As promised, here is m my second post on the fear of man. I hope it will encourage you, even though it is kind of hard for me to write since I struggle with this a lot. For more information, read, When People Are Big And God Is Small. It has helped me tremendously and much of the information from this post is taken from it.
I think much of my problem is just simply caring what people think of me and not caring what God thinks. If I am picking out an outfit, I think, "Will the people of school like this outfit?" rather than, "Would God approve of this outfit?". Or, if I'm taking a test, I think "I need to get a good grade so people will like me and look up to me," rather than, "God wants me to think more about serving Him and less about my grades." To solve this problem, we must fear God rather than man. We need to be more focused on what God thinks of our actions than what people do. When we are making a choice, the first thing we should think about is whether our decision is glorifying God. I really struggle with this because I am an extremely prideful person. I want others to like me. It isn't wrong to be liked and accepted by people, but it is more important to glorify God.
Take Job, for example. He was hit by too many trials and tragedies to even count. Rather than listening to his friends, though, he lived uprightly. He feared God and knew that if he listened to his wife's advice to "curse God and die [Job 2:9]," he would be condemned. That really struck me, because I am so fortunate, and yet Job's attitude was so much better than mine, even in the midst of all those troubles. That was another example to me about how far I still have to go, but I am confident that God will help me if I ask Him. I hope that this post is encouraging and helpful!
Showing posts with label Man. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Man. Show all posts
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
The Fear of Man
The fear of man is a Bible term for what most people today call peer pressure or sometimes codependency. It's basically fearing man more than you fear God. It can (as I learned the hard way) lead to many issues and problems. I am reading a book by Edward T. Welch called When People Are Big and God Is Small. It has been a very convicting and insightful book, and I would highly recommend reading it. I will do several posts on it over the next couple months, and I hope that they will help you as much as they have helped me. I will do a list of points that I have taken from the book. I know that it will take me a really long time to fully put what I have learned into practice (and even then, I will still fail at it sometimes), but I feel that if this concept were fully embraced by everyone, our world would be so much better.
I am about halfway done with the book, and I have already learned so much. In one place, the author was talking about what would happen if everyone feared God and not man. He said, "Just imagine what it would be like to truly hate sin, first our own, then the sins of others (Matt. 7:3-5). What would happen to marital fights? They would be almost impossible. Spouses would be too busy listening and asking forgiveness for their own selfishness. What about the little cliques in the school yard? They would be telling good stories about somebody else. What about when someone sins against us? We would no longer have to murder the person in our own heart. Instead, we could cover the sin in humility and love, or we could confront the other person in the same spirit." [Page 114, When People Are Big And God Is Small]
That passage really affected me, because it showed me what the positive effects of this mindset are. It showed me how I can accurately show God to others, and how I can build others up rather than tearing them down. I have done this whole post with only one quote from the book. I think that shows how big this concept is. That quote came from the middle of the book, but I thought it might be a good place to start. The first several chapters of the book talked about how and why we fear people more than God; then, the book transitioned into how we find freedom from this and fear God instead. I will do a couple more posts on this later on, but I hope this helps you!
I am about halfway done with the book, and I have already learned so much. In one place, the author was talking about what would happen if everyone feared God and not man. He said, "Just imagine what it would be like to truly hate sin, first our own, then the sins of others (Matt. 7:3-5). What would happen to marital fights? They would be almost impossible. Spouses would be too busy listening and asking forgiveness for their own selfishness. What about the little cliques in the school yard? They would be telling good stories about somebody else. What about when someone sins against us? We would no longer have to murder the person in our own heart. Instead, we could cover the sin in humility and love, or we could confront the other person in the same spirit." [Page 114, When People Are Big And God Is Small]
That passage really affected me, because it showed me what the positive effects of this mindset are. It showed me how I can accurately show God to others, and how I can build others up rather than tearing them down. I have done this whole post with only one quote from the book. I think that shows how big this concept is. That quote came from the middle of the book, but I thought it might be a good place to start. The first several chapters of the book talked about how and why we fear people more than God; then, the book transitioned into how we find freedom from this and fear God instead. I will do a couple more posts on this later on, but I hope this helps you!
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