Sin Equals Death

          In reading Acts 5 today my thoughts are turned towards the fear of the unbelievers in this chapter.  Fear to the point that they would not even join in the meetings with the believers.

Acts 5:12 The apostles were performing many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers were meeting regularly at the Temple in the area known as Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 But no one else dared to join them, even though all the people had high regard for them.

          To understand this fear though you have to go back to the first part of the chapter with the story of Ananias and Sapphira who lied not only to man, but to God and for this were struck down dead by God.  When the people heard this story of course they are going to be afraid.

          One of the things that was driven into me growing up in the Lutheran church is that above all we should fear God.  As a young boy growing up to fear something was a bad thing and trying to understand a different type of fear was out of the box thinking and something as a young child I could not wrap my head around.  There were a lot of things as a child we would fear like strangers, the boogie man, of course all sorts of monsters from werewolves to zombies, the devil and so on.  So for me to fear God I could not understand if He was so good why was He so bad.

          Now as an adult though I feel that there is not enough fear of God.  We have become somewhat passive in our feelings towards God.  Now this is not fear of the evil things in this world, but a respectful fear.  We should know what God is capable of and that if we do not accept Jesus that we will pay for our sins sooner or later.  So the fear should not be that of a just God, but the payment for our sins.  Since God is also a loving God He has given us a chance through His Son Jesus Christ and it is through Him that our sins have been paid in full.

          Fear is for the unbelievers and rightfully so if they choose to take on the judgment for their sins by themselves.  Saying that however as believers we need to take our salvation to heart each and every day and give God the respect that He more than deserves from us.  If we are not doing that then maybe we should be fearing God instead of being so passive about what we have been given.