Fear of man

It wears a mask and presents itself in a subtle way. It appears to be gentle and caring for others, but its root is deadly and its desire is only to draw attention to itself. It causes us to strive and burn out, running this never-ending race of trying to please all around us. In the end, its goal is for us to find our approval and trust in man, rather than in our King.

You know there are days when you just feel like it's time for a proper house cleaning? Not wiping off the cupboards and sorting out the dishes. No, a deep cleaning session, where you have to carry out all the furniture and tackle every surface and corner. That's the way I felt these past few weeks. It was time for a heart check; time for a personal deep cleaning session.

And don't we all come to the table with an expectation? When I asked God to show me areas in my heart that needed some deep cleaning, I had a few things on a list in my head, but He only had one. A question.

"Do you trust Me?"

After that question, I ran off to boil the kettle and just clear my head. "Of course I trust You.." - I wanted to say it, but I couldn't, I knew that if I was honest with myself, there was some doubt in my heart. I find it easy to love Jesus, but trusting Him...

"Where is this coming from, Dad? Why can't I trust You? What is holding me back? I've seen You provide for me in ways I never thought possible, how is it then that I can't seem to trust you with every part of my life?"

Fear of man

Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.

Proverbs 29:25 (NIV)

We fail to recognize the fear of man because it often looks like love, and the problem is that we as human beings, and followers of Christ in general, love to "look loving". We become so accustomed to wanting to serve others, which is what God wants us to do. He wants us to serve others to bring glory to His name and not to receive approval and praise from people.

It's in our nature and our DNA - to love and feel loved. There is only One who can fill that need and it is Jesus. As soon as we feel the love that the world gives, we often mistake it for the real deal and if we step into that snare our focus turns to strive to please others, rather than to please our Father.

Proverbs 29:25 says it so well, those who trust in the Lord will be kept safe from the snare of fear of man.

But how? How can I fully trust God?

For us to trust God, we have to fear Him. To fear God means that I am in awe and wonder of His glory and majesty. To fear Him means that I want to be with Him every single moment because I fear the moment that I am without Him.

The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a person from the snares of death.

Proverbs 14:27 (NIV)

So it is a change in where I put my focus, right? If I'm stressed out at work or with studies, and relationships, is my focus on God the Provider and the Hope or rather on man and what I must do to keep their approval?

“The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.”

– Oswald Chambers

See when we fear God, there is absolutely nothing else that we can possibly fear. If the Creator of the heavens and the earth is on my side, who can be against me?

Who and what is there to fear if my only goal is to please Him? (Romans 8:31)

This is what the Lord says to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people: “Do not call conspiracy everything this people calls a conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread."

Isaiah 8:11-13 (NIV)

“All experiences of the fear of man,” Ed Welch writes, “share at least one common feature: people are big. They have grown to idolatrous proportions in our lives. They control us. Since there is no room in our hearts to worship both God and people, whenever people are big, God is not. Therefore, the first task in escaping the snare of the fear of man is to know that God is awesome and glorious, not other people.”

The funny thing is that when I went through that list, all pointed to fear of man. My prayer is that the bigness of God would expose and quiet the fear of man, and then free us to love, to really love, even to love the people that we tend to fear.

In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise - in God I trust and am not afraid. What can man do to me?

Psalm 56:10-11 (NIV)

Jeremy Riddle - Psalm 63 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bRsw6Iv9P0)