Hell Has Frozen Over!

Today there is a growing sense of a distant, compartmentalized God.  

This is demonstrated most profoundly as a “thing” or entity least feared.  Said plainly, we don’t really fear God all that much.  I am not talking about the kind of fear you feel when you hear the work cancer or that you are being let go from your job.

I am speaking of the kind of fear we experience when in awe of something overwhelmingly-magnificent.  

It’s the kind of fear people in the Bible like Isiah the profit experienced in a vision, and Moses experience when coming face to face with the majesty and overwhelming power of God’s presence. 

 

Can you imagine being near an alpha-male lion.   You see the beauty of the his golden main, the power of his muscles, and the fright that this magnificent beast could destroy you if so inclined.  That’s what we call reverent holy fear.

In our culture today, I sense a diminishing consequential concern for the holiness of God.  Intimately connected to this fearlessness, is the gravity of the sacred and eternal in our own lives.

Again, said plainly, it’s as if Hell has frozen over!  We no longer have a reverent, holy concern for our spiritual self 

-- our soul. 

This Sunday, I will begin a new series where we will face what I call the least fear – the fear of God and the eternal within us.  Some of us have enough God while others don’t have enough and can’t seem to find God.  

Our culture tells us we can be spiritual in our own way, by ourselves.  However, Jesus says just the opposite – we are a connected body, set aside to serve and worship the awesomeness of God. 

In other words, collectively, we are the bride of Christ – the church.  Only, today the bride is more like a runaway bride, a church that is not gathered in communal worship, ready for Jesus!  How does this trend impact us, our church and our spiritual life?  That’s what we will explore.