“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’” —Romans 8:15 (NLT)
Watching Jesus cleanse the Temple had to be a scary sight! Can you imagine what the disciples must have been thinking? What do you do when it looks like your leader has lost it? Did they wish they could disappear? Were they thinking “Oh-oh, stay out of His way!”
I’m pretty sure no Jesus movie has done justice to the scene. And I suspect no one interfered with Him because they were too scared.
But do you know who wasn’t scared? The blind and the lame. After Jesus threw out the money changers, “Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them” (Matthew 21:14).
Jewish writings from the period indicate that the disabled didn’t have the same access to the Temple as others. The Temple court being filled with people buying and selling probably hindered them even further. So when Jesus cleared out the merchandisers, the disabled probably thought, “Wow, we didn’t like those guys either!” They weren’t afraid of Jesus. They understood that He was their friend and advocate.
Because of their background or misunderstanding of Scripture, many Christians are afraid of God. I’m not talking about the “fear of the Lord,” which is a healthy respect for the Almighty. Rather, they secretly fear He’s unhappy with them and wants to “overturn” their lives and hurt them. They are unaware that He loves and protects them.
Our view of God determines our relationship with God. When we come to Him, we come as broken people who need healing. But doubting His love will keep us at a distance, just as the Jewish authorities wanted to keep the blind and lame at a distance.
We have to remind ourselves that we are His sons and daughters. He wants us. We haven’t received a spirit that makes us slaves; instead we have God’s Spirit and we’ve been adopted as His own children. We can call Him Abba, Father.
No one should serve God out of fear or as a slave. If so, they have the wrong picture of God and likely find themselves unable to pray relationally.
As believers and temples of the Holy Spirit, we too, are to be a house of prayer. When we see God as our Abba Daddy and allow Him to heal us, our prayer lives are transformed and we become healers.
In fellowship with Him, we become healers of those who are lost, those who are broken, and those who are confused and don’t know where they’re going. That’s part of our calling as the Body of Christ.
Awesome respect for the Lord is good; being scared of Him keeps us at a distance, and that’s certainly not what God desires.
“How sweet the name of Jesus sounds, in a believer’s ear! It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, and drives away his fear.” ~ John Newton
