Fear Of God

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I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me.

~Jeremiah 32:40, LSB

The fear of God is the greatest restraint against sin, just as love for God is the greatest constraint for service.

~William Bates

William Bates the Puritan says, “The whole of life is perpetual temptation; we walk in the midst of snares.” I could not agree more. Although we have an enemy without {Satan the accuser}, we also have a traitor within and that would be the flesh, or the old man, or the fallen nature. When you become a child of God, you join a family {PTL} but you also join an army and the war between good and evil becomes a reality. As long as we remain on this sin cursed earth we are going to be involved in this spiritual war. Jesus return or our promotion will give us an honorable discharge, but other than that—WE ARE IN THE ARMY. We either strap on the armor and fight or we give in to defeat.

Do you know what kept the Israelites out of Canaan? They didn’t have the courage to fight. They wanted the land but they didn’t want to fight to get it. They wanted the milk, honey and money, but they didn’t want sacrifice, surrender and service. They wanted peace at all cost and it turned out to be very costly. They didn’t have the stomach for war. We are surrendering our county to the Marxist and Muslims because we professed Christians don’t even bother to vote.

Of course, I digressed and got on my soapbox. Going back to the fear of the LORD as being the number one restraint, I want to say amen! I agree totally. I am extremely blessed to be where I am and doing what I do. I love to preach. I love to study. In brief, I love what I do. I think the LORD would allow me to retire if that is what I wanted to do but it is not what I want to do. I want to preach. I want to help others. I want to deliver fruit baskets if you know what I mean. BUT I am where I am by the GRACE OF GOD and the fear of God. I am not here because I am a good man. I have faced temptations that could have destroyed me, my family and damaged countless others and thank God I made the right decisions but not because I was good. I did right because I feared God and the consequences. Now, that is more than you wanted to hear but it is the truth. Now the good thing is that the fear will be transformed to love, but in the beginning it was fear, not love. Two other really good things come out of this: I am more acquainted with my depravity and I have a deeper understanding of His grace.

  • Don Murphy is in Decatur Morgan, room 202 I think. He is a bit better but battling double pneumonia. David visited with Bill late yesterday and he is doing well; making progress daily. Judy and Mickey got some good news. The Doctor in B’ham is not sure it is cancer. Going to do a biopsy ASAP. June should come home today. The surgery went well and so she has a brand new artificial hip.
  • Today jumping Joe has planned a special tribute to our Veterans. We will meet in the fellowship hall. Our lunch menu is a Soup Bar.
  • Menu for Wednesday day services: Nov. 18 Pizza, Nov. 25 BBQ THERE IS NO PM SERVICE November 25 {Thanksgiving Eve}. December 2, KFC and December 9 a hot dog bar.
  • December 4…49er Christmas Party at 11:30. Christmas finger foods. Bring your favorite Christmas candy, snacks or cookies.
  • I hope you have a great day and thanks for reading the blog.

Extra/Extra

I personally want to pay tribute to whom tribute is due. I want to thank all of those who have served in the military. To my regret, I did not but my father and June’s father were veterans of WWII. June’s uncle by marriage was killed at Pearl Harbor and her dad and his five brother all joined at the same time. One navy, one Air Force and four army. All six made it home alive. June’s dad suffered some injuries that plagued him his entire life. He was basically crippled by his mid fifties. He was a Sargent and commanded a tank destroyer. Daddy was a private, 32 years old with four kids when he was drafted. He was first in the infantry but moved to the mess hall due to varicose veins in his legs. Grace Point is blessed to have several vets and that includes three career men, all army. One helicopter pilot, one paratrooper and one who is a veteran of Korea and Viet Nam and that is my buddy Jim Mullins {97}. I think we have two Viet Nam vets. Thank you men for your service. We are free today because of men like you, not because of politicans.

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