BBD 04.25.06 Have No Fear
Posted by: wrather <wrather@...>
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04.25.06
Have No Fear
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. - Romans 3:23.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord. - Romans 6:23.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8.
I have for almost forty years had somewhat of an aversion to the use of
chewing gum. I used to enjoy it but I find no joy in chewing gum now. It has
probably come about from an incident experienced in high school. A teacher
had a rule that there should be no chewing of gum in his class. One day I
had forgotten about the rule until the class was already underway. I was
sitting almost on the front row and knew that the teacher would see me if I
took the gum out of my mouth. So, I tried not to move the gum around and
succeeded for some minutes. However, the teacher did finally notice the rule
breaker in his class and justice was administered very quickly. He told me
to come with him and he administered three licks with a wooden paddle that
had holes drilled in it to make it sting more. The punishment was effective
for the teacher's purposes because it did strike fear into the hearts of all
prospective gum chewers in his class including me.
Surprisingly, I read this morning that a man in Turkey was arrested because
he was chewing gum when he laid a wreath at the monument to Kemal Ataturk
who was the country's founder. Chewing of gum, according to the law, is
disrespectful - at least in this instance. His excuse was that he was trying
to cover up his garlic breath. It is unknown what penalty he will face for
this breach of his country's rules.
You may never have broken a rule of a teacher or of a country by chewing gum
but you are still a rule breaker. Why do I say that? Because we have all
come short of the absolute holiness of God. The Bible tells us that we have
all sinned. You have sinned and I have sinned. We have all come short of the
holiness of God. It may have only been what in our eyes was a little lie.
But we failed at that point to live perfectly. We were tempted at all points
and we failed.
If it were possible for us to live perfectly by never breaking any of God's
rules, if that were possible - than, it would not have been necessary for
Jesus to come down from the glories of Heaven and suffer and die on the
cross for our sins. Jesus has done what we could not do. He lived a perfect
life and became the perfect sacrificial lamb dying in our place. In Hebrews
4:14-16 are told, "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has
passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our
confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our
weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin."
Unlike many human enforcers of human rules and laws, God does have mercy,
and He has demonstrated the love from which that mercy flows. We may have a
fear of chewing gum or other things but we should never be afraid of
approaching God in the Name of Jesus. In verse 17 of Hebrews chapter four
this is made very clear when we are told, "Let us therefore come boldly to
the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time
of need."
Have no fear of approaching God for mercy when you come in the Name of His
beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
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