One Love, One Fear

Sometimes it seems like the church loses its true focus. There are many things to get distracted by - church growth strategies, ways to increase finances and find happiness in life, principles for walking in God's anointing for miracles, and much more. I have often found myself pursuing the things of God and His gifts rather than the person of God. I have caught myself dreaming about strategies to create an effective ministry, rather than dreaming about who Jesus is and growing more in my devotion to Him. I believe there are two things that need to come first before we can successfully join ministry, reach the world, or even be victorious in our own walk with Christ: a revelation of the fear of the Lord, and a revelation of God's love, which in turn makes us love Him back. We need a reverential awe of the Lord that leads to holiness and a tenacious pursuit of the first commandment, the power to love God with all that we are. We need to first and foremost seek these with all our hearts. We need to humble ourselves and ask the Lord to give us deeper revelation. If we can gain not just head knowledge but heart revelation, we can be truly transformed. The first commandment speaks of radical love for God. This requires fierce surrender as God's love takes its place in the center of our heart. The fear of the Lord is what purifies our heart, it's a holy trembling before our almighty God. It leads to deeper knowledge of who God is and leads us out from complacency and compromise. We must not lose sight of what we need most in the midst of our ministries and activities. Holy fear and fierce love is what Jesus is seeking. We need to walk in intimacy with Jesus, otherwise ministry is not born of the Spirit, but of the flesh. Otherwise, ministry would become all about us, and it would turn into a self-help message about how to fit Jesus into our life to be happy and feel safe about eternity, but this would leave us in a pattern of sin, not really giving true freedom and Life, which can only result from radical holiness. The only way to really be helpful and accomplish bringing the Kingdom to earth is to seek first to love Jesus with our whole heart, and to fear Him alone.