Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 “ Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” This episode talks about what it means to Fear God and how important it is to repent for our sins. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Fear God, What Does That Mean?
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 “ Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”
What stood out to me the most is Fear God and keep his commandments. I was always confused with this before. I didn’t understand what Fear God meant. He is a loving God, why do we have to fear Him? I am not afraid of God, so does that mean I don’t fear Him? Then it was explained to me one day. Fear God doesn’t mean that you are afraid of Him. It does mean that you have a reverence for Him. It means that you have a deep respect for Him and all that He is capable of doing. It means that you stop and think twice before doing something that He has asked you not to do. You think twice not because you are scared of the consequences, although that may be part of it, but mostly it is because you don’t want to do anything to offend or hurt Him. You don’t want to fracture your relationship with Him.
In the Catholic Church, when we go to confession we end our confession with the Act of Contrition Prayer. It goes as follows: “My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do what is good, I have sinned against You whom I should love above all things, I firmly intend, with Your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.” I really like this prayer because it helps me see why sin is so wrong. It is me choosing to do what is wrong and failing to do what is good. It also reminds me that I sinned agains my heavenly Father, whom I should love above all things. However, I obviously forgot that when I sinned. I was not showing God that I loved Him above all things when I choose to do the thing that I did.
For instance, maybe I watched TV instead of praying yesterday, so, which thing did I love more? Maybe I decided to buy a new shirt instead of giving my tithing to the Church this week. Did I love God or new clothes more? Maybe I didn’t even go to church because I wanted to do something else instead. Was I choosing God first, or something else? I like this prayer because it spells out what sin is and it helps me to own it. I say I would do anything for the Lord, just ask and I will do it. And yet, when it comes to things He asks everyone to do I sometimes struggle. I don’t always want to go to mass. Actually lately, the enemy has really been trying to convince me not to go. Which, by the way, is how I know it is so important to go. God is so great. He knows the enemy is making it seem like it is not important to go to mass, and so God is making sure that I am hearing from Father Mike on the Bible in a Year Podcast how important it really is and why it is so important that we worship the Lord in the way that He asked us to, not the way we want to.
Another reason I really like the Act of Contrition prayer is because it ends with “I firmly intend, with Your help, to do penance, to sin no more and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.” There is a lot in that one sentence. First, I love that it acknowledges that we can’t do it alone. We need the Lord to help us. We are a broken people and the only way we can resist sin is through the grace of God. This is a fact that we can’t get away from and the sooner we realize we need God’s help the sooner we can ask Him for it.
Next, it says that we intend to do penance. This is an important part of the repenting process. Even if you are not Catholic and so you do not go to a priest to repent, what are you going to do to make it up to the Lord. Yes, Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t make it up to the Lord when we sin against Him. As Catholics, we have a priest that hears out sins, forgives us on Jesus’ behalf and then gives us a penance. If you are not going to a priest then come up with your own penance. It doesn’t have to be anything drastic. What is something you can do to make it up to the Lord? For instance, can you spend a few extra minutes in prayer this week? Can you attend a daily mass to make up for the other mass you missed? I don’t know what it is that you are repenting for, but you do, and you can come up with a penance. If you don’t know, ask the Lord, He will be happy to tell you.
Finally, at the end it says, I intend to sin no more and to avoid whatever leads me to sin. Wow, that one can get right by us if we don’t pay attention to it, so I will say it again. I intend to avoid whatever leads me to sin. What does this mean? This means that I won’t tempt myself. If I know that I have a tendency to watch TV instead of doing my prayer time, then I will do my prayer time before I even turn the TV on so that I can avoid that which leads me to sin. If I know that I can’t resist a drink and when I drink I get drunk and do things I shouldn’t, then avoiding whatever leads me to sin would be not going to the bar, or not being around alcohol. If I know I tend to be a glutton when it comes to eating sweets and junk food then avoiding what leads me to sin would mean I don’t buy that stuff to have in the house. This last line means you stay away from things that lead you to sin. We all think that our will power is greater than it really is. However, even if we do have a great will power, why put ourselves in a position where we have to choose between God and anything else.
Before ending for the day I want to point out the last line of the verse above. It says, "For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” Whether you are Catholic or not, God will bring all that we do into judgement. It says every hidden thing. Sometimes we don’t want to confess something, or bring something to God because we are embarrassed and we don’t want to bring that thing into the light. God already knows about it. There is nothing that we can do that God doesn’t know about. We do not have to be ashamed of anything with the Lord. He is our loving Father and He is ready to welcome us back with open arms if we just confess it to Him and ask for His forgiveness. The one that wants you to keep your secrets hidden is the enemy. He knows that if he can convince you that God won’t forgive you, or that you shouldn’t tell anyone and just keep it hidden, then it will continue to eat you up inside. The enemy knows this and he loves this. You see, our secrets only have power when they are in the dark. As soon as you bring them into the light, they loose their power over us.
I feel strongly that some of you listening to this have some secrets or some things that you have hidden away. God wants you to know that it is ok to bring them to Him. He has already forgiven you, and when you bring them to Him and lay them at His feet then you can start to forgive yourself. He wants me to tell you that it is not your fault He knows that. He just wants you to know and believe that as well. I am not sure who that was for this morning, however, I felt god had that message for someone in particular today.
God loves each and every one of you listening today. If you have anything weighing on your conscious try to get to confession. If you are not Catholic, or don’t believe in going to a priest for confession, just take a few minutes and repent to the Lord for whatever is weighing on you. He is ready to forgive, He just wants you to say the words. Can you do that today?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we thank you for being so forgiving. We ask that if we have done something to hurt our relationship with you, you put it on our hearts to repent. Lord, we love you and we fear you. We don’t want to do anything to damage our relationship with you. Please give us the grace we need to sin no more and to even avoid the near occasion of sin. Lord, help us not put ourselves in a situation where we might be lead to sin. When we do sin, help us not to keep it hidden. Help us bring it into the light where the enemy can’t use it against us. We love you Lord, you are so amazing. Your wilingness to forgive is truly awesome. We are so grateful and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day!