Thursday, November 11, 2021

Fear what?

Last night in our ConnectGroup, we discussed the emotions of Jesus.   There are references in the Bible to Jesus feeling the emotions of happiness, sadness, anger and compassion.   The author of the book we are reading, Knowing Christ, did not mention the emotion of fear.   So while we could think of no direct mention of Jesus being fearful, we have to suspect that Jesus, being fully human, experienced fear.  But Jesus told us to "fear not", so is fear a sin?  We believe the emotion of fear is not a sin, but our response to it can be.  It is right for us to fear an approaching train as our car is stalled on the railroad track.   We should do something.   But our response to fear can often be sin.  If we don't do the hard things we know we should do out of fear, that is a sin.  The Bible also tells us to fear God, but for a believer, fearing God means to have a healthy reverence for his power and strength.   We can't fully surrender to Him without that.  That reverence for Him should push us towards Him when we are feeling fearful.

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