{"id":21266,"date":"2017-01-15T00:10:41","date_gmt":"2017-01-15T08:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/?p=9911"},"modified":"2017-01-15T00:10:41","modified_gmt":"2017-01-15T08:10:41","slug":"january-15-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/01\/15\/january-15-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"January 15, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cIt is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.\u201d<\/em> Hebrews 10:31<\/span><\/p>\n

Cultivating Awe and Reverence for God, Day 15<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

Response<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

I know a woman who says God is her buddy. One day we were talking about prayer, and she said she just talked to Him as she would talk to a friend. This is fine up to a point\u2014Jesus did call us friends (John 15:15), and He said we would be His friends if we do what He commands (John 15:14). He has made it clear in His Word that He wants us near Him (as friends do), and He talks to us (as friends do), and He wants to hear from us (as friends do).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But there are a lot of other Scriptures that warn us to be careful in treading this ground. God cannot and will not lose His place high above the heavens. He will always be transcendent, unchanging, dwelling in unapproachable light. We must revere Him for His position, His character, His attributes, His nature, and His works. We must esteem Him above all else. He is holy and set apart. Any place He walks is holy ground. He is love, but He is also a God of majesty and justice and judgment and truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

What should be our response to the presence of Almighty God in our lives?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lord of hosts, Him you shall hallow; let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread\u201d<\/em> (Isaiah 8:13).<\/span><\/p>\n

In Exodus 19, we see God meeting with the children of Israel. Moses took them outside the camp, and there was thunder and lightning, a thick cloud, and a very loud trumpet blast. \u201cEveryone in the camp trembled\u201d<\/em> (verse 16). The people stood at the bottom of the mountain, and God descended on the mountain with fire and smoke. Even the mountain trembled violently at His presence. The trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke, and God answered him \u201cby voice.\u201d He told Moses to come up, and when He did, God gave him a warning message to take back to the people.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Exodus 20, the people stayed at a distance from all this thundering, lightning, loud trumpets, and smoke. They wanted Moses to tell them what God said, because they feared death if they were to hear Him themselves. Moses told them that God wanted the fear of Him to fall on them so they would not sin.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hear what Nahum 1 says: \u201cThe Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath\u2026 The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of His feet\u2026 The mountains quake before Him and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at His presence, the world and all who live in it. Who can withstand His indignation? Who can endure His fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; the rocks are shattered before Him.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

We like to focus on God\u2019s love, grace, peace, mercy, and all the other feel-good attributes. And these ARE his attributes\u2026 but He is also to be revered and feared. Yes, feared. There is no denying that Scripture tells us this is true.<\/span><\/p>\n

God is not to be taken lightly. We should love Him for ALL that He is, for He is ONE, indivisible, never-changing in any of His attributes, with nothing in His nature being any stronger or weaker than any other part of His nature. His love and His goodness, and His wrath and His judgment, are all equally Who He is.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGod, teach us to fear Your Name. Amen.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.\u201d Hebrews 10:31 Cultivating Awe and Reverence […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-5x0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}