The Fear of the LORD: Experiencing God's Fullness

An oracle within my heart
  concerning the transgression of the wicked:
There is no fear of God before their eyes.

(Psalm 36:1)

David the Shepherd King is here contrasting the wickedness of men with the faithfulness of God. It is an implicit study in the fear of the Lord.

The wicked know nothing of the fear of the LORD. Consequently, they think that everything is about them. They flatter themselves in their own eyes. They think that their exercises of iniquity and hate demonstrate the freedom of their will, little realizing that they are actually ensnared by those very things. They speak wickedness and lies because that is what is in their heart in abundance. They sow deceit and thereby become ultra-susceptible to being deceived. They have long ago ceased to be wise and to do good. In fact, they abhor good rather than evil. They have set a course for their lives that can only end in destruction. (Psalm 36:2-4).

Now listen as David talks about the fear of the Lord. He does not define it, he expresses it. We see this even in the inscription to this psalm. “A Psalm of David the servant of the LORD.” It is easy to be a servant when the Lord is your Shepherd.

Now, the fear of the LORD is not about terror. It is about going after God with everything that is in us. It is about revering His name. It is about following after Him, seeing His heart and walking in His ways. It is recognizing that His love is everlasting and His favor is the pathway to blessing. It is welcoming His revelation. It is entrusting ourselves completely into His hands.

And so David displays the fear of the LORD when he writes,

Your mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens;
  Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the great mountains;
  Your judgments are a great deep;
O LORD, You preserve man and beast. (vv. 5-6)

You see, it is all about God — His mercy, His faithfulness, His righteousness, His judgments. Our minds were made to express His thoughts. Our emotions were made to express His heart. Our will was made to communicate His good will.

Before Christ, we were disconnected from God, so we tried to think our own thoughts, vent our own emotions and enact our own wills. We had no fear of the LORD. But all those who have been born again — born from above by the Spirit of God through faith in Jesus Christ — are reconnected to the one true source. David describes the magnificent results of being reconnected to God:

How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
  Therefore the children of men put their trust
  under the shadow of Your wings.
They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house,
  And You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures.
For with You is the fountain of life;
  In Your light we see light. (vv. 7-9)

Abundantly satisfied. The experience of God’s fullness. Drinking from the river of His pleasures. A fountain of life. Light that vanquishes all darkness. Indeed, how precious is the lovingkindness of the Lord.

Those who fear the Lord need not fear anything else. But those who do not fear the Lord will live in the fear of everything else.

Blessed Beyond All Recognition

Can you stand to be blessed? I mean blessed BIG? How about blessed beyond all recognition?

“Wait a minute,” someone is saying, “I’m not good enough for that.”

Well, you’re right. You’re not good enough — if you are trusting in yourself and what you can do. But you see, blessing is not about you. It’s about God — always has been, always will be — and God has a heart to give. I call it the algebra of love: “God is love. Love gives and serves.”

For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
The LORD will give grace and glory;
No good thing will He withhold
From those who walk uprightly. (Psalm 84:11)

Hmmm — “walk uprightly.” Isn’t that about us and what we have to do? No, it’s still about God. It can’t be about us because we don’t have that kind of righteousness of ourselves—that got lost in the Garden of Eden. But when Adam fell, God immediately plotted a solution, and it came to fulfillment nearly two thousand years ago on a Cross outside Jerusalem.

You see, the Bible says that God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). In other words, Jesus took our sin on Himself, carried it to the Cross, and through Him we are made righteous, counted as being in right relationship with God. We receive this through faith in the Lord Jesus.

The upshot is that all those who are walking in Jesus are walking uprightly — walking in His righteousness. And that perfectly fulfills God’s requirement for blessing. Therefore, no good thing will He withhold from those who believe Jesus.

Yeah, but, blessed beyond all recognition? Where does that come from? Well, it comes from Ephesians 3:20: “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to His power that works in us.”

Notice again, that it is all about God. It is according to His power that works in us. God is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask, superabundantly more than we can even think or imagine.

Imagine being so changed by the love of God, His power at work in you, and all His promises fulfilled in your life that friends and family have to stare hard, because they don’t even recognize you. They have to ask who you are and what happened to you, so drawn to the life of Christ and the fire of His passion burning inside you that they have to know how to have it themselves.

Now that’s blessed! Blessed beyond all recognition. And it’s all there for you in Jesus.

An Open Heart Is An Open Heart

He who gives to the poor will not lack,
But he who hides his eyes will have many curses.

(Proverbs 28:27)

When we close our eyes to those in need, we close up our heart. Ironically, that opens the door for curses to come into our lives. It is not that God closes His heart toward us. Not at all. It is just that, when we close our heart towards our brother in need, it is also closed towards God. God’s heart remains open, and His desire to bless us is unabated. But our heart is not able to receive His blessing because a closed heart is a closed heart — nothing gets out, nothing gets in.

God’s heart is an open heart. That is His nature. His heart is open to us and open to all those in need. After all, aren’t we just as much in need of God’s love and mercy as our brother. So when we open our heart to those in need, it is thus open towards God as well. In fact, our heart becomes an expression of God’s own heart. For an open heart is an open heart — open to God, open to man.

Developing a Bountiful Eye

God has always placed a premium on helping the poor. Let the following passages soak in a bit.

Blessed is he who considers the poor;
The LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.
The LORD will preserve him and keep him alive,
And he will be blessed on the earth;
You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies.
The LORD will strengthen him on his bed of illness;
You will sustain him on his sickbed.

(Psalm 41:1-3)

The blessing of the Lord — deliverance, preservation, strength and healing — belongs to those who help the poor.

“He who has pity on the poor lends to the LORD,
And He will pay back what he has given.” (Proverbs 19:17)

When we give to the poor, we are lending to the Lord. How we treat others bears a direct relationship to how our heart is toward the Lord. Remember the dividing of the sheep and goat nations in Matthew 25:31-46? How we treat Jesus’ brethren is exactly how we are treating Him.

The Apostle John said, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21).

Whenever we give to the poor, it is the Lord who will repay, and He always pays back with interest — good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over (Luke 6:38).

He who has a bountiful eye will be blessed,
For he gives of his bread to the poor. (Proverbs 22:9)

Develop a bountiful heart. If you sow bountifully, you will also reap bountifully. You see, there is a flow to blessing. The more you let it flow through you to others, the more you will experience its energizing current. It is the love of God in action.

He who gives to the poor will not lack,
But he who hides his eyes will have many curses.(Proverbs 28:27)

You do not come out a loser when you give to the poor, only when you turn away from them. Give to the poor and you will not lack, for God will take care of you.

Faith point: Faith works through love (Galatians 5:6). The NIV says, “faith expressing itself through love.” Or as the Amplified Bible has it: “faith activated and energized and expressed and working through love." Remember the poor by your faith expressing itself through love.

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Healing Scriptures and Prayers
by Jeff Doles

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Available in paperback and Kindle (Amazon), epub (Google and iTunes) and PDF.

Anointed With Power

Power is the ability to get things done. In the New Testament, the Greek word for “power” is dunamis, the power for working miracles. It is the power Jesus had.

“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power [dynamis] , who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. (Acts 10:38)

Jesus did not draw on His divine nature as the Son of God. Rather, being fully human as well as fully divine, He drew on the Holy Spirit and the power with which He was anointed in His human nature. The dyunamis with which He was anointed was the power of the Holy Spirit, and it was out of this anointing that He was able to heal all who were oppressed by the devil.

Remember the story of the woman with the issue of blood? She heard Jesus was passing by, and she crept up behind Him, saying to herself, “If I can touch the hem of His garment, I shall be healed.” She did. And she was.

Jesus turned around and said, “Who touched Me?” Well, they were in the middle of a great crowd of people pressing in. Peter’s answer was, if I may paraphrase, “Lord, who didn’t touch You?” But Jesus said, “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power [dynamis] going out from Me” (Luke 8:46).

The touch of faith drew dynamis out from Jesus’ body. The woman experienced that power coming forth, for she was immediately healed. Jesus experienced that power going forth from Him, and knew it was by a touch of faith. This dynamis was tangible, a power that could be conveyed through a faith-filled touch, even through the fringe of a prayer shawl.

This same dynamis of the Holy Spirit is available for all who know the Lord Jesus. Before He ascended to heaven, Jesus gathered His disciples together and gave them this promise: “You shall receive power [dynamis] when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me” (Acts 1:8). This was fulfilled ten days later at Pentecost.

We have this dynamis power so we can be witnesses concerning Jesus. A witness is someone who presents evidence, someone who produces proof. As Holy Spirit-filled disciples, we have dynamis power to produce proof and bring evidence of who Jesus is and what He has accomplished for the world. It is healing power, delivering power, even power to bring the dead back to life.

Have you felt power go out of you lately?

A Declaration of Dependence

About prayer. For many people, prayer is merely a form, and they view it as ineffectual. Small wonder, if prayer is really nothing more than a form. Such folk are quick to talk about “putting feet to prayer” by following it up with action. But I suspect that those who say that often have their faith more in their action than in prayer.

Yes, it is important to follow up prayer with appropriate action, but if the thing is not first won in prayer, it will not be effectively achieved in action. That’s why so many people settle for so much less than what they have asked in their prayers. Better to trust in God’s answer and then let our action flow forth from that.

There’s a saying that I have heard for years, at least as far back as my days in Bible college in the ‘70s: “Pray as if everything depends upon God; work as if everything depends upon you.” It sounded good at the time, but now I think it is really a source of trouble for us. It’s more like a schizophrenia. Who are we really depending on — God or ourselves? A mixture of iron and clay will never hold up.

The Lord says that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways than our ways (Isaiah 55). I don’t know about you, but I am very weary of depending on my thoughts and my ways of getting things done. I want God’s thoughts and God’s ways, which are very accessible to us by His Word and Spirit.

I’m done depending on me — on my thoughts, my words and my ways. I stamp out such dependence wherever I find it because it is actually nothing more than independence from God, and independence from God leaves me nowhere and with nothing. Rather, I confess with the apostle Paul, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God who also made us sufficient ministers of the New Covenant” (2 Corinthians 3:5-6).

So I have put a new twist on an old saying, one which I think is more powerful: Pray as if everything depends upon God; work as if everything depends upon God.

Vision of Jesus on a White Horse

Tonight during our worship time at “Life Group” (care group, home group, small group, cell group, shepherd group) I experienced a brief vision of Jesus — an image of Him riding on a white horse, charging to battle, a la the Book of Revelation. I first saw Him, as if viewing from an overhead crane shot, which then panned down beside Him as He rode. He rode with purpose and with passion, and there were many others riding with Him, many of whom I recognized. I looked for my son there and saw him. I looked for my daughter there and saw her, as well.

Then I saw Jesus charging forth, as if bursting through time and space. He unsheathed His sword and was waving it, preparing to strike as He came upon the enemy. I cried out, “But, Lord — won’t they repent?” You see, my prayer for the wicked has usually been that God would bring them to repentance, and if they would not come to repentance, to then bring them to judgment, so that they would cease to be an affliction and a torment on the innocent. But the Lord showed me that He was going to use the sword to cut through the chains and cords that held them captive, to free them from their bonds.

We often think of the judgment of God as a negative thing. But it is really a good thing because God’s judgment sets things right, the way they are supposed to be. For example, God’s judgment on darkness is light. God’s judgment on poverty is prosperity. God’s judgment on sin is righteousness. God’s judgment on sickness is healing. God’s judgment restores thing to the way they are supposed to be, were meant to be from the beginning. God’s judgment delivers us from bondage into freedom. Indeed, the Lord Jesus took all these things on Himself at the cross and experienced the full measure of God’s judgment so that we could be free of them.

Now, there are indeed some who love darkness rather than light, and the very presence of God, who is the Father of Lights, will be a torment to them. And for those who are hardened in selfishness, the self-lessness of God’s love will be intolerable to them. For those who are adamantly evil, the eternal goodness and omnipresence of God will be a judgment upon them.

But for those who desire to be set free and are willing to trust in the Lord Jesus, His judgment is precious. It is exactly what His name means: In the Hebrew language, His name is Yeshua and means salvation, deliverance, healing, prosperity and security.

His sword is the Word of God — the truth that judges every lie and sets free whoever will receive the truth and come into relationship with Him.

A New Heart, A Now Song

Been thinking about worship today, and some of the infighting that has gone on in the Church over worship music, old and new. Part of the problem has been that, although music may well be a part of worship, it is not the heart of worship. So some people feel like they can’t worship with new music, and others feel like they can’t worship with old music. But they’ve missed it — the problem is not in the music.

Old music is not the answer, because people tend to use the old music in old ways, and it becomes little more than sentiment. New music is not the answer either. For one thing, it is easy for the new music to become the old music pretty quickly, and it begins to be used in old ways. On top of that, it is also possible to use the old music in new ways.

But the real solution lies somewhere else. The problem is not the music we use in worship, but the heart with which we approach worship. What we need is not new music but a new heart — one that is focused on the Lord, one that is in love with Jesus, one that is open and obedient to the Holy Spirit. When we have that, music is not a problem. With a new heart, we can always sing a new song, whether it is a traditional hymn or a contemporary piece. For it will neither be an old song nor a new one — it will be a now song, freshly emerging from a heart that is in communion with the Lord.

The Secret of a Merry Heart

All the days of the afflicted are evil,
But he who is of a merry heart has a continual feast.

(Proverbs 15:15)

Let there be no doubt — a merry heart is better! What we see reflected in this proverb is an attitude and a priority. Some people look for the silver lining to a dark cloud, others look for the dark cloud to a silver lining. But the priority, and I believe the real reason for a merry heart, is spelled out in the next proverb:

Better is a little with the fear of the LORD,
  Than great treasure with trouble.
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is,
  Than a fatted calf with hatred.

(Proverbs 15:16-17).

There is nothing wrong with having great treasure and feasting on a fatted calf. May the Lord bless you and me with both! But they are insufficient to satisfy our hearts. What we really need is to walk in the fear of the LORD and in love.

Now, some people might conceive of the fear of the LORD and love to be two different and contradictory things. But such people really misunderstand both. They are not separate, nor does one contradict the other. They are actually two ways of looking at the same thing.

The fear of the LORD is not a matter of cringing in terror, it is a matter of respect and awe and reverence. Have you ever stood at the top of the Empire State Building or gazed out over the Grand Canyon. We call such views “breath-taking,” so stunning that they take your breath away for a moment. It is awesome, or to use an old word in an old way, it is awful (read “awe-full,” full of awe). That is what the fear of the LORD is like — living in recognition of the awesomeness of God and His powerful greatness.

The other side of this equation is love. “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is.” As much as we should live in constant awareness of God’s great and awesome power, we should also dwell and meditate on the awesomeness of His love.

The man who learns to walk in the fear of the LORD and dwell in the love of God will have a continual feast. For this is the secret of a merry heart.

Election Day Prayer

Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end,
  But establish the just;
For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds.

(Psalm 7:9)

My daily habit is to pray through the book of Psalms. There are 150 psalms and 30 days in a month. Doing the math, it works out that I can pray through the book of Psalms in a month, taking five a day. For example, on the first day of the month, I pray through Psalms 1-5, on the second day I pray Psalms 6-10, and so on. Now, I don’t always pray through all the psalms for a given day; sometimes I am moved by a particular psalm, or even by a specific passage within a psalm. So, it’s a flexible plan.

Election day falls on the second day of the month, and doing the math, that means Psalms 6-10. During this campaign season, the prayer that has been continually impressed upon me is this very plea found in Psalm 7:9. “Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish the just; for the righteous God tests the hearts and minds.” So this psalm, it seems to me, is very apropos for the day.

How will we vote today — will it reflect the righteousness and the justice of God, or will it reflect the wickedness of the wicked? Both are at work in our country, and both are within our reach. The answer lies in the last line of the verse: “For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds.” In other words, God is the One who knows the truth about all the candidates. He knows what they have spoken, whether it is truth or lies. He sees the hidden motivations of their hearts. And He searches our hearts and minds as well, to know what we are truly seeking. Psalm 12:8 says, “The wicked prowl on every side, when vileness is exalted among the sons of men.” In the end, we shall all receive what we are crying out for, what we are giving honor to and exalting, whether that be righteousness or wickedness.

So, before we cast our ballots, as Christians we must first search our hearts to know our own motivations. Then we must pray to know the mind of the Lord in this matter. Only then will we be prepared to vote.

Rooted and Established

He shall be like a tree
  Planted by the rivers of water,
  That brings forth its fruit in its season
Whose leaf also shall not wither
  And whatever he does shall prosper

(Psalm 1:3)

This is talking about the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, stand in the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of the scornful. Instead, he delights in the Word of God, and he is always meditating on it, pondering it by speaking it to himself over and over.

To be planted, in this Hebrew context, is to be rooted and established. It is not enough to simply dig a hole and drop a tree into it. A tree is not really planted until it begins to extend its roots downward and outward to tap into the moisture of the river. It becomes integrated with the soil so that it cannot be easily blown over or uprooted.

It is only when a tree is rooted and established that it can begin to produce fruit, to be fresh and green, and to prosper. And it can only be rooted and established by staying in one place.

There are many Christians who jump from church to church, from group to group, never staying long enough to become a part of any congregation or fellowship. So they never get rooted or well-grounded. Consequently, they do not bear good fruit, they do not prosper, and they do not stay fresh and green. They begin to wither because they have no stability.

Stability is an important part of discipleship. That is why for centuries monks and monasteries have always had a “vow of stability,” committing themselves to stay in one place and work out whatever differences they might have with their brothers or leaders.

This is a strong feature of Benedictine communities. In The Rule of Benedict, written about the sixth century, Benedict of Nursia featured stability prominently. He noted that there were many monks who went about from place to place, soaking up the benefits of each place, but never becoming a productive member. They went about everywhere, but never became a part of anywhere. He called them gyrovagues. They were pointless wanderers. They had no purpose. They added nothing to the prosperity of a house, spiritually or otherwise, and were really nothing more than parasites.

But those who delight in the Word of God must learn to be a true part of God’s people. For God is love, and love cannot flow in isolation. We must be part of a community of faith in Jesus Christ. That is we will find stability. Then we will begin to see the blessing and power of God’s love manifest in life-changing, world-changing ways. That is where we will find fruitfulness and prosperity, and where we will remain fresh and green.

Those who are planted in the house of the LORD
  Shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall still bear fruit in old age;
  They shall be fresh and flourishing,
To declare that the LORD is upright;
  He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him

(Psalm 92:13-15)

Declaring the Day

This is the day the LORD has made;
I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24

Many Christians are familiar with this verse. In the context of the Old Testament, and as it was used ceremonially, it referred to a special day of celebration, a culmination of many days. It was not just about being thankful to having another day of living, but it was a day set aside to rejoice in a special victory.

Under the New Covenant we have in Jesus, every day is now a day of victory and rejoicing, celebrating who He is and the wonderful, multifaceted salvation He has won for us.

Paul said, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). “Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:14).

In all these things, we are more than conquerors though Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, not things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39)

The Apostle John declared, “This is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:4-5).

If you know Jesus, today is the day that the Lord was made for you to rejoice and celebrate the victory with Him. Therefore, shout for joy and be glad this day. Whatever situation or circumstance you are dealing with today, declare His victory over it. For Jesus is Lord, and His victory is your victory.

This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it!