My Fear of God

This mornings discussion with my husband combined with my time in the Word today left me pretty overwhelmed. I can't explain a God who commands His people to wipe out entire nations, man, woman and child from the face of the earth and who then punishes those who do not follow His instructions to the very last detail. How to I tell people what a loving God I have when they bring this up.... a God who says there is no one good left on the earth except for you Noah, so I am going to destroy them all. How do I justify that?

Well, I think that's it. God doesn't need me to justify Him, but to know Him more, to seek Him more, to trust Him more. He IS just and righteous. That is who He is! He created the world and everything in it. The world is His, the moon and the stars are His also. He loves the world!

As I read in Psalm 7 today, I see God more clearly through Davids heart and cry. 

"O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.
O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, 
if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, 
let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust." Psalm 7: 1-5

David understood and loved this God of Justice to the extent that he would call out to God to take his life if he were found guilty.

"Arise, O Lord, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;
awake for me; you have appointed a judgment. Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high." vs  6-7

David understood that sin and evil angered God. Does it anger and grieve me the way it angers and grieves God?

"The Lord judges the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.
Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous—you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God! 
My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.
God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day." vs 8-11

God is a righteous judge. He weighs our lives and actions according to our righteousness. Standing with Christ I am completely covered. God sees a covering of perfection when He looks at me and sees who I am with. Do I like David cry out for God to search my heart or would I rather stay hidden, those things which I know are unrighteous and filthy before the Lord? Integrity is important.

"If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts. Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. 
He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends." vs 12-16

Sin in no less serious now than it was in the times before Christ came and God wiped out evil through wars and the destruction of entire families, man women and child from the face of the earth. The only difference now is that Jesus bridges the gap. #Grace Is Essential. Same God today and forever....completely just, completely fair, so completely full of Grace and Mercy that He would send His son to be the remedy for our sinfulness and lack of righteousness. The sacrificial blood of Jesus is the righteous cover that we need to stand before a Holy God. 

Once I start to understand, even a small bit, of what real holiness is, I can then begin to grasp how I myself would crumble in the presence of His holiness, a Holy God, Perfection, righteousness, God... and then understanding my unending desperate need for a savior, Christ. Without Him I crumble, without Him I can't even dare to stand and open my eyes in the presence of my God who created all. 

So like David, this holy, just and righteous judge, who we stand before with fear and trembling, my God who made a way to bridge the gap so that I could stand before him with NO condemnation because I am in Christ Jesus....and because God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son that ANYONE who believes in Him will NOT perish, but  have eternal life....Like David, it causes me to praise Him and thank Him. 

My words can't express the deepness and gratitude that I have for living this life for him and looking forward and upward to being called home and spending eternity in His presence. My God made a way for ALL... So I say, like David did.....

"I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness,
and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High." vs 17

This song and declaration is my heart today.