January 12, 2012
by Andy
0 comments

A Practical Tool for Applying Galatians 3:1-5

This past Sunday we looked at Galatians 3:1-5 and the truth that our Christian life, from beginning to end, is a work of the Spirit of God. How foolish we often are, knowing that we have been saved by the miraculous work of God’s Spirit, yet trying to be made perfect by obedience to the Law.

I saw this video on Desiring God’s website. In it, Pastor Piper offers a practical tool for daily walking in and being made holy by the Spirit rather than by the Law. You can read a further explanation here, which is a note that followed a sermon he preached from Galatians 3:1-5.

Let us not be deceived fools (Gal. 3:1), but those who joyfully realize that we have begun by the Spirit, and so we must end by the Spirit as well.

A.P.T.A.T. from Desiring God on Vimeo.

December 15, 2011
by Andy
0 comments

How Disciple-making Makes Us Disciples

In recent days at GFC, we’ve talked a lot about the call to be disciple-making disciples. We’ve worked through The Trellis & the Vine and practiced our one-to-one Bible reading. We’ve set the trajectory of our church towards focusing on gospel growth in the lives our members and all who come in contact with the people of Grace Fellowship Church.

Hopefully one byproduct of these discussions within our church will be that we find ourselves pursuing conversations with those who are not followers of Jesus, simply asking them to read God’s word with us. As I think about and actually engage people in these simple evangelistic Bible studies, I am forced to reaffirm in my heart a few important truths that are sometimes easy to forget.

  • I believe the Bible is God’s inspired word to all people. When I sit across from someone and they say, “Tell what really matter; tell me what truths will really change my life,” I open my Bible. I open my Bible because I believe it is filled with the very words of God, and the act of pointing someone to verses of Scripture as real truth is an act of faith in the authority, clarity and veracity of the Bible (Heb. 4:12; 2 Pt. 1:21).
  • I believe in the work of the Holy Spirit. I cannot convict a person of their sin, nor can I open the eyes of faith in a person so that they see the gospel not as foolishness, but as the message of eternal life that it is. So as I open my Bible, believing its inspiration and power, I also affirm my belief that God the Holy Spirit will do his work of convicting and convincing (Jn. 16:7-11, 13). While he may use my feeble words, it will ultimately be his work through the power of the Word that accomplishes any true, lasting life change in a person.
  • I believe in the gospel. To study any portion of the Bible with someone who does not profess faith in Christ is to come face to face with the claim of Jesus to be the way, the truth and the life, and the corresponding truth that if he is the one way, truth and life, then there is no other way to the Father except through him (Jn. 14:6). In the midst of being bombarded by pluralism and syncretism and other ways or truths, to sit across from someone and actively present the message of the gospel to them is to consciously and even subconsciously say, “Yes, I believe this is true.”

To present the truth of the gospel to someone through the simple study of Scripture is to remind ourselves afresh of the beauty of God’s truth. Our hope with such opportunities to testify to glory of God in salvation is always that the individual with whom we are studying will repent and believe in Jesus, but whatever happens, God will use our faithfulness to present His gospel as a means of deepening our roots in the truths we live by every day. In fact, there is a growth in our faith that can only happen as we share it. So as you go, make disciples; it will make you a disciple.

November 3, 2011
by Andy
0 comments

Orphan Sunday 2011

This Sunday, our church will be participating in Orphan Sunday during our morning service. It is a day to remember the wonderful truth that God has adopted us his children and to be challenged afresh with God’s call to care for orphans around the world. The church at large seems to be awaking afresh to Scripture’s clear directives to defend the fatherless, and we as a church simply want to take a Sunday to remember all that Christ has done for us, specifically in our spiritual adoption, and to consider what his love now compels us to do for those in need.

Please take 2 minutes to watch the video below as we prepare our hearts for this Sunday. And if you feel compelled to be challenged more in this area, I would encourage you to look at some of the many resources and links on the webpages for Together for Adoption or Orphan Sunday. And here is a great song we plan to sing this Sunday.

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Rom. 8:12-17, ESV)

October 19, 2011
by Andy
0 comments

Why We Should “One Another” One Another

We’re in middle of a short series focusing on some of the “one another” passages of the New Testament – these wonderful places in Scripture where we are called to treat each other as the body of Christ in a way that reflects the great love that Jesus has shown us in the gospel. We began by looking at Jesus’ command to us to “love one another,” considering the truth that it is the fountain from which all the other one anothers will flow. This past Sunday Paul asked a great question during his sermon from Colossians 3:1-11: in listing out these one anothers, “Are we just building an ethical system for how we ought to live?” The answer is “No.” Paul went on to say that the reason we treat one another in the way the Bible commands us is rooted in the majesty, beauty, and value of Christ and the truth that we are now united with Him.

So Colossians 3 serves as a great reminder that the call to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, as well as to love all people, is not something we follow because we are striving to be good and acceptable to God, earning salvation and favor with Him. Rather, the unique way we are to treat one another is grounded in the fact that Jesus has lived, died, and risen from the dead, and that we are now in Christ, united with him in his life, death and resurrection.

If we strive to be what God has called us to be as a church in our own strength, we will fail. It is only as we find our life in Jesus that we can put to death the sins of our body and the sins that are often found in the Body of Christ. May Jesus give us his new life so that we might glorify him in all our ways, and particularly in the way we treat one another.

You can listen to Paul’s sermon over on our Sermon Audio page, and I would encourage you to take the time to do just that.

 

October 6, 2011
by Andy
0 comments

3 Reflections on Mark 3:13

This past Sunday, Eric Velasco preached to us from Mark 3:13: “And He went up on the mountain and summoned those whom He Himself wanted, and they came to Him.” I really appreciated the way Eric walked us through that verse, putting it in the context of the entire book of Mark and applying it in very practical ways. Rather than give a full sermon summary, I just wanted to point out a few thoughts that struck a chord in my soul.

The first was the encouragement to consider Jesus. This person, Jesus of Nazareth, is described to us throughout Mark and the other gospels. We see his power over all things and hear him teach with authority. Here we see him climb a mountain to choose his disciples, later we see him climb a mountain and reveal his glory in the transfiguration, then we see him climb Mount Calvary to glorify God by his sacrificial death, and we finally seem him ascend from the top of a mountain, promising to return for his children. As we consider the incomparable Jesus in the gospels, we may often respond as the disciples did, by asking, “Who is this man?” Of course, Jesus can become unsurprising because of our constant contact with him or our familiarity with the gospels. We fail to read about him and lose our breath or shake our heads in awe. But when we truly consider who this man was, we do what the disciples did and drop everything to follow him.

As we considered Jesus on Sunday, we looked at his prayer life. God has been working on my heart in this area, and the thought of Jesus rising early to pray in preparation for the choosing of his disciples was a convicting one. Those of us who claim to be Christians, followers of Jesus, would all readily admit that we want to be people of prayer, as Jesus was. Yet too often we pay lip-service to this core practice of the one we want to be like, and choose to do everything but sit and speak to God in prayer. Even with a renewed desire to seek God in prayer this week, it has been difficult. Yet, we must press on to know God in this way – it is a righteous desire to be people of prayer, but it is also a desire that we have to put feet to. If we claim to be followers of Jesus, we must follow his example and pray.

Finally, as someone who often struggles with the love of God for me personally, I was thankful for the opportunity to muse on the thought that Jesus has called me because he wants me to be his. That calling is not rooted in anything good or lovable in me, of course, but in the goodness and graciousness of God. And while such conversations often segue immediately into debate about God’s sovereignty and man’s free will, Eric encouraged us instead to sit and soak in the love of God for us. God loves me. He wants me. He has chosen me and called me to himself. I am his disciple – his child. Whatever theological conundrums that creates, it should first create a humble awe at the amazing grace and love of God.

These were all good reminders for me. I pray you were encouraged by God’s word from Mark 3:13 as well. Maybe you even want to share a comment about how God’s word challenged you Sunday – feel free!

September 29, 2011
by Andy
0 comments

Psalm 134 – Bless You!

This past Sunday at GFC, we came to the end of our pilgrimage through the Psalms of Ascent. Our traveler began back in Psalm 120 discouraged by those around him as he began his journey, and we have watched him take constant steps of growth throughout the journey. And now, he is going home.

I imagine the feast in Jerusalem would be similar to a Summer Camp experience – a concentrated time of growth and fellowship that eventually must come to an end. The pilgrims in Jerusalem had been on a spiritual retreat, away from the pressures of everyday activities, focusing on their worship of God and being encouraged by others. And while it was sad to leave this wonderful place of God’s nearness and blessing, they knew they were returning home changed.

This psalm then, whether sung late at night or in the wee hours of the morning, is the parting song of the pilgrims and the closing psalm of all the psalms of Ascent. As the pilgrims walked out the gates of the city, they would have turned to see the night watchmen in the tabernacle or the temple – these individuals who watched over the temple while the rest of Israel slept. And the parting pilgrims called out to these men as they exited the city the words of verses 1 and 2:

1 Behold, bless the LORD, all servants of the LORD,
Who serve by night in the house of the LORD!
2 Lift up your hands to the sanctuary
And bless the LORD.

They call out, “Bless the LORD!” We are not used to that phrase in English – we are more prone to say, “Praise the Lord,” but the phrase “bless the Lord” is seen throughout the Old Testament. It is parallel to praising God, in that it is a call to speak forth and remember all the manifold greatness of God and all his grace to us.

We are reminded of that wonderful psalm, Psalm 103, when the writer says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all of his benefits.” He then lists to God all of the wonderful things he has done. In many ways, then, to bless the Lord is to thank him for all of his blessings. It is to acknowledge that he is the almighty source of the goodness in our lives.

To bless God is to say, “Lord, I acknowledge, not only that you are perfect in all that you are, but that every good and perfect gift comes down from you, the Father of Lights, with whom there is no shadow of turning.” And there is a sense in which when we do that – when we tell God that we understand his greatness and the greatness of his kindness to us – that we bless God. We honor him. We, his creatures, have the privilege of blessing God by rejoicing in who he is and what he has done for us.

When a child or a friend or a relative points out an evidence of grace, a way that God is working in and through us, we are blessed. We are blessed by the knowledge that we are a blessing. When my kids say thank you or want to be near me or express love to me, while they may be saying, “Dad, you are a blessing,” I am blessed in that. And when we do the same for our heavenly Father, in an amazing and mysterious way, we bless him. What a beautiful thing – that our praise and worship to God blesses him.

Now, it doesn’t bless him in the sense that our words of blessing fill up something lacking in God. Neither is our blessing God a means of making God happy with us – of earning his favor. In fact, when we come to God in our poverty and in our need, we bless him by acknowledging his bounty. Psalm 116:12 asks the question we often ask – what should I do in response to this love? How can I seek to repay it? Of course we cannot begin to repay it, but that is what we want to do. Rather, the psalmist simply says, in essence, “I will lift up the cup of salvation and continue to drink from it.”

If I came to your house, and you offer me food, the way to honor that is not by adamantly refusing it. I do not bless you in not taking the gift you offer, or, worse yet, trying to pay for what you are offering. But if I receive that gift, I bless you, because it is more blessed to give than to receive.  We bless God when we receive his gifts with grateful, willing hearts. And if that is true, than God is the most blessed of all beings, because everything is from him.

There’s another aspect to the call for the priests to bless the Lord. As the pilgrims leave they call out to the night watchmen and say, “Bless the Lord, you who will be in the temple all night. Don’t let the worship and blessing of God cease simply because the sun has gone down, for his benefits and blessings and the beauty of his character never end. So while we sleep, you priests, bless the Lord. And while we are gone from Jerusalem, though this season of focused worship is coming to an end, may the worship of God never cease.”

As worshippers of God, our hearts are to be filled with a desire for the constant praise of God. We long to see all peoples, everywhere, worshipping God. It’s not a time issue, like we are desiring that there not be a pause or a lull in the praise of God, but it is a saturation issue – “Let the whole earth be filled with the glory of the Lord!” Our God is worthy of constant, unceasing praise May our Savior receive the praise he deserves at all times!

In verse 3 we hear the response of the night watchmen, and they call out to the parting travelers, saying,

3 May the LORD bless you from Zion,
He who made heaven and earth.

They respond by saying, “May the Lord bless you!” This verse is a benediction, which is a call for God to bless and empower and strengthen others. The night watchmen see the pilgrims leaving the city and they say, “God bless you! May your journey be filled with God’s goodness, and may you know his blessing until he leads you back to this place!”

They ask that God would bless them from Zion – from the city of God, the place where his presence dwelt, but they also say that God is the maker of heaven and earth. While acknowledging the special nature of Zion, of the city of Jerusalem, they say, “But God is the maker of all things, and his blessing extends to the ends of the earth.”

For us as followers of Christ, the picture here is wonderful, for the source of all blessing is not Mount Zion, but Mount Calvary. All the blessings of our lives are the result of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the blessings of our salvation flow from the cross and saturate every part of our lives.

The blessings of Calvary bring about this wonderful cycle of blessing that is focused completely on God. We are blessed in countless ways, most fully in the cross of Christ, and we bless the Lord for it. As we bless the Lord, he continues to bless us, and we bless him as we gratefully receive of all his blessings.

What a fitting end to these beautiful psalms – a call to bless the Lord and an encouragement to be blessed by him. May all of these words become a significant part of our journey. Blessings.

EE-TAOW (The Mouk Story)

September 22, 2011 by Andy | 0 comments

This past Sunday evening, our church watched “EE-TAOW”, a movie from New Tribe Mission that I first saw as a student at Moody Bible Institute. I would encourage you to take 24 commercial-free minutes to be reminded of the truths that God uses the weak to confound the strong and that the gospel is a life-giving, joy-inducing message of freedom from sin and condemnation.

EE-TAOW (The Mouk Story) from oliver wong on Vimeo.

September 22, 2011
by Andy
0 comments

Psalm 133 – The Blessings and Beauty of Unity

The message of Psalm 133 is simple: When God’s people are united, it is wonderful. People all desire unity; they want to be with people who love and believe the things that they do. In this psalm, David was rejoicing at the wonderful unity he witnessed in the people of Israel gathering together for the feasts of the Jewish calendar. Throngs of people had come to worship God and to see the prosperity of Jerusalem.

So too we as the church are united around our worship of God as he has revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ as well as in our desire for the spread of God’s kingdom. We are united because we have been baptized in/with the Holy Spirit and adopted into God’s family. We are God’s body and his building, united around our belief in Jesus as the way and the truth and the life and our passion to see others come to know that truth.

That kind of deep unity is not expressed simply in a once a week meeting. No, true unity, the brotherhood and sisterhood and family-like unity of this psalm is seen when we dwell together in unity; when we are in one another’s lives. As God’s people gathered in Jerusalem for these feasts they spent time with one another, and so we too, if our unity is to deepen, must dwell together.

Unity will not come unless we dwell together because unity takes time. It takes shared meals and shared experiences. It takes being with one another in times of joy, and it takes being with one another in times of sorrow. It takes times gathered at church – not forsaking the assembling of ourselves – and it takes being with one another on the phone, at a coffee shop, serving together, praying with one another, and writing one another. It takes dwelling together.

If this unity stuff starting to sound like hard work… it is. It is something Christ has done to us and for us, but it is also something we must strive for. It is hard to build unity because it is hard to try to build relationships with people. Sometimes it’s almost like reliving awkward dating moments, complete with feelings of awkwardness and rejection. But it is worth the difficulty and the pain and the awkwardness if we can get to the place of deep fellowship and unity, because when God’s people are united, it is wonderful.

David calls it good. This is a generic word referring to many different things. It very often means that something is practically beneficial. It may also refer to something rare or expensive. It is pleasant. The word for pleasant could also be translated as sweet or lovely or agreeable.

How would you describe the unity of God’s people? If you have experienced the blessing of living together with those who love God, who are seeking God’s glory, and who love and support you as a brother or sister, what words would you use to describe it? I think I would use words like David did – I would talk of how I have benefited from my brothers and sisters in Christ. I would acknowledge that the experience of being one – of being united – with others is rare and something to be treasured when it happens. It is sweet and lovely and there is nothing undesirable about it. It is free from contamination – it is pure. When God’s people dwell together in unity, it is good and pleasant.

Maybe, like David you would move from words to descriptions and illustrations of the beauty of unity. First he says that unity amongst God’s people is like oil.

  1. It is preacious. This oil was not just any oil. It was oil that was to be used for the consecration of the temple and the priests alone. The recipe was from God, and it was unique and precious. So too unity is to be seen as valuable and rare and precious. It is something, that when we experience it, we treasure it and thank God for it as a rare jewel.
  2. It is sanctifying. This oil was used to sanctify the priest, to set him apart for special service in the temple and to bring purity. So too, fellowship and unity amongst God’s people is used by God to make us more like himself. God gives us brothers and sisters to help us grow in holiness – to encourage us, to rebuke us, and to call us to godliness. Our unity, our brotherhood and sisterhood, is one of the greatest tools of the Holy Spirit to help us grow in Christlikeness.
  3. It is saturating. David describes the oil running down Aaron’s head, to his beard, and even to the edges of his robe. The effects of unity are far reaching. The oil spreads to the edges of the garment and the smell of that oil fills the nostrils of all who are nearby. Unity has far reaching effects. It touches every part of our lives and it influences every aspect of the church.

David then says that unity amongst God’s people is like dew.

  1. It is far reaching. For dew to travel from Mount Hermon to Mount Zion would have been quite a journey. And like the oil, the dew shows us that unity’s effects reach farther than we can imagine.
  2. It is refreshing and life-giving. The unity of God’s people is a distinct blessing associated with the ultimate blessing of God – life everlasting. When we dwell together in unity, we show one another and the world what God has made us for and what eternity will be like in the New Jerusalem. Jesus even says that our unity as His people is a proof of his having come as God in flesh (John 13:35). I love the picture Jesus gives us a little later in John 14 when he says that in His Father’s house there are many rooms. When we think about what life everlasting will be like, we can think of God’s house, the place where we will all dwell together in beautiful unity. How good and pleasant that will be!

When God’s people are united, it is wonderful. It is wonderful now and it will be beyond wonderful then. May God grant that we would dwell together in unity, worshipping him, seeking his kingdom, experiencing the countless blessings of being together, and displaying the life-giving power of God’s people gathered together until he calls us home.

August 23, 2011
by Andy
0 comments

Psalm 129 – “They Have Not Prevailed”

Psalm 129 gives us confidence that the enemies of God’s people have not and will not prevail against them. Whatever enemies may come against God’s children, they will not triumph in the end.

And so, throughout the long, hard journey of life, and in the midst of afflictions and persecutions, we trust in God’s righteousness (vv. 1-4). This is a theme we have seen throughout the Psalms of Ascent, and here in Psalm 129 our psalmist looks back on, not just his history, but the history of his people, and he says, “God, we’ve been persecuted and afflicted since we were young.” He says that this struggle that they are in is nothing new, but it has marked him and his people from the very beginning. As he seeks to describe their afflictions, the psalmist says that they have had their backs plowed – the suffering has been painful and long.

But in the midst of it all, the psalmist can confidently say, “Yet they have not prevailed against me” (v. 2). However long and however hard the persecutions have been, God gives his people victory. And verse 4 says that he cuts in two the cords of the wicked because he is righteous. We rejoice and trust in God’s righteousness, knowing that he will not forsake his people, and that justice and righteousness will reign. While we will not fully experience that justice in this life, we have full confidence that God will set all things right.

But while trusting in God’s righteousness, the psalmist also teaches us to pray for the frustration of God’s enemies (vv. 5-8). He asks God to put to shame and frustrate those who war against His people. He prays that they would be like the grass on the roof – like the weeds in our driveways – which is useless, disappointing, and cursed.

While it may seem strange to pray for the frustration of our enemies, the reality is that if God is blessing and delivering His people, then He is cursing and judging their enemies. So we pray against the evils of this world, and we ask that God would bring to naught all of the plans of His enemies. Of course, we also pray that as they are frustrated and thwarted in their evil scheming, that they would see the futility of fighting God and find salvation in submitting to God through Jesus.

So we confidently trust in God’s righteousness and pray for Him to destroy the deeds of wickedness in our world. We rejoice in these truths as well – the truth that whatever enemies rage against God’s children will ultimately not prevail. For those of us in Christ, victory is assured.

August 10, 2011
by Andy
0 comments

“How Blessed is Everyone Who Fears the LORD” – Psalm 128

This past Sunday marked the 9th message in our series through the Psalms of Ascent. We said at the beginning of the series that the title probably reveals that these were songs sung by the pilgrims of Israel traveling to Jerusalem for the three major festivals of the Jewish year. But we also said that there seems to be a progression, an ascent of sorts, from psalm to psalm. We have seen some similar themes, such as a focus of the city of Jerusalem or the imagery of the mountains. We have also seen growth in the spiritual maturity and understanding of our traveler.

The step up from Psalm 127 to Psalm 128 is one of the clearest. The psalmist expands on the gift of family, and he also links to the thought of blessing and being blessed seen in verse 5 of Psalm 127. In fact, that word “blessing” is the key word of Psalm 128, as a form of it shows up in 4 of the 6 verse of this short psalm.

Blessing, or as some translations word it, “happiness” – now there’s something we all want. And right here, in Psalm 128:1, we find the secret to happiness and blessing:  “How blessed is everyone who fears the Lord.” There it is – those who fear the Lord are blessed by him. Or maybe you want to say those who fear the Lord are happy.

So the secret to blessing and happiness is… fear. That probably looks strange to read; isn’t fear part of our unhappiness? How can the secret to happiness be fearing God? Well, if we want to understand the main point of this psalm – that those who fear the Lord are blessed by him – then we need to begin by trying to understand what it means to rightly fear God.

As I sought to come to greater clarity on the fear of God, I picked up a book called The Joy of Fearing God by Jerry Bridges. While I was probably looking for a cut and dry definition, Bridges says that the fear of God is better described than defined. His entire book is an attempt to explain the fear of God because it is a concept that can not be put into a short sentence. The fear of God is multifaceted – we have to turn it and look at it from different angles and in different lights as we seek to understand it.

We spent a good amount of time Sunday seeing the fear of God throughout Scripture. We revisited Ezekiel 1, remembering Ezekiel’s response of being so overwhelmed by God’s glory that he fell on his face. Such is the fear of God – to be overwhelmed by who he is to the point that you fall on your face before him. To be filled with awe and reverence at God’s character.

Peter responds that way to Jesus in Luke 5. After witnessing Jesus’ power over creation in causing Peter and his partners to draw in a huge catch of fish, Peter sees the greatness of God and the depth of his sin, and he falls on his knees in wonder and amazement.

The fear of God then is closely linked to our understanding of who God is. If we understand God rightly – if we see his glory and majesty, his holiness and justice, his power and might – then we will be filled with awe, reverence, wonder and astonishment. We will fear him.

But we are also driven to fear and reverence by God’s goodness. If we understand him rightly, we cannot respond flippantly to his grace and goodness towards us. Rather, it will cause us to wonder all the more. As we prepared to take communion, this was a good meditation, for the cross is a place where we see God in all his glory. We see his wrath and justice poured out, and we see his grace and mercy in the giving of Jesus as our sacrifice. We see his goodness, and our response is to bow low and in awe. Who is this God, high and exalted, yet full of love for me? The cross teaches us to fear our God.

But Psalm 128 also says that the fear of God is not just an emotion or a feeling, for those who fear the Lord will walk in his ways (v. 1). If we say we fear God but walk contrary to his commands, then we are deceiving ourselves.

And there is the link between verse 1 and the remainder of the psalm – when we fear God, we will walk in His ways. And when we walk in His ways, we are blessed, for God’s laws are intended for our good. The psalmist shows us that walking in God’s ways brings blessing to the labor of our hands (v. 2). Our fear of God and obedience to his ways leads to a blessed home, filled with children, and to a long life with grandchildren and great grandchildren (vv. 3, 6).

Of course, such blessings are not always the fruit of fearing God and walking in his ways. There are those who honor God with their lives but do not personally receive the blessings of this psalm. But the blessings are not simply said to be personal, but corporate – they are on Zion and on Israel as a whole (vv. 5-6). God’s blessings to God’s people as individuals are intended to bless the entire community. Those who work hard and fear God but still have practical needs find them met by those who have been blessed by God in that way. Those who are in awe of God and walk in his ways but have not been blessed with the family life they desire find blessings through their faith-family. Our corporate fear of God leads to corporate obedience and corporate blessing. How wise and loving our God is.

So the secret to happiness is fear. As we fear God, thinking rightly about who he is, we will walk in his ways and receive the blessings of obedience to Him. “How blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in His ways.”