Displaying items by tag: fear of God

Friday, 21 May 2010 03:41

The Fear of the Lord - Part 1

It is my conviction that there are two areas of ministry that lack discipline in the body of Christ. We, as leaders, have either gotten lazy and do not want to


Pastor Chuck Blystone (bio)

follow through with the proper instruction and necessary correction; we do not care whether the members of the body are given the Word in such a way as to live victoriously; or both.

The two areas that have been troubling my heart as of late are immediate correction and discipline and the marriage relationship.

They continued steadfastly (to wait on) in the apostle’s doctrine and fellowship and the breaking of bread and in prayers. Fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles…. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. Acts 2: 42-43, 47.

There is an obvious pattern in the scripture, which ties the fear of the Lord to signs and wonders. When the apostles confronted sin and dealt with it openly, the fear of the Lord came upon the people. Then, the Word says that many signs and wonders were done by the apostles.

When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Acts 5:5

It is also of interest that accompanying signs and wonders was the drawing of souls into the kingdom. So, the fear of the Lord ushers in the signs and wonders, which attracts the lost to the Kingdom of Heaven.

It is my conviction that we cannot allow sin to continue in the body if we want to see the Lord move in signs and wonders, attracting the lost to the kingdom. What I mean by not allowing sin is not tolerating it. We cannot make or force or control people’s actions as to whether they will be obedient to the Word or not. We can, however, conduct ourselves in such a way as to promote right living by rewarding it and punishing wrong living by taking away privileges.

I think that we can deal with sin in a manner that shows compassion and love for the members of the body, but does so in such a way as to not allow any wiggle room for their unrighteousness to prevail. We must be careful to instruct them in righteousness only. There is a blessing in obedience that can only come from heeding diligently to the Word of God.

And Joshua said, Why have you troubled us? The Lord shall trouble you this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones and burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. Joshua 7:25

In Joshua 7: 1-25, Achan (his name means trouble) decided to take some of the spoil from a previous battle when there were explicit instructions to leave everything and take nothing. The scripture says that he hid it in his tent and that, until Joshua determined the source of trouble, the children of Israel could not win any battles that they fought!

When Joshua prayed to the Lord, the Lord told him that there was an accursed thing in their midst and that they were all unclean. The Lord also said that He would not be with them anymore until they cleansed themselves and removed the accursed thing from their midst. He said that they could not stand against their enemies when there was an accursed thing in their midst.

The Lord said that He would take the tribes; and then He would take the families; and then He would take the households; and then He would take man by man. When the man is found with the accursed thing, he was to be burned with fire; he and all that he had. This was done because he transgressed the covenant of the Lord and brought about folly (meaning disgrace and senselessness) to the house of Israel.

The scripture continues to point out here that Joshua obeyed the Lord and caused the family of the Zarhites to pass before him. Then he asked for the household of Zabdi, and Zabdi was taken and then Achan was taken before Joshua. Joshua confronted him in front of the entire nation and said, “…give glory to the Lord and make confession unto Him and do not hide it from me.” When Achan confessed, Joshua sent messengers to his tent to uncover the stolen spoil and they brought it back and laid it before the entire nation. The entire nation took his family, his possessions, his animals and everything that he had and they stoned them and then burned them with fire.

Three things are apparent to me in this portion of scripture: (1) when there is sin tolerated in the body, the Lord looks at the entire body as having sin; (2) we cannot stand before our enemies when we tolerate sin in the body; (3) the Lord removes His Presence from us when there is a tolerance for sin. My definition of tolerating sin is not confronting the sin as the apostles did in the scripture, when we know that the willful practice of sin does, indeed, exist.

And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped and praised the Lord saying, For He is good and His mercy endures forever. II Chronicles 7:3

I am not naïve enough to think that we can have a sinless church, but I do believe that the church can be taught to walk in the fear of the Lord in such a way as to be careful how they live. We can teach an expectation of righteousness and have an atmosphere of no tolerance for overt practice of sin. This, I believe, can cultivate a place where miracles can break out and souls will be saved because sin is dealt with immediately.

Let me also say here that I genuinely love the Body of Christ and, out of this love, comes my passion to see repentance, deliverance, restoration and salvation. But my love and passion for the Body of Christ motivates me to want to see the members walking to their full potential and not listening to any lies of the enemy.

In the next installment, Pastor Chuck will talk about the use of discipline in the church to maintain holiness and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Return, Revelation and Rewards

In honor of Ray Watson leading his first team to Ecuador, for the next 3 days we will be publishing parts of his journal from his trip to Ecuador last May.

PART ONE: RETURN!

I have just returned from Ecuador completing my seventh missions trip with Heart of Titus and wanted to share a little bit of what God accomplished on this trip. July 2009 will mark 2 years since I was there and a lot of changes have occurred. They just reelected their president for a second term and he seems to be proceeding full steam ahead with a very active socialist agenda to bring the people more dependent on government and the programs they will provide.


	Ray Watson writes about his last trip to Ecuador

Other changes include a nationalization of utilities and phone service, trying to change the status of churches from religious organizations to national foundations, and recognition of more liberal rights for gays and lesbians. There is also talk of a conversion of currency from the American dollar to a formation of a new currency between Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela.

All of this, in the natural, paints a pretty dull picture. But to Christians whose true hope is in the Lord, what exciting times we have to look forward to. The return of Jesus is closer than many of us can comprehend.

The growth of our local Heart of Titus group in Ecuador has really expanded and has caught the true vision of what servanthood is all about. Many of them made the late night trip to the airport to greet us and take us to the Christian embassy where we would be staying for most of our trip. The embassy has also changed since my last trip. The facilities are very modern and clean but a bit far out from the center of town area which make coordination of travel and getting to our meetings more difficult. We still managed to accomplish all of our prepared agenda even though at times it didn’t fit our time table, it did fit Gods’.

Once we arrived at the embassy, our translator, Pastor Miguel insisted he must lead us into the national anthem of Ecuador and the USA. I knew I had made the return to a country I had missed and excitement jumped in my heart at the anticipation of the new adventure God was ready to walk with me in and the revelations he was going to bring forth.

NEXT INSTALLMENT: REVELATION!