theme was fear. The conference focused on the types of fear and what to do regarding fear. During the conference, the featured speaker JD explained how two types of fear exist: the fear of man and the fear of the LORD. One should be familiar with both and how they differ from each other. Choosing one over the other is a matter of spiritual life or death.
First, the fear of the LORD is reverence and respect for God. Your fear of God is shown in your obedience to Him. Fearing Him will in time bring maturity and wisdom as you listen to correction and instruction from God (whether through pastors, parents, or even directly from God Himself). When you fear God, you put your reliance onto Him. Choosing to fear God is choosing to follow what the Lord says is best about your life. As you do this, you will carry out the will of God with obedience.
“Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the LORD your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.” Deuteronomy 6:1 (NKJV)
Secondly, the fear of man is the opposite of the fear of the LORD. The fear of man is to what we commonly refer when we say fear. The fear of man is worrying instead of trusting God to provide and take care of us. This is the fear that can cause us to act in ungodly ways or simply not act godly, which is also sinful. The fear of man is disobedience to God and leads to future rebellion. If you live a life full of the fear of man, you will never fulfill the calling that God has on your life because God will not force Himself upon a man who is not willing to submit to Him.
Take Saul for example in I Samuel 13. God chose Saul as king over Israel, and sometime after he became king, he and his army were marching against the Philistines. As the Israelites were approaching them, many of the soldiers started to flee out of the fear of man. Since Saul wanted to bring morale back into the hearts of his subjects, he offered the sacrifice unto the Lord, which encouraged everyone in the area at the cost of his obedience to the Lord. Out of the fear of man, Saul relied on his own methods rather than trust in God and wait for Samuel. As a result, God rejected Saul’s lineage in the kingdom of Israel.
On another occasion in I Samuel 15, Saul was instructed by God to utterly destroy Amalekites along with their belongings. However, the Saul and Israelites ignored the commandment of the Lord, and they spared King Agag and took the best of the livestock for themselves. Saul, who should have executed Agag and rebuked the Israelites instead of partaking in the rebellion, clearly allowed the Israel to take the livestock and leave Agag alive. Because Saul disobeyed the Lord’s clear-as-day instructions, Saul himself was rejected as king. If Saul had feared God, he would have obeyed the Lord in waiting for Samuel to sacrifice and in annihilating the Amalekites.
Saul clearly did not have the fear of the LORD, but he did have the fear of man. Both fears prevent each other. If Saul had the fear of the LORD, he would have waited a little longer for Samuel, who would have proceeded with the offering to the Lord, and he would have obliterated the Amalekites. However, since he had the fear of man, he could not obey the voice of the Lord. Unless he humbled himself and repented, he could not have attained the fear of the LORD. Humbling himself would have ended up in him abandoning the fear of man.
If you don’t see it already, the fear of man and the fear of the LORD contradict each other. In order to have the fear of man, you must trust in your own abilities or the abilities of someone or something other than God, but in order to have the fear of the LORD, you must trust in the Lord with all your heart. You can’t have both. Therefore, in order to rely on God, you must fear God and not man. So, today, choose to obey God and stop leaning on your own understanding.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction. Proverbs 1:7 (NKJV)
You are going to need help to trust in God. Having an accountability partner will help you to stay faithful in your commitment to God that you made when you gave your life to Christ. The Bible says to confess your sins to God and to men. When you confess your sins and struggles to man, your accountability partner and close peers will be able to pray with you about it. Choosing to fear God instead of man is going to take help and accountability. Don’t worry about what your accountability partners and close friends might think. Look past the fear of man. Remember that multiple people gathering together in prayer means that God is in the midst.
Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. James 5:15 (NKJV)
Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them. Matthew 18:20-21 (NKJV)
If you are staying silent for the fear of ridicule, you must rely on God, read the Bible, and pray about the situation. Again, accountability partners and close friends that you should tell (use discretion) will not mock you. If they do, they aren’t actually your friends or at least close friends In addition to this, you must learn the art of ignoring like Jesus did. On multiple occasions, Jesus refused to let the words of others affect Him. For example, in Luke 8:40-56, Jesus still went to the house of the man’s daughter even though others advised against it because she was announced to be dead. If Jesus had chosen to live by what others spoke over Him, He would not have carried out the Father’s will in His life. Therefore, we should be careful about what we allow to have an influence over us. If you are remaining silent because of physical harm in addition to ridicule, you must pray and read the Bible with reporting the situation to someone like your parents or the Child Protective Services.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. James 1:5 (NKJV)
2018, the year of Reliance on God, is coming to a quick close, and we will still need to rely on God in 2019. If you didn’t rely on God as much as you should have in 2018 and still have the fear of man, now is a good time to start relying on the Lord, especially with 2019 just around the corner! Today, 2019, and forever, I encourage you to live a life free from the fear of man and start fearing God. As you fear God, your reliance on Him will increase, and the fear of man will flee. In 2019, obey the voice of the Lord, and your reliance on God and your fear of the LORD will be shown as the fear of man is pushed out.
Have a great day and a happy new year!
PARA LA GLORIA DEL SEÑOR,
Jeremiah Yonemura
