Michael Oberndorf
The fear of God
By Michael Oberndorf
Christians don't fear God. There is a huge difference between fear and respect for power. It's somewhat analogous to working with a power saw with its hard to see, dangerous blade: if you fear it, you will either end up hurting yourself, or not using it at all. However, if you respect its power, it can become something that can improve the quality of your life in many ways. The same general principle applies to God. If you approach with respect for His infinite power — and being infinite, by definition, His power goes far beyond our ability to understand, much less fully explain — a loving, personal, and beneficial relationship can be established that will give strength and comfort throughout every day of a person's life.
Unfortunately, fear makes love nearly impossible. Instead, it foments anger, bitterness, envy, and hatred in those who experience it. And this is why so many liberals, progressives, and left-wingers are as angry and hate-filled as they are. They have never been able to find God — who, by the way, is not hiding, since He lives in the heart of every one of us — because fear of what they will find has kept them from looking inside themselves. They are envious of religious people, jealous of the comfort and serenity they have, derived from a personal relationship with God. Since they have been unable to experience this, they try to demean it, and they belittle the people who have it as an ongoing part of their lives. And the happier and more serene and content the believers get, the angrier and more bitter the lefties get.
In spite of their best efforts to suppress religion and oppress the 80 percent of the people on Earth who believe in God in one form or another (a third of these are Christians), people refuse to give up what they know in their hearts to be true. Interestingly, other than with Islam which is based on violence and forced conversion — Jihad — the more peaceful and loving a religion, the more brutal and violent the attacks on it by the left. We see it with China, where Christianity is strictly controlled and often persecuted. The Chinese Communist government's suppression of Buddhism in Tibet and their persecution of the Dalai Lama is one of the more egregious examples of this, and also one of the least successful.
In spite of nearly 100 years of suppression of Christianity in Russia, under Lenin, Stalin, and a string of less well-remembered thugs, it is alive and well there. It seems that it's only in America, that former bastion of religious freedom, the Shining City on the Hill, that suppression of Christianity by the left is succeeding. But what needs to be understood is that it is not out of any concerns for the rights of the minority of non-believers that this is being done. It is out of fear, fear of God, fear of the Rights that He has granted us, codified by our Founding Fathers, believers all, in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, fear of the strength and resolve to be and stay free that he gives to us, His modern day believers.
It has been said that Hell is simply existence outside the presence of God. Many who found God after living without Him during their lives will testify to this. Thus, non-believers are indeed suffering the torment of Hell. And while the Christian thing to do is to pity them and try to love them, it is by no means necessary to tolerate their totally unacceptable behavior. As their frustration at their failure to stop us from believing increases, so too will the violence that accompanies their efforts to oppress us. It needs to be pointed out, too, that violence is not just physical, but can be in the form of words, the chosen weapon of the government/union run schools, the entertainment industry, and the Fifth Column media.
On this, the celebration of the birth of Christ over 2000 years ago, we are witness to nearly frantic attempts by the left of suppress Christmas. We are witness, too, to attempts to destroy the God-given rights mentioned earlier — the right to free exercise of religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the right to be secure in our persons, houses, papers and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures; warrantless searches; arrest and unlimited detention without warrants or due process; depravation of life, liberty, and property without due process; depravation of property without just compensation; interference in the affairs of the sovereign states. This is all being done out of fear of We, the People, the vast majority of whom believe in God, the God they fear, with all their hard, shrunken, malformed hearts. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me!
© Michael Oberndorf
December 24, 2012
Christians don't fear God. There is a huge difference between fear and respect for power. It's somewhat analogous to working with a power saw with its hard to see, dangerous blade: if you fear it, you will either end up hurting yourself, or not using it at all. However, if you respect its power, it can become something that can improve the quality of your life in many ways. The same general principle applies to God. If you approach with respect for His infinite power — and being infinite, by definition, His power goes far beyond our ability to understand, much less fully explain — a loving, personal, and beneficial relationship can be established that will give strength and comfort throughout every day of a person's life.
Unfortunately, fear makes love nearly impossible. Instead, it foments anger, bitterness, envy, and hatred in those who experience it. And this is why so many liberals, progressives, and left-wingers are as angry and hate-filled as they are. They have never been able to find God — who, by the way, is not hiding, since He lives in the heart of every one of us — because fear of what they will find has kept them from looking inside themselves. They are envious of religious people, jealous of the comfort and serenity they have, derived from a personal relationship with God. Since they have been unable to experience this, they try to demean it, and they belittle the people who have it as an ongoing part of their lives. And the happier and more serene and content the believers get, the angrier and more bitter the lefties get.
In spite of their best efforts to suppress religion and oppress the 80 percent of the people on Earth who believe in God in one form or another (a third of these are Christians), people refuse to give up what they know in their hearts to be true. Interestingly, other than with Islam which is based on violence and forced conversion — Jihad — the more peaceful and loving a religion, the more brutal and violent the attacks on it by the left. We see it with China, where Christianity is strictly controlled and often persecuted. The Chinese Communist government's suppression of Buddhism in Tibet and their persecution of the Dalai Lama is one of the more egregious examples of this, and also one of the least successful.
In spite of nearly 100 years of suppression of Christianity in Russia, under Lenin, Stalin, and a string of less well-remembered thugs, it is alive and well there. It seems that it's only in America, that former bastion of religious freedom, the Shining City on the Hill, that suppression of Christianity by the left is succeeding. But what needs to be understood is that it is not out of any concerns for the rights of the minority of non-believers that this is being done. It is out of fear, fear of God, fear of the Rights that He has granted us, codified by our Founding Fathers, believers all, in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, fear of the strength and resolve to be and stay free that he gives to us, His modern day believers.
It has been said that Hell is simply existence outside the presence of God. Many who found God after living without Him during their lives will testify to this. Thus, non-believers are indeed suffering the torment of Hell. And while the Christian thing to do is to pity them and try to love them, it is by no means necessary to tolerate their totally unacceptable behavior. As their frustration at their failure to stop us from believing increases, so too will the violence that accompanies their efforts to oppress us. It needs to be pointed out, too, that violence is not just physical, but can be in the form of words, the chosen weapon of the government/union run schools, the entertainment industry, and the Fifth Column media.
On this, the celebration of the birth of Christ over 2000 years ago, we are witness to nearly frantic attempts by the left of suppress Christmas. We are witness, too, to attempts to destroy the God-given rights mentioned earlier — the right to free exercise of religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the right to be secure in our persons, houses, papers and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures; warrantless searches; arrest and unlimited detention without warrants or due process; depravation of life, liberty, and property without due process; depravation of property without just compensation; interference in the affairs of the sovereign states. This is all being done out of fear of We, the People, the vast majority of whom believe in God, the God they fear, with all their hard, shrunken, malformed hearts. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me!
© Michael Oberndorf
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