Live Dead Joy: 30 Days of Living and Dying with Jesusគំរូ

“Righteousness and Fear”

Friendship with God is not like other friendships. While it is true that Abram was the friend of God, we should not glibly sing “I am a friend of God” without due consideration of Genesis 15:12. When God met with Abram, it was an experience of “horror and great darkness.” What makes our relationship with God sublime is the juxtaposition of reverent fear and intimacy.

We cannot approach God cavalierly. He is the Father God to whom we can run and cling, yet He is also the possessor of heaven and earth. How does this strange combination play out in our daily walk with the  God we can approach, the God who terrifies?

For Abram the progression went like this: God spoke . . . then Abram believed and obeyed. God was so pleased that Abram believed that He counted the belief as righteousness. In other words, when we believe God is who He says He is and we believe He will do what He has promised to do, He is so pleased with us that He considers us in right-standing friendship with Him. When we are in friendship with God, He rewards us by shielding us. He rewards His friends with Himself—a deep fullness and satisfaction that only He can bring.

Blessed are the people who long (hunger and thirst) for this righteousness, this right standing with God— for they will be full . . . of Him! The reward of righteousness is not an external trophy but a deep, inward fulfillment and satisfaction. All other pleasures and achievements do not penetrate the depth of the soul like righteousness does, for righteousness makes us friends with God. If we do not fear the Lord or we presume on His friendship or we lie to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3–9) or we do not hold God in awe—we will experience the unshielded horror of God’s majesty. It will scare us to death. It is much better to be God’s friend than His enemy.

Pray for the Unreached:

Iraqi Muslims of Iraq

16,661,000

0.2% Evangelical

Pray for the Word of God in written, oral, musical, and dramatic forms to be translated and to rise among the Iraqi (Isaiah 55:10-11).