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Christians are meant to have the ease that comes from consistency between our inner lives and our exterior words and actions. There are several extremes that we are meant to avoid, the first being hypocrisy. Christianity is not merely a facade to conceal our sinful priorities from other people. Rather, our hearts are supposed to be in the state of constant renewal by the Holy Spirit, helping us to want what God wants. This means we can actually have some consistency between what is inside us and how we act before eyes. We recognize that we are not perfect, but no longer need to conceal this as a dark secret, since it is not a part of ourselves that we are trying to cultivate or protect. We can be open and transparent about our liabilities while trying to live more like Christ day to day.
There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
Our hidden lives will eventually be made manifest. So we should work on removing those things that embarrass us now rather than later. At the same time, we must not keep the genuine good of the Gospel hidden in our hearts. We must be willing to speak it in the light and proclaim it on the housetops. We may mask our sinful behavior because we fear to look bad. But we may hide the treasure of the Gospel from others because we fear the consequences. However, when allow that kind of fear to immobilize us it means we have things precisely backwards, fearing the wrong things too much, and not fearing the right things enough. Therefore Jesus gives us a helpful corrective.
I tell you, my friends,
do not be afraid of those who kill the body
but after that can do no more.
God's priorities matter more than any worldly consequences we might experience. It isn't that he wants to cast anyone into Gehenna. He cares about us far more than many sparrows, and has numbered all the hairs of our heads. This is why he wants us to share his priority of ensuring that no one has to experience that place of eternal fire. We fear God in the sense that we know that he isn't messing around, that he will allow people to make such a choice if they insist on it. And so our reverence for him extends to the choice he has set before humanity. He is too good, too worthy, too generous to offend, to oppose, and to reject. But such rejection is a terrible possibility. Our fear actually helps us to remember and rely on his overwhelming goodness lest we squander it through our own bad decisions.
Our holy fear helps us to remember our dependence on God. When we do remember it we basically cannot fail and need fear nothing else on earth or in the evens. In him we were chosen and sealed. We have already tasted the first installment of what will one day by our eternal inheritance. Rather than living to indulge ourselves as hypocrites, or hiding from our mission as Christians, we are meant to exist, as Paul wrote, "for the praise of his glory". May it be so.
There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
Our hidden lives will eventually be made manifest. So we should work on removing those things that embarrass us now rather than later. At the same time, we must not keep the genuine good of the Gospel hidden in our hearts. We must be willing to speak it in the light and proclaim it on the housetops. We may mask our sinful behavior because we fear to look bad. But we may hide the treasure of the Gospel from others because we fear the consequences. However, when allow that kind of fear to immobilize us it means we have things precisely backwards, fearing the wrong things too much, and not fearing the right things enough. Therefore Jesus gives us a helpful corrective.
I tell you, my friends,
do not be afraid of those who kill the body
but after that can do no more.
God's priorities matter more than any worldly consequences we might experience. It isn't that he wants to cast anyone into Gehenna. He cares about us far more than many sparrows, and has numbered all the hairs of our heads. This is why he wants us to share his priority of ensuring that no one has to experience that place of eternal fire. We fear God in the sense that we know that he isn't messing around, that he will allow people to make such a choice if they insist on it. And so our reverence for him extends to the choice he has set before humanity. He is too good, too worthy, too generous to offend, to oppose, and to reject. But such rejection is a terrible possibility. Our fear actually helps us to remember and rely on his overwhelming goodness lest we squander it through our own bad decisions.
Our holy fear helps us to remember our dependence on God. When we do remember it we basically cannot fail and need fear nothing else on earth or in the evens. In him we were chosen and sealed. We have already tasted the first installment of what will one day by our eternal inheritance. Rather than living to indulge ourselves as hypocrites, or hiding from our mission as Christians, we are meant to exist, as Paul wrote, "for the praise of his glory". May it be so.
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