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Thoughts for a Woman's Heart |
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encouragement in things that matter |
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Out on a Limb
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Our ladies’ Sunday School class was discussing the place of fear in our relationship with God. The Old Testament does strongly present a fear of God as foundational for a proper relationship with Him. The New Testament however focuses more on having a love for God, but that does not remove the Old Testament teaching. In our discussion, I told the women in our class that I was going out on a limb to say that an accurate concept of God was more important in our relationship with Him than either our fear of Him or our love for Him if either becomes our main focus. God is both a God of holiness, which evokes our fear, and a God of love, which reproduces a response of love in us, but if our response to God is dominated by one or the other, our response will be distorted because our perspective is distorted. Christians can cringe at their every failure, hide in the shadows of their own doubts as they question God’s disappointment in them, or be haunted by guilt that keeps God at a distance. Such is the response of a heart clouded by an inappropriate fear of God. Those however who only want to embrace a God of love may respond to Him almost flippantly. They may flaunt His grace as God’s love becomes a permissive band-aid to cover selfishness or wrong choices. In reality, there is a tension between God’s holiness and God’s love, but that tension was resolved with the sacrificial gift of His Only Son. The believer best relates to God when she recognizes and accepts both His holiness and His love. Her relationship with Him becomes one of passion that joyously receives His expressions of love and she gratefully bows her heart in worship before Him with a compelling desire to please Him in every aspect of her life. She understands though that because of her humanness, she will make wrong choices and she will make mistakes, but she is certain of a love that forgives and then encourages her to keep on going. Her understanding of God’s love finds in Him a place of comfort and renewal. Her fear of God refuses to entertain any thought of willfully disappointing this One who is not only holy and majestic, but also the giver of infinite, unconditional love. This limb that I went out on, is a good place to be. |
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— Bev |
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