NOTICE: The following
article is written by the author itself and not by me, I am not trying to
violate their copyright. I will give some information on them.
PAGE TITLE: http://www.breakpoint.org/bp-home
ARTICLE TITLE: The Fear of the Lord
DATE: Monday 25 March 2013
AUTHOR: Chuck Colson
AUTHOR
INFORMATION: Charles "Chuck" Wendell Colson (October 16,
1931 – April 21, 2012) was a Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon
from 1969 to 1973, and later a noted Evangelical Christian leader and cultural
commentator.
Once known as President Nixon's "hatchet
man," Colson gained notoriety at the height of the Watergate scandal, for
being named as one of the Watergate Seven, and pleaded guilty to obstruction of
justice for attempting to defame Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg. In
1974, he served seven months in the federal Maxwell Prison in Alabama as the
first member of the Nixon administration to be incarcerated for
Watergate-related charges.
Colson became a Christian in 1973. His
mid-life conversion to Christianity sparked a radical life change that led to the
founding of his non-profit ministry Prison Fellowship and to a focus on
Christian worldview teaching and training. Colson was also a public speaker and
the author of more than 30 books. He was the founder and chairman of The Chuck
Colson Center for Christian Worldview, which is "a research, study, and
networking center for growing in a Christian worldview", and while he was
alive included Colson's daily radio commentary, BreakPoint, which was heard in
its original format on more than 1,400 outlets across the United States.
Colson received 15 honorary doctorates, and
in 1993 was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, the world's
largest annual award (over US$1 million) in the field of religion, given
to a person who "has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's
spiritual dimension". He donated this prize to further the work of Prison
Fellowship, as he did all his speaking fees and royalties. In 2008, he was
awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President George W. Bush.
URL: http://www.breakpoint.org/the-center/columns/colson-files/19459-the-fear-of-the-lord-
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Chuck Colson
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The story of Rusty Woomer
First
published in 1995, this BreakPoint commentary reminds us of an important aspect
of what it means to follow Jesus.
Five
years ago I met a man named Rusty Woomer. Rusty loved the mountains and streams
of his home in West Virginia. He loved to talk about Scripture and God's grace
in his life.
But
the reason I will never forget Rusty is that he illustrated the missing
ingredient in today's church.
You
couldn't be with Rusty and not sense that he had a holy, intimate awe of His
Creator. Rusty knew what the Bible calls the fear of the Lord. That's because
Rusty knew he was going to die in 11 days.
You
see, I met Rusty in his cell on South Carolina's Death Row. His execution date
had been set. He knew that his head would be shaved and he would be taken to
the electric chair. He knew that technicians would attach electrodes to him,
the executioners would press a button, and 2,000 volts of electricity would
surge through his body.
He
knew that at approximately two minutes after 1 a.m. on April 27, 1991, he would
meet his Maker.
And
that's exactly what happened. As I tell Rusty's story in my book, The Body, he paid
society's price for his CRIMES. But he knew that Jesus Christ had paid the full
price for his SINS, and that in the moment after death he would stand before
the living Lord.
So
when I met him, Rusty was full of the fear of the Lord. He called it, in his
simple way, "God's radiance, His power, His love."
"Don't
it scare you," he asked, "that someone loves you enough that He can
forgive you for anything that you do?" And he added: "It scares me
sometimes...His love is so strong that it might hurt us when we meet Him."
So
it was Rusty—an unknown Christian, not a celebrated theologian—who taught me
the truth that has undergirded my thinking about the life of the church.
In
the book of Acts we learn that the secret of the early church was its fear of
the Lord. The first Christians stood in deep awe of the holiness of God. Read
the story of Ananias and Sapphira, whose punishment for lying to God was
immediate death. The author of Acts says after that a great fear came upon the
whole church.
Yet
"multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number."
That
strikes the modern ear as odd. Most of us wouldn't put fear of the Lord very
high on our list of church growth prerequisites. Today's church growth gurus
tell you that to make your church expand you need appealing music programs,
spacious parking lots, and plenty of "relevant" preaching.
But
in the first century, it was awe of God's power—a deep reverence for a Holy
God—that caused the new church to explode across the known world.
This
is the attitude I saw in Rusty Woomer. You can read the full story of Rusty's
life in my book, The Body.
Like
Rusty, we will meet our Maker some day. We need to live day by day in the awe
of His presence and His power.
And
if we do, I believe we will see a revival that will turn our world upside down.
Next steps
What does it mean to fear God? Talk with some Christian
friends about this, reflecting on Deuteronomy 10:12-16. How can you encourage
one another in this important aspect of the life of faith?.
PLEASE GO TO THIS BLOG POST TO HEAR ONE OF HIS CHRISTIAN QUOTES.
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