Sirach 2:7-9 “Fear the Lord. His mercy is never far away. Don't wander off and get lost. Fear the Lord, but believe in him; your reward is safe with him. Fear the Lord, but look on the bright side; there'll be blessings and mercies galore. You who fear the Lord, love him. He'll light your candles.” Today's scripture gives us some insight into wisdom and what we should be doing if we want to serve the Lord. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Wisdom For Beginners (Part 4)
Sirach 2:7-9 “Fear the Lord. His mercy is never far away. Don't wander off and get lost. Fear the Lord, but believe in him; your reward is safe with him. Fear the Lord, but look on the bright side; there'll be blessings and mercies galore. You who fear the Lord, love him. He'll light your candles.”
This is a continuation of the section called Wisdom for Beginners in Sirach. I was going to do this verse yesterday, and then I felt prompted to use the line right before this and talk about the various ways the Lord is speaking to all of us. I hope you will spend some time this week talking with the Lord and listening to what He has to say to you. Today I want to talk to you about fearing the Lord. Do you know what that means?
I was confused for a long time because I didn’t fear the Lord, and I didn't want to. He is my father, why would I fear Him? Why is the Bible telling me to fear Him? It didn’t make any sense to me. However, when I joined the Charismatic prayer group, they did a teaching on this one day, and I have talked about it several times since then. Fear of the Lord means having awe in the Lord. We are in awe because of who He is and what He does. When I googled what “fear the Lord” means, one of the things that came up said that “Fear of the Lord” is a virtue that results in humble, loving obedience to God because of who he is. That sounds pretty good, too!
When the verse above is talking about fearing the Lord, it is talking about having awe and reverence for God. It is not talking about actually being afraid of Him. We don’t have any reason to be afraid of God, and that is not what God would want either. However, we have plenty of reasons to be in awe of God and the amazing things He does every single day!
The verse above starts out by saying, “Fear the Lord. His mercy is never far away.” I wish everyone knew this. God’s mercy is never far from you. I know AI had it’s downsides, but I am loving its ability to search the whole internet and answer a question in just a few seconds. Here is what it says about God’s mercy “God's mercy is God's compassionate and loving nature to act on behalf of those in need, even when they may not deserve it. The Bible describes God's mercy in many ways, including: God withholds punishment that people deserve for their sins. God provides what people need, such as food, forgiveness, and discipline. God shows mercy by healing and comforting those who are suffering. God's greatest example of mercy is sacrificing his son, Jesus Christ, on the cross to pay the price for people's sins. Could you use some of God’s mercy today? It is right there, ready for you to come to the Lord and ask.
Next, the verse says, “Don’t wander off and get lost.” I love this because it is such a good reminder. Don’t we just love to wander off and get lost? We like to go down all these random paths even though we don’t know where they lead. We might follow this new idea or that one. Maybe something gets our attention and we don’t think it will lead us away from the Lord and then before we know we are lost and need to find our way back. It’s always nice to have the reminder to not wander off.
Next, it says, “Fear the Lord, but believe in him; your reward is safe with him.” In another version, it says, “Your reward will not be lost.” We can trust the Lord with everything. We can trust that what we are not rewarded for in this lifetime will be in the next. We can trust that God sees everything. He knows all that we are doing, even the things we think no one saw. He knows how hard you are working. He knows how much you are struggling. He saw you help that person who was in need. He sees you and your reward is safe with Him. We can trust Him!
Next, the verse says, “Fear the Lord, but look on the bright side; there'll be blessings and mercies galore.” The Lord has so many blessings in store for us. He has so much mercy for us. God is always telling our prayer group that He has so much more for us, but we are not asking. So, maybe a part of wisdom is asking the Lord for what you need. I talked with someone last night who said he has so many areas in his life where he could use the Lord’s help, and yet He just isn’t asking Him. This is all of us. We know the Lord can help us, and yet we figure He will just jump right in whenever He wants to.
From what I have learned about the Lord, this is not the case. He waits for us to invite Him into a situation before He will jump in and take care of it. If you want to do things on your own, the Lord will let you. Would it be easier and quicker if we asked for help, absolutely! Would we feel better if we asked for help, yup! And yet, for some reason, we don’t. It is the same with God’s blessings and mercies. We don’t ask for them because we don’t want to bother God. He is busy and has much more important things to do. It may also be that we think we don’t deserve His mercy or His grace. There are so many others out there that are more deserving. This is bogus. We deserve His mercy and grace just as much as anyone else does. Also, saying we don’t want to bother God because He is busy with more important things, is saying that there is a limit to God’s power. When we are doing this, we are saying that God can’t take care of everything at the same time, and this is not true. God can be there for you 100% and also for everyone else. He is not bound by the same limitations we are. God has no limitations. Remember this line, there are blessings and mercies galore. Are you asking the Lord for any?
The verse ends with, “You who fear the Lord, love him. He'll light your candles.” We need to love the Lord. It is not enough to just be in awe of Him; we need to love Him with our whole hearts, mind, and soul. This is the greatest commandment. Are we doing it? Are we loving Him? Are we in Love with Him? This can be a hard concept if we have had a complicated relationship with love in the past. It can be hard if we really don’t know how to love. However, if we desire to love God we can ask Him to show us how to love as His love is perfect love.
I also like that the verse ends with “He will light your candles.” I love this! He will light our candles. He will light the spark inside of us that longs to share Him with others. He will light the path for us to follow. He will light our candles so we can be a light to the rest of the world. If you feel like your candle has been blown out, ask the Lord to relight it. He will light our candles, all we need to do is ask. To me, that is amazing! I love the image of him lighting my candle, and then I use my candle to light the next person’s candle, and so on. God is so good! He never leaves us wanting.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode. Lord, you are amazing, and we are so grateful for your blessings and mercy. We are sorry for all the times we should have come to you, but we didn’t. We love you, and we ask that you help us turn to you each and every day. We ask you to help us ask you for your blessings and mercy, Lord. We ask that you help us to develop a stronger “Fear of the Lord.” We ask that you help each one of us understand what that means to us. You are amazing, and we love you so much!! We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus! Retreat is this weekend, so please keep me and those joining me in your prayers. Mentoring is tonight! If you would like to join in, the theme for this month is Dark Night of the Soul. You can email me at catherine@findingtruenorthcoaching.com if you would like to join us tonight. Have a blessed day, and may the grace and favor of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in April 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “My children, you are here to please me, not the world. Fear not what the world says about you. All that counts is what I think of you, my children. Spread my love, spread my joy, spread my values, walk in righteousness, and I will bless you all the days of your life.”