THINK TOGETHER.
Do you remember what it means to fear God?
READ TOGETHER
Proverbs 29:25. The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.
All throughout the Bible we see two kinds of fear. The fear of man, and the fear of God. You can probably guess which one is the good one and which one is the bad one. The book of Proverbs has told us over and over that we are to fear the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And we might add that the fear of man is the beginning of foolishness.
But what is fear of man? Well, to fear God is to trust God, to care about what he thinks, to follow him. So, fear of man is trusting people, caring about what they think more than caring about what God thinks, following people instead of God.
In today’s proverb, we see that the fear of man lays a snare (a trap) for us. But why is fear of man a trap? Because, unlike God, people aren’t perfect. They don’t love perfectly. People don’t make the best decisions either. People’s opinions change over and over. They aren’t consistent like God is. So when we care more about what people say, do, and think than we do about what God says, does, and thinks, we are trapped by a lie. We are trapped as we try to get others to like us, when God already loves us. We are trapped by our fear of bad people, when God is looking out for us. We are trapped trying to fit in with the crowd, when God wants us to be unique and follow him.
How do we overcome our fear of man? By trusting the Lord. We know we can trust God more than people, because God became a person, Jesus. Jesus’ love for us is perfect, unchanging, and unconditional. He will never leave us and never lead us into trouble. So if you are going to fear a man, make sure it’s the man, Jesus.
Because of Jesus we are always safe in the loving arms of God.
With Jesus we don’t have to fear man, we can fear God instead.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
It’s natural to care what others think of us, talk about some of the real-life ways you care about what other’s think of you (social media). In what ways is this “fear of man” a snare or trap? What does God think of us? How can this set us free?
PRAY TOGETHER
Jesus, I want to fear, love, and trust you more than anyone else. Show me where I am fearing people more than you. Amen.
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