One of the battles of the heart is over whom we fear. Do we fear man or do we fear God? Your actions in life will largely depend on whom you fear.
This is the focus of this message. The early followers of Christ were faced with mounting opposition that wanted them to stop proclaiming the name of Jesus. Their response, “We must obey God rather than men.”
The fear of man operates in a couple of ways in our life. One is the fear we have of what people think of us. How much do you worry about your reputation? How much do you worry about impressing people? In contemporary terms, we want to be cool and be liked by people.
The other way the fear of man operates in our life is in the way we fear for our own flesh; our own comforts and pleasures. We fear missing out on the “good” things in life. We fear missing out on travelling, we fear missing out on good food, we fear missing out on fashionable clothing, so on and so forth. That too controls our life.
Now relate this to your relationship with God. Do you think about what He thinks of you? Do you think about your reputation before God? Do you think about pleasing God? If God matters in your life and you answer in the affirmative to these questions, then you have begun to fear the Lord.
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