Restoring Reverence for God

[Carl Emerson]

Restoring Reverence for God.
Here is an issue that has contributed to a weak church today.
Our Father wants to express Himself to the world today through the family of God - in His fullness.
Social pressure has led to us presenting a palatable Gospel without the aspects of God’s nature that might offend.
We have failed to allow expression of many of His attributes and in doing so have made our God ‘PC’
To get a balanced picture of His character it is necessary to consider the whole of scripture and not just the New Testament.
Many believers have struggled to reconcile the Christ from the New with the God of Israel from the Old.
The aspects of God that have been conveniently ignored are in fact crucial to a strong Church. These could be called the ‘negative’ attributes of God, are not ‘nice’ and include the following…
Our God judges, is jealous, hates sin, is terrible, destroys, gets angry, consumes like a fire, takes vengeance and is intolerant.
Presenting a soft view of God has lead to having a generation of believers that have little comprehension or experience of the “fear” of God. There is a corresponding lack of wisdom among us, compounded by the modern trend towards young leadership in some Churches. By fear, I mean to honour and respect for a God who is awesome and holy. This is not to be confused with an unholy fear associated with sects and cults to control adherents.
This failure to represent of the fear of God to the Church has also meant that the Church’s voice in the world is muted.
How do we correct this lack of knowledge of such an important part of God’s character?
Three things come to mind.
Firstly, these aspects of God’s character are more often than not expressed through God’s prophets. You may ask - where are they? In many cases the structure and dynamic of our churches fails to make room for such a ministry. The one who is brave enough to say that we need to repent is often seen immediately as imbalanced ‘flakey’ or plainly deceived. In the early church there was a fellowship of prophets serving the family of God to bring His word. This is virtually unheard of today and would likely be viewed as a dangerous clique. This grouping of prophets in a district should be welcomed and serve to bring God’s Word to the Shepard’s in the area.
Secondly there has been a trend away from preaching and towards teaching. It is not surprising that preaching the Gospel has less appeal in the modern church as we are exhorted to go out and preach whereas most preachers stay in and preach. In staying in, they are all too often addressing a convinced audience. As in the early church, preaching should be done in public where the unsaved are. This is where the word of judgment has a significant place. Preaching with signs following in the market place results in radical conversions, which in turn challenge the church and stimulate renewal.
Thirdly our current generation seems to lack the personal close encounters with the Almighty that many of us remember, permanently changing our lives. I still recall a prayer time with students at Otago University in the 70’s when ‘God passed by…’ I was speechless for several hours. An encounter of that nature leaves one with a permanent deep respect and healthy fear of our Lord for a lifetime.
We sing about His awe, but if there was revelation knowledge of His holiness our gatherings would be more likely to command His respect and fear.

Blessings,

Carl Emerson,

 

[brinny]

Restoring Reverence for God.
Here is an issue that has contributed to a weak church today.
Our Father wants to express Himself to the world today through the family of God - in His fullness.
Social pressure has led to us presenting a palatable Gospel without the aspects of God’s nature that might offend.
We have failed to allow expression of many of His attributes and in doing so have made our God ‘PC’
To get a balanced picture of His character it is necessary to consider the whole of scripture and not just the New Testament.
Many believers have struggled to reconcile the Christ from the New with the God of Israel from the Old.
The aspects of God that have been conveniently ignored are in fact crucial to a strong Church. These could be called the ‘negative’ attributes of God, are not ‘nice’ and include the following…
Our God judges, is jealous, hates sin, is terrible, destroys, gets angry, consumes like a fire, takes vengeance and is intolerant.
Presenting a soft view of God has lead to having a generation of believers that have little comprehension or experience of the “fear” of God. There is a corresponding lack of wisdom among us, compounded by the modern trend towards young leadership in some Churches. By fear, I mean to honour and respect for a God who is awesome and holy. This is not to be confused with an unholy fear associated with sects and cults to control adherents.
This failure to represent of the fear of God to the Church has also meant that the Church’s voice in the world is muted.
How do we correct this lack of knowledge of such an important part of God’s character?
Three things come to mind.
Firstly, these aspects of God’s character are more often than not expressed through God’s prophets. You may ask - where are they? In many cases the structure and dynamic of our churches fails to make room for such a ministry. The one who is brave enough to say that we need to repent is often seen immediately as imbalanced ‘flakey’ or plainly deceived. In the early church there was a fellowship of prophets serving the family of God to bring His word. This is virtually unheard of today and would likely be viewed as a dangerous clique. This grouping of prophets in a district should be welcomed and serve to bring God’s Word to the Shepard’s in the area.
Secondly there has been a trend away from preaching and towards teaching. It is not surprising that preaching the Gospel has less appeal in the modern church as we are exhorted to go out and preach whereas most preachers stay in and preach. In staying in, they are all too often addressing a convinced audience. As in the early church, preaching should be done in public where the unsaved are. This is where the word of judgment has a significant place. Preaching with signs following in the market place results in radical conversions, which in turn challenge the church and stimulate renewal.
Thirdly our current generation seems to lack the personal close encounters with the Almighty that many of us remember, permanently changing our lives. I still recall a prayer time with students at Otago University in the 70’s when ‘God passed by…’ I was speechless for several hours. An encounter of that nature leaves one with a permanent deep respect and healthy fear of our Lord for a lifetime.
We sing about His awe, but if there was revelation knowledge of His holiness our gatherings would be more likely to command His respect and fear.

Blessings,

Carl Emerson,

As i read your entry, this came to mind, which is the bottom line of any relationship with the living God:

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding." ~Pr 9:10

To NOT "fear God" just indicates that we are cleaving to the very thing that was Lucifer's (aka Satan) downfall, and that is not just pride, but like him, choosing to be our own "god". (How utterly insulting and abominable to the living God)

To fear the living God means that we bow our wills to His will and "lay our wills down" (bury them).

This message below also comes to mind. Thank you for this timely and urgent message, brother.

God bless you.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

I sort of Blogged about this topic (Reverence for God) but more in terms of Ecclesiology.


The Church is more than an Institution setup to fulfill the Great Commission


(This is something I want to write on as far as books go. But wrote the basic thesis down in a series of Facebook posts on a Friends message entry on the basic topic)


I was going to write a bit more. Nice to have my PC keyboard to do it. Anyway I have some writing in mind about Ecclesiology. The OP I think gets at a fundamental difference in the Ecclesiology of most Protestants (non-sacramentals especially) and those Apostolic Tradition folks. The Church quite often is seen in Utilitarian terms. Books like the Purpose Driven Church and other ones quite often depict the Church almost as "Independent Contractors for Christ". The Church basically is just an institution setup by Christ to do his work, but more or less there is nothing really sacred, or supernatural about it. The Church basically is setup just to do "His work", as defined by various statements from "The Great Commission", "sermon on the Mount" and other important red letter statements. Those things essentially exist like a Corporate "Purpose Statement" for any for profit or nonprofit organization.


This understanding or model however is deficient. Because God himself most of the time is not a Utilitarian! He does things all the time that are not efficient or purely task orientated. The issue of the sacred is one area where this model is deficient, so many of models based on this format really have little appreciation for it, even dismissing it sometimes as "superstition" or "religion", "religious bondage" but the sacred exists as an important part of Judeo-Christian Spirituality.


Besides that, this model misses out on God's teaching us "the deeper lessons". God acts more like a Postmodernist than a modernist, in the classic saying "It's not about the End, it’s about the Journey". Much of what God does in the Bible is to teach us "About His ways" and his nature (“Economy” is the theological term for this). Things often are not really about the task at hand. So a Utilitarian only sees something like God's prohibition against eating pork in the OT as about "protecting them from eating something that could make them sick before the days of refrigeration". But someone with a more (true) Apostolic background would realize that God gave them that command, because he realized they would recognize the allegory in the old sense of "You are what you eat", and the pig of course in ancient and contemporary times is the incarnation of greed and gluttony and selfishness. Another example is the trip from Egypt to the Promised land. That should have only been two weeks but God went out of his way to make it last 40 years because the journey was more about unspoken objectives like establishing faith in God and teaching the people of Israel his ways than moving to the destination.


PS - After the fact, I realize that the saying "It's not about the End, it’s about the Journey". Does not apply to our Faith and the nature of the afterlife!

 

[Dave G.]

Ya there is definitely an attitude of God being "your best buddy" going around. People are losing the sovereignty and authority of God. God is for us, it's true enough, but also chastises ( gee how would I know). But there needs to be a balance in the preaching of this, it's well documented that if you preach on a tough God you will clean out the church to the point of empty pews/seats/chairs. People want hope, they go to church for an uplifting word and to worship. And really isn't that what Jesus is best at ? I don't think even God wants empty pews, so we need that balance.

A good place to teach on this and get a bit heavier on the tough side of God is in bible studies. You can go deeper in that environment. And bible schools too. You can get into dispensations and the nature of God in a controlled environment over a set period of time. You can only touch on things in a 30 minute message on Sunday morning. But still in the end Jesus came to save not condemn. We have a savior in Him, He is the game changer, He is the filter between us and the Father, the Editor of our prayers. We need to Know this in respect.

 

[Pioneer3mm]

People like "nicely packaged" church services/programs.
- They are "very comfortable" with that!
- That is why it is popular model.
You cannot blame one side only.
----
My spiritual journey started in 1970's.
- During Jesus Movement..
I still remember one story - with sense of humor.
A fellow was converted on street.
- Not unusual those days..
He asked, "Now I have to go to that building?
- Meaning ..church building.
He has been there before.
- He was familiar what it was like.

 

[JCFantasy23]

I agree with you. The points you're stating is something many Christians don't let themselves think about, or just don't seem aware of. I've been guilty of this myself from time to time.