When people become simply afraid of God, they'll never entrust themselves to Him.

They must turn elsewhere for their security.

People with this sinful fear of God will not trust in Christ for their salvation. They'll look elsewhere.

There are many misunderstandings when it comes to the fear of God.

If we believe the lie that way to simply be afraid of Him will actually run from God.

And as you'll hear today, just because people run from God doesn't necessarily mean that they're running away from religion.

You're listening to renewing your mind on your host, Nathan W. Bingham.

A purely dreadful fear of God. That's not what Michael Reeves has been calling us to this week.

Yet that is the kind of fear that many have of God.

So today he'll unpack this lie from the enemy and demonstrate why it's a grave distortion. Here's Dr. Reeves.

We all know fear. When you experience fear, your body reacts.

You feel the adrenaline as your heart races, your breathing accelerates, your muscles tense.

And sometimes that can be intensely fun. You think of the rush of the roller coaster or the big game.

Sometimes it can be terrifying as panic grips you.

So utterly that you cannot think but only shake sweat and fret.

Now underneath those bodily experiences are common thoughts.

We fear when we encounter something we cannot control.

We fear when we face the prospect of either losing something that we love or experiencing something bad.

We even fear when we face the prospect of gaining something wonderful when that thing seems too impossibly wonderful for us.

I'm drilling to the bottom of the matter. The Dutch theologian will help us a bracket explained fear issues forth from love.

That is, we fear because we love.

We love ourselves and so we fear bad things happening to us. We love our families, our friends, our things and so fear losing them.

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