“The Lord is the strength of those fearing Him and the name of the Lord is to those fearing Him and to those He will make clear His covenant” (Psalm 25:14).
The name of Christian is taken upon themselves by many who have absolutely no fear of the Lord, but they have no strength. The traditional English translation of this passage is that “the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him” and, although this is an incorrect translation, it still has a germ of truth; for the strength of the Lord is a secret strength.
“Who is the man that fears the Lord? He shall instruct him in the way which he has chosen” (Psalm 25:12).
Here too, the fear of the Lord opens up a man to receive God’s instruction as to the way he should go. God’s desire has always been that His people should know His ways. His ways cannot be known by scholarship, but only by surrender. “He showed His ways to Moses” but He only showed His acts to His rebellious people; they did not know His ways and so could not please God by walking in them.
“You have dwelt long enough in this mount” said the Lord (Deuteronomy 1:6). “Behold I have set the land before you; go in and possess it” (Deuteronomy 1:8).
We need to get going and get in touch with what we are called to do, which is that which is pleasing to God. Christianity has become a place of comfort and refuge; we sit still in our religious hiding places so as to escape the temptation that is in the world, but that is a greater risk than being in the world itself. We are called to stand, not sit, and to walk, not sit. Religious complacency is the implacable enemy of those called to walk with Christ Jesus.
Religious belief is the enemy of true faith. A religious belief has a foundation based on the logos and is unchanging. Religious believers gather together with other believers of the same ilk. They are surrounded by a sameness of religious opinion and thought so that what is believed is believed by everyone; they know all that there is to know. This brings comfort but it shuts the gate to revelation. Religion hardens a doctrine into a formula and the formula allows the life to accommodate worldliness and the flesh; indeed, it covers up
True faith, on the other hand, knows that what it knows is never all there is; true faith drives the believer ever forward on a path of seeking more and more wisdom and understanding from God by way of divine revelation from the Holy Spirit. True faith is not satisfied with the logos, but hungers for the rhema and will keep seeking for the rhema.
True faith unites; religious faith divides.
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