Arriving Before Departing        
    
   What are we afraid of? 
       
   Spiders? Snakes? What others think? Falling leaves? 😏
   
   On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you fear "bad guys." 

   The world - terrorists, politicians or certain advertisers - manipulates us with fear...the key to our obedience.  

   A friend asked the Clemson football coach if he feared going undefeated and still be left out of the playoffs. The coach, a believer, answered, "If we fear what we can't control, that which we can't control will control us." 

   Okay. What about it?   

   Jesus addressed his disciples, who had not yet "arrived:" Don't fear those who can kill you, he said. (Matthew 10). 

   We get it. God is omniscient and omnipotent.   

   Jesus told the men who to fear: God, who can send body and soul to a terrible eternity in hell. We don't know how to both love and fear God. What we rightly fear is that He will do what He said He will do to the unsaved. 
  
   True believers can never be separated from God (Romans 8). Jesus told them not to be afraid of those who can kill those who belong to him. That's totally counter to human inclination. 

   But the Lord calls us to shed this inclination and grow in faith and trust. Jesus himself set an example; many have followed him into suffering and death to this very hour. They arrived spiritually before they departed (for their great reward).  

   Where now are you on the scale? Whom shall we fear? (Psalm 27)

Adapted from a devotional

         Jimmy