When You Have Had Enough Of Fear
Come Back To The Church
And I don’t mean that place down the road with the ignoramus blabbermouth. He and his claque cannot protect you. At this time, they don’t even mean to protect you. Fleece you, perhaps, have you protect them, maybe. But not they protect you. Face it. They can’t protect you and probably wouldn’t if they could even just a little bit. They’re filled with as much fear as you are. More, likely.
How can they help?
They can’t.
I mean the sanctuary of your own heart because that’s where The One Who has no fear lives. Only one who is fearless can protect you. That’s the church to return to. That’s where lives the Battle Leader Soldiers follow fearlessly into hell if need be.
What has fear gotten you? Sarcasm, snark, cynicism, all calling cards of the devil. None satisfying, none able to suppress or remove one iota of fear.
Why did Christianity succeed in Greco-Roman culture when a host of other religions did not. Why did this Son of God make an impression more than did the many others then current? Even on charlatans He did. They saw it, wanted to copy it.
What brought people to Him even when they could not see Him with their eyes or hear Him with their ears? What was the impression He made that brought people to faith in Him as their protector sight-unseen? There was no lack of attractive alternatives, and many pursued them for many years, and repeatedly do through the centuries.
There was an impression unique to this particular Son of God that caused people to trust Him with their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors.
What was it?
They felt in His Story and in people they knew who already trusted Him, sight-unseen, that He was unafraid even of death and had an effect on people of imparting the same fearlessness. Also, He was not ferocious except about things clearly to be ferocious about.
To be fearless but not ferocious, this is a calling card of the divine. This is what makes enough of an impression on people, to make them want to experience and emulate The One making that impression.
The non-ferocious fearlessness of The Christ and Christians made Christianity Greco-Roman culture’s final choice of religion. This power became Slavic culture’s final choice of religion. At its clean-most, the same power of non-ferocious fearlessness made Islam Semitic culture’s final choice of religion.
Jesus of Nazareth and God is fully God and fully Man in this regard. Bathed in His Presence in our hearts we are fearless. Fear makes us forget Him, this truth and its protecting power. Return to the place where He, this truth abides and resides — one’s own heart — and fear abates while protection surges. The refuge of life returns to active duty.
The heart of man is his distinguishing characteristic and mankind’s most reliable refuge or sanctuary, wherein must live, work, and play expansively its proper Occupant, God Himself playing Man, doing the imago dei.
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