Fearless
Welcome to my new blog! I blogged for a little over a year at Good & Perfect Gifts, but want to shift my focus and address a wider range of topics. To find out what they are, look for new posts here
twice a week (usually on Tuesdays and Saturdays). Good & Perfect Gifts will stay up for awhile, but I'll no longer be posting there.
It's important to understand that "fearlessly following the Father" is a calling I pursue, not an achievement. In fact, I have struggled with fear in so many forms, I'm practically guaranteed an endless supply of blog fodder. Some of my fears are rational, others are laughable, but I suspect you and I have a few in common.
Fear stems from an insidious deception that denies God's sovereignty and rejects His love. Fear whispers that God is limited and indifferent, that He is unworthy of our trust. Fear convinces us that it's all up to us, and provokes us to frantically push God aside and try in vain to control everything ourselves.
As God has challenged me to lay down my fears and simply walk in faithful obedience, my fears have been exposed as distractions and stumbling blocks. When we discount or second-guess God, we distance ourselves from him and limit our potential.
Do I sometimes tremble? Absolutely. Do I still worry? Too often. Do I need to confess my lack of faith before the throne of God? Almost everyday. However, none of my fears can change the truth of who God is and who I am in Him. Step by step, God is teaching me to fearlessly follow after Him, and I've tasted too much of His faithfulness to turn back now. Will you come with me?
Why Do I Follow?
Because I believe in the One who called me.
I don't remember a time when I didn't believe in God. I wasn’t raised in the church, and my family wasn’t particularly religious, but my mother and grandmother both shared the basic message of the gospel with me at a very early age. My grandmother taught me a few hymns, and she occasionally read her Bible, but my exposure to scripture was limited to a few “popular” verses. For years, the sum of my faith amounted to an acknowledgment of God and the belief that I had somehow gained a ticket to Heaven because Jesus had paid the price for my sins.
I professed faith, but I wasn’t a follower. I believed God was there, but I chose to keep my distance. Knowing little of His character, and mere snippets of scripture, it was easy for me to define God—and what following after Him entailed—based on my skewed perception and rationalizations. In truth, I was a follower of a god I had concocted and a faith of my own design. The consequences of this self-absorbed religion were frustration, foolishness, and futility.
Eventually, I came to the realization that if God is God, then He is who He is, and my individualized interpretation of Him was irrelevant. The only sensible response was to diligently seek after Him. To search the whole of scripture. To draw near to Him in prayer. To humble myself under the teaching of a Bible-believing church. To set aside my own agenda, and trust that His way is best.
The God I follow is exponentially greater than the god I had invented, and the more I seek Him, the more He reveals. I don't claim to know all the answers, but as I’ve learned to surrender my will to His way, I have learned that He is worthy of my trust. Why do I follow? Because I believe God is God.
Led by the Father
For years, one of the greatest stumbling blocks I faced as I tried to follow after God was underestimating my sin, God’s love, and the impact of Christ’s work on the cross.
Despite my best efforts, I knew I could never measure up to the standard of righteousness set forth in scripture. Frankly, sometimes I didn’t even want to. But I figured that was the whole point of Christ’s sacrifice. To provide cover for my sin so that I could gain access to Heaven.
But my sins were more than just broken rules. My sin alienated me from a holy and righteous God, and I was powerless to make things right. And though each offense was an act of rebellion that separated me from Him, God’s love was such that He was not content to leave me there. God intervened to restore what I could not.
Christ’s work on the cross accomplished so much more than forgiveness of my sin and a place in Heaven (though even that was more than I deserved). Christ was not a tragic figure on the stage of human history, but God-made-flesh on a rescue mission. His death and resurrection was a battle fought and won to reconcile me to God.
When He who had no sin bore my sin on the cross, His righteousness and his sonship was credited to me. Forever. Unconditionally. Irrevocably. In Christ, I am more than a flawed individual granted forgiveness. I am a beloved child of God.
So I follow not a distant, detached God, who frowns over my failure to perfectly obey His rules, but a heavenly Father who knows me, loves me, and tenderly leads me along the paths that are best for me. Following after Him is not a matter of slavishly striving in vain to adhere to a list of commands, but submitting to the authority of a wise and loving Father.
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