Orange Moon Tuesday, November 19, 2024 "Fear and Faith". Part 2 - A Mother and Father's Love

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

"Fear And Faith" 

Part 2 - A Mother and Father's Love

   

      

    My mother illustrates the truth we considered yesterday, namely, that fear and faith unite in a proper relationship to God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

    "Fear God… Trust in the Lord" (I Peter 2:17; Proverbs 3:5).

    Evelyn H. Davis reared me by herself after my father died when I was 2.  No son was ever more loved, and time would fail to tell of the sacrifices she made for me.  Her lovingkindness blessedly abides with me until this day.  However, the woman could wield a switch!  Until she gave up corporal punishment when I grew older, I was scared of my mother.  Her love frightened me.  She scourged me at times (never in any damaging way) because she loved me.  Her discipline did not dominate my relationship with her, but the challenge was always there.  Even after she transitioned from corporal punishment to other means of training, my mother had her ways. I look back on my youth with her in realization that our Heavenly Father taught me vital lessons about Himself long before I came to know Him at the age of 18.

    "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (II Corinthians 1:7).

    "For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons.  For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" (Hebrews 12:6-7).

   The God who so loves to bless His sons and daughters in Christ also loves us enough to hurt us when and as necessary.  We require His discipline, a thing to be feared because of His unwavering devotion to our best interests.  Scripture teaches that the father who withholds chastening does not love his child, but rather hates him (Proverbs 13:24).  This our Heavenly Father will never do.  He perfectly administers both gentleness and firmness in His ongoing determination to conform us to the spiritual and moral image of the Lord Jesus Christ.  No exclusions apply.  Every believer needs the love of God in both administrations, and failure to both rejoice in and fear our Father's devotion means we do not recognize how faithful He is to our hearts.

    I feared my mother's love.  I fear my Father's love.  Looking back, I know that Evelyn H. Davis was a parent to be cherished, but also at times to be dreaded.  She loved me enough to hurt me, as necessary.  Far more, our Heavenly Father perfectly administers His kindness and scourging, as necessary.  He is a God both "greatly to be praised" and "greatly to be feared" (Psalm 48:1; 89:7).  We cannot rightly know and relate to Him apart from both sensibilities guiding our understanding.  A proper Biblical awareness of love as defined by our Lord and His Word will lead us in truth, and in the rejoicing reverence whereby we can ever trust His devotion to our truest need.

"Blessed is the man whom Thou chastenest, o Lord."

(Psalm 94:12)

Weekly Memory Verse

   Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

(I Corinthians 2:12)

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