Journey to Pentecost

May 14, 2010     Mark 16.8

Fear holds far too many people hostage.  Fear doesn’t manifest itself with automatic weapons and hand grenades.  Fear doesn’t show up with weapons pointed at us.  Fear abides in the secret corridors of all human beings.  Fear is there.  It is masked.  It is well hidden.  It is disguised.  It lies just under the veneer of a thin layer of self-confidence that usually struts its stuff like a rooster in a barnyard.  Fear is there and for some reason the most dangerous level of fear is that fear which inhibits our testimony of Christ.  I haven’t figured it out yet but as you might expect – I have some assumptions.

I believe fear peers out of the heart of man when we don’t want others to know we have a pseudo relationship with Christ.  For whatever reason.  While people who have a genuine relationship with Christ aren’t afraid to let it be known – there are those who hesitate to let anyone know.  If others know we have a fake relationship with Jesus then it would demand certain behavior patterns from us that we aren’t willing to display.  So, we keep it a secret.  We hide it out of fear.  Whatever “it” is because Jesus plainly taught that if you are ashamed of Him He would be ashamed of you (Luke 9.26).  So is there any validity to a pseudo relationship with Jesus?  I think not.  Fear disabled any resemblance of a relationship.

Fear shows up when we don’t want to fail or be rejected.  Fear.  It can paralyze the best of intentions in us.  We fear failing.  We fear someone turning their back on us.  We fear humiliation of failure.  We fear what others will say about our well-intentioned attempts to share Christ.  We live in one of the most critical generations ever.   The generation for the most part that is under thirty years of age is extremely critical and rarely complimentary.  We fear the judgment of others.  We fear the criticism of a generation that holds most everybody at some level of contempt for some stupid unjustifiable reason.  So the testimony we hold within our heart is paralyzed.  The lost, the lonely, the unsaved never hear our testimony because it has been handcuffed by fear.

Satan wins far too many victories because of fear.  It is the sharpest weapon in his arsenal.  He never fires a shot.  He never picks up a sword.  He uses less fiery darts.  He throws out fewer traps.  Why?  Why should he use any weapon but the one that works so well for him?  Why waste his time?  Why waste his energy?  He sits in hades and commands his troops to release the spirit of fear.    He sits back and watches the body of Christ shut down and become mute. 

On this journey to Pentecost Satan uses fear to inhibit any progress on the part of the Body of Christ pursuing the promise of Christ.  We fear speaking in tongues.  We fear it being a real experience.  We fear the necessity of the gift.  We fear the history of the gift.  We fear the practice of the gift.  We fear….whatever.  We are held hostage by fear.  We have heard the positive and negative.  We have allowed others to develop our opinion of the gift.  We have allowed others to convince us we don’t need the gift.  We have accepted a truck load of excuses for not pursuing the personal experience of the fullness of the Spirit and most of them have roots in fear. 

I challenge you again on this journey to Pentecost to read the “Book.”  Read Acts chapters one and two.  Read these chapters and put yourself in the arena of faith to receive.  Take the spirit of fear and give it one way ticket out of your heart.  Believe and receive.  Jesus didn’t make the reception of this gift difficult.  We make it difficult and we do so by dressing our intentions of reception with fear.  Those intentions suddenly become frozen and paralyzed.  We distance ourselves from the reality of the experience.

Hungry people seek food and thirsty people seek out water.  Jesus explained that if we seek out of truth we will receive and taught this in relationship to the Holy Spirit (Luke 11.8-12).  Do you really think God would tease us with the offering of such a gift?  Do you think the Father would tease us with such a promise by the New Testament manifestations of the gift?  Only a cruel Father would offer such a gift, prove the gift by ongoing perpetual manifestations of the gift and then somehow cease giving the gift to the church.  My heavenly Father is not a cruel Father.  The cruel one is the father of the spirit of fear.   Put fear where it belongs.  Take authority over fear and pursue the gift.  The gift is yours for the asking.  Really.  There is nothing to be afraid of.