The pattern of fear

Fear is strong.  

Strong enough to bend our wills. 

“Moses responded to the people, 

"Don’t be afraid, 

for God has come to test you, 

so that you will fear Him 

and will not sin.”

Exodus 20:20

Our usual approach is to skip the "fear God" part and focus on the sin we are trying not to do. 

We try to resist temptation or we try to practice self control so that...SO THAT... The product is no sin.  

Our approach is all wrong and it's no wonder we fail time and time again.  The pattern we use is not the pattern we were given by God!  Only His way will give us the result we are seeking. 

So what is His way?

Shouldn't we stop sinning? 

I mean, obviously sin is bad and when we sin we are doing something that goes against God's will. 

But when have you ever stopped doing something you really wanted just by hearing or reading the words "stop it."

Those words are weak and powerless without authority behind them.  

You can hear "stop it" or even "do this good thing" a million times and even concede that stopping or doing something would be good, but if those words do not come from a place of authority then they will not affect your will to obey. 

God gives us the pattern we need to be able to stop sinning.  This pattern is not in the words "stop it" but rather in the pattern of who we are giving the power to.  The more powerful a person is the more of an impact they will have on us.  For example, if a man with a gun walked into my house and pointed it at my face, I see that he has the power to kill me and I will stop willingly and do whatever he says in order to save my life because he has the power to take it!  So if he says to get on my knees and close my eyes...I will willingly get on my knees and close my eyes!  However, if my brother walked into the house and simply told me to get on my knees and close my eyes I would ask why?  And if his reason was not good enough I would not, because I know that if I don't do what he says there's really no harm (that I can see) to me.  Because to me, he is powerless in the sense that I know he wouldn't take my life if I didn't listen.  But a man with a gun would take my life if I didn't listen so I listen.  

Fear is more powerful than reason. 

The pattern God gives us is the pattern of fear not of reason or understanding.  Those are all handmaidens to the pattern of fear.  Reason and understanding are useful only if they lead us to practice a right pattern of fearing of God.  This patterning of fear is crucial in cultivating our right approach to God.  It is not because of sin that we cannot approach God since Christ died to take that away (and in the Old Testament God had Christ in mind when He directed the people to offer the life and blood of animals as a representative of what only Christ could and would fully do), but it is because of the one we give the most power to, the one we fear most will have the most power over our wills.  In the garden, Eve had received a command from God, the figure of authority in her life, but then the serpent came along and made her question God's power by telling her that if she disobeyed what He said she wouldn't really die.  The serpent was trying to convince Eve that there was nothing to fear in what God said.  Removing the fear removes the power and a powerless God cannot protect.  The moment Eve stopped fearing God was the moment She willingly stepped out from under a his protection and the devil made his move.  Her actions not only killed her but killed her other half, Adam, too.  Because sin is never isolated, it is a poison that affects everything and everyone as yeast does in a batch of dough.  It doesn't matter who sinned first, because all it takes is one...and everyone and everything is affected...the entire world was affected by the sin of one.  

God told Moses to tell the people:

"Don’t be afraid, 

for God has come to test you, 

so that you will fear Him 

and will not sin.””

Exodus 20:20

The test will come again

The test of who holds the power to kill you.  Having a fear of God is life giving because He loves you, and the power He wields is for your protection and not to harm you.  However, it is power nonetheless.  The greater power will have the greatest authority over you will.  This means knowing who is more of a threat to your life is important.  Are you obeying the one with more power or the one with less power, because in the end there is only one power who will be God.  The one with the all the power is to be obeyed and feared, not like a brother who walks into the room and tells you to do something but like a man with a gun aiming it at your face.  God is the one with the power to truly kill, yet when we disobey Him it's because we don't fear Him the way we should!  We treat him like some Joe shmo who simply walked into the room handing out flowers and hugs, so if we happen to feel like we are in the mood for his words we will listen, but there's no real fear in that we must listen.  When our fear is displaced our lives are in danger.  

"and do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell."

Matthew 10:28 

The reason we are called to fear God is because God is powerful and can save us from all harm, but we remove ourselves from His protection when our fear of Him is displaced by a fear of something else: fear of missing out, fear of losing out, fear of running out, fear of not being liked, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of relationships, fear of getting fat, fear of becoming homeless, fear of being ridiculed, fear of getting old, fear of being seen a certain way, and all those other subtle fears that masquerade as "reasonings".  

We don't need more reasons to obey God.  

We need more fear. 

God has called us to work on our pattern and approach to what we truly fear.  

"Don’t be afraid,"

--> but we are so we need help in the area of fear. 

"for God has come to test you,"

--> God helps us by coming to us and testing us, which is the same as training us so it's like we take multiple exams in order to increase in the knowledge of Him.  We may fail at one, but having failed the first helps us spot our mistakes so that the next exam we might do better.  And from there we take the exam again, and spot another different mistake and are able to gain correction for the next one.   Each exam is bringing us to the truth about who is the one with the most power.  These exams come in the form of fears.  All day long there is a world of fear taking place, and we are learning that each one is an empty threat the more we face them that are not God.  We are standing before our fears with their guns pointed straight at our faces, but they are not God and the only way to know who is more powerful is to wait for those fears to pull the trigger.  Bam.  

And nothing.  

"so that you will fear Him"

--> Once the trigger of our fears is pulled straight at our faces, we can see that they were indeed powerless.  And God will gain the glory for being the truly more powerful one.  So that the next fear that comes around we can stand there a little less anxious than the first time we stood before a fear that was not God and BAM! 

Another fear bites the dust. 

This is the pattern God gave to us through Moses.

-->"and will not sin.”

Jmegrey