Everyone seems to be saying that the end times are near, maybe here. We rejoice because we know that means the soon return of Our Lord. We tend to slip to the back of our mind that it also means tough times. It may be disputed among Christians just how much, if any, of the “tribulation” the church will experience. We excitedly await the rapture. No matter where you stand on that issue, we have to accept that things will get worse for Christians before they get better. We will be required to be braver, more courageous, than we are now. In short we are going to need to be fearless.
The church has too long lived in fear. Fear cripples and cramps joy out of living. Doesn’t that describe the church today? Crippled and joyless. The world looks at us as irrelevant, unable or unwilling to change a decaying society and bringing not joy, but condemnation to a needy world. That’s not the state Our Lord called us to. We should be living such joyful and fearless lives that the world is compelled to ask, “What do they have? Whatever it is. I want it.”
How can we move from our incapacitated fearful state to lives of energized fearlessness? It’s a two step process:
The First step: PRAYER!
I don’t mean we just need to ask God to change us, although we certainly do need to ask. But in order to be fearless we need to be connected to our God. That’s what prayer is. It isn’t just petition; it’s communion. By moving into God, by being more “in Christ” fear flees and fearlessness reigns.
We often think of the fearless as frightful. A fearless person is pictured as a knife wielding maniac.
That calls for the second step: Love.
We are called to be Fearless Lovers. I know plenty of Christians who are fearless. They proclaim truth at every opportunity, but they do so in such a combative and frightening way that they can’t attract an audience. In fact, from them the lost flee.
God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love. (1 John 3: 17-18, MSG)
When we become pray-ers, people who pray, we spend time with God and as with any relationship, He begins to rub off on us. We begin in some small way to gain some of His attributes: the important ones here are fearlessness and love.
There is a world out there that desperately needs a church fearless enough to tell them the truth and holy enough to do it in love.
Are we ready?
Nick
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