Saturday, February 27, 2016

Pre-post to an upcoming one on the subject of fear :)

Hello friends! 

That's kind of a long title, isn't it? :) I feel like those people who write a summary of their book or essay etc. as the title of it :) 

I am working on a post on the subject of Fear. It is getting really long, and since this was going to be a sort of 'Rabbit Trail' and could probably be a whole separate post in itself, I thought that sharing it now would save some space on the upcoming one :) 

'Do not fear those that can kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him that can kill both body and soul in hell.' Matthew 10:28 
This verse has given me some trouble, because the root of three of my personal fears--opressive darkness, idiosim that makes people to evil, senseless things, and death of someone I love--are the enemy. The enemy is the root of death; John 8:44 says that he was a 'murderer from the beginning'. The enemy loves death. 
He is also the root of oppressive darkness. While I don't think the Bible directly says that 'Satan is darkness' like it says in 1 John 1:5 that "God is light and there is no darkness in Him," Satan is very often associated with darkness, and since God is Light and can have no darkness, and Satan seems to be the opposite of God, (God is truth, Satan is a liar; God brings life, Satan brings death; God forgives and loves, Satan says, 'Fight back; hurt those that have hurt you'; God says, 'Trust Me,' Satan says, 'Doubt God--can He really mean that?' These are some examples of the contrast between God and Satan), since Satan seems to be the opposite of God, and darkness is the opposite of light, than Satan must be darkness (by darkness, of course, I do not mean the physical darkness that comes with the night--that is God-created and God-given; I mean evil, spiritual darkness). There is a blog post that I read recently that was very encouraging regarding this. You can find it here.

In the verse above, Matt. 10:28, it says that we (those of us that are Christians) should not be afraid of those that can kill our physical bodies, but cannot kill our souls (the spiritual part of us). But we should instead fear the one (Satan) that can kill both our physical bodies and our soul in hell.  This verse seems to tell us to fear him.  But in this instance, I think that God is not saying to be afraid of the enemy physically. I mean to literally, physically be afraid of his presence. I think that in this verse He is warning us to be wary of him. To be on guard against his tactics, lies, the arrows that he tries to throw at us to sway us, to make us doubt God's goodness, honesty, sovereignty, love, wisdom and desire to give us only what is good and best for us. Satan did this in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, causing them to rebel against God's design and perfect plan, disobey Him and bring sin and the results of sin--death, suffering, separation from God, etc.--into the world. 

 To sum up, my interpretation of this verse is that we are not to fear those who can kill our physical bodies; for Christians, that would be a win win situation. To live is Christ, to die is gain (Phil. 1:21) If men do not kill our physical bodies, we get a chance to live longer on the earth, spread Christ's gospel, live for Him, grow in Him, and all the other blessings of physical life. If men do kill our bodies, we get the joy unspeakable of being with Christ, our Master, our Father and Friend. 
Rather, we should fear Satan--not his physical presence, because we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us, we have the light of Christ, and in His Light can be no darkness, we have God, the Light, as our refuge, our strength, our fortress and high-tower, who will carry us through and has promised never to leave or forsake us--rather we should 'fear' or beware of the tactics of the enemy to try to persuade us to forsake Christ and serve a master, any master--money, man, fear, addiction, you name it--that will be easy, follow the wide path, but lead to destruction (Matt. 7:13). While as Christians, we do have the power of Christ, and we are robed in His righteousness (Is. 61:10), the enemy is still a 'roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour' (1 Pet. 5:8). And we must beware of him for ourselves and others. 

I hope this post has been a blessing and encouragement to you.

Blessings,
Julia <3

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