Come on… Fear the Lord? Who has time to fear the Lord? There are real things to worry about. I am to busy worrying about my job, how much money I have, how I am going to eat, my possessions, a new computer, how I look, how much I weigh, how I wish I had a family, how I wish I had a new car, how frustrated I am with people, what I am going to do on the weekend (by the way I could of taken a few more pages with my fears, but I figured you got the point) etc. etc. etc.

Maybe that is one of my problems… I am to busy lost in my petty little fears to realize who God is.

“Hear this, O foolish and senseless people,
who have eyes, but see not,
who have ears, but hear not.
Do you not fear me? declares the LORD.
Do you not tremble before me?
I placed the sand as the boundary for the sea,
a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass;
though the waves toss, they cannot prevail;
though they roar, they cannot pass over it.
But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart;
they have turned aside and gone away.
They do not say in their hearts,
‘Let us fear the LORD our God,
who gives the rain in its season,
the autumn rain and the spring rain,
and keeps for us
the weeks appointed for the harvest.’
Your iniquities have turned these away,
and your sins have kept good from you.

(Jeremiah 5:21-25 ESV)

In Jeremiah God is preparing to show the people judgment for their sin.

Do we dare look at who God is? God is the God of justice and the God of righteousness and the God of Love. Knowing how much we deserve God’s wrath for our sin and how much we deserve punishment and Hell, do we ever tremble when we read verses like these?

““For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
(John 3:16-17 ESV)

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
(Romans 8:28 ESV)

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
(Romans 8:35-39 ESV)

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
(Jeremiah 29:11 ESV)

““Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.””
(Exodus 14:13-14 ESV)

“Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication.”
(Micah 7:8-9 ESVS)

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
(Isaiah 41:10 ESV)

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
(Philippians 1:6 ESV)

““Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’”
(Matthew 6:25-31 ESV)

This is the God who spoke the world in to existence, this is the God who contained the Red Sea and drown the Egyptians. This is the God who day in and day out holds together the world preventing it from falling into chaos. I don’t believe God does anything casually. He didn’t decide on a whim to even at the beginning of time to decide to save us. God made a deliberate choice to love us, to take care of us, to give His Son to take our place and to take His wrath. His wrath is terrifying and yet I find it is His LOVE more than anything else that drives me to my knees and am driven to my knees trembling in fearful reverential, prayerful worship towards the Lord.

“Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies.”
B. B. Warfield (from a story he was telling about D.L. Moody)

“I believe that prayer is the measure of the man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face.“
J. I. Packer

He loves thee too little, who loves anything together with thee, which he loves not for thy sake. – Augustine

How the Early Christians pray for Everything for Joy

The early Christains called on God:

•    To exalt his name in the world.
•    To extend his kingdom in the world.
•    For the fullness of Holy Spirit
•    To save unbelievers
•    For healing
•    For Strategic wisdom
•    For unity and harmony in the ranks
•    To help them know HIM better
•    Comprehend the love of Christ
•    For a deeper sense of assured hope
•    For strength and endurance
•    For their faith to be preserved
•    That they might not fall into temptation
•    To complete their resolves and enable them to do good works
•    For forgiveness for their sins
•    For protection from the evil one.

How I Approach God When Feeling Rotten

November 17, 2008  |  By: John Piper

A vague bad feeling that you are a crummy person is not the same as conviction for sin. Feeling rotten is not the same as repentance.

This morning I began to pray, and felt unworthy to be talking to the Creator of the universe. It was a vague sense of unworthiness. So I told him so. Now what?

Nothing changed until I began to get specific about my sins. Crummy feelings can be useful if they lead to conviction for sins. Vague feelings of being a bad person are not very helpful. The fog of unworthiness needs to take shape into clear dark pillars of disobedience. Then you can point to them and repent and ask for forgiveness and take aim to blow them up.

So I began to call to mind the commands I frequently break. These are the ones that came to mind.

• Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Not 95%, 100%. (Matthew 22:37)
• Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Be as eager for things to go well for him as you are for things to go well for you. (Matthew 22:39)
• Do all things without grumbling. No grumbling—inside or outside. (Philippians 2:14)
• Cast all your anxieties on him—so you are not being weighed down by it anymore. (1 Peter 5:7)
• Only say things that give grace to others—especially those closest to you. (Ephesians 4:29)
• Redeem the time. Don’t fritter or dawdle. (Ephesians 5:16)
• Set your mind on things that are above. Connect all your thoughts to Christ. (Colossians 3:2)
• Do not return evil for evil—like when your wife or daughter says something you don’t like. (1 Thessalonians 5:15)
• Rejoice always, and again I say rejoice. Always. If sorrowful, keep rejoicing. (Philippians 4:4; 2 Corinthians 6:10)
• Give thanks in all circumstances. All. All. All. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

So much for any pretensions to great holiness! I’m undone.

But now it is specific. I look it in the eye. I’m not whining about feeling crummy. I’m apologizing to Christ for not keeping all that he commanded. I’m broken and I’m angry at my sin. I want to kill it, not me. I’m not suicidal. I’m a sin hater and a sin murderer (“Put to death what is earthly in you” Colossians 3:5. “Put to death the deeds of the body” Romans 3:18.)

In this conflict, I hear the promise, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1John 1:9). Peace rises. Prayer feels possible and right and powerful again.

A—I admit, O Lord, that I can do nothing of any lasting value.

P—I pray for self forgetfulness, for fullness of the Holy Spirit, for love, for humility, for passion, for zeal, for prophetic utterance that may come to my mind while I am preaching so that I can say things that I hadn’t prepared that might penetrate where nothing else would.

T—I trust a particular promise from the Lord that I have found in my devotions early in the morning. So today I read Deborah’s song in Judges 5 as well as Psalm 84 between 6:30 and 7:00 this morning, and pointed out a verse to Mark as we were sitting there. “Oh my soul, ride on in strength.” That was my word this morning.

The Lord gave a word from his Word this morning: “Ride on in strength.” So I take that. That’s my T: trust. So as I am walking up, I am saying, “This is your work. It has come. Don’t leave me here. You have got to do something here. I am counting on you.”

And he is saying, “I got this under control.” He is God.

A—Then you act. You have got to do it. It is your hands that are moving. It is your voice that is moving. You have got to do this. Walking by the Spirit, putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, bearing the fruits of the Spirit is a mystery. “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10, ESV). That is the mystery. So sermon preparation is: You put out when you are preparing and when you are preaching. You put out, but if you have prayed and done APTAT and God is merciful, you won’t be putting out. He will be putting out.

T—Thank God. And when you have acted and you go sit down, you thank him. He is going to do, and is doing what he is going to do, and he regularly does more than you think he does.

From an article/interview of John Piper about sermon prep.

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