Fear and Comfort

Fear and comfort seem very different, don't they? If you are fearful you are not comfortable, and if you are comfortable you are not feeling fear.

I was struck by a verse from the book of Acts today that actually combines the two. You find it in Acts 9:31, after Saul of Tarsus had returned to Jerusalem following his conversion to Jesus Christ.

31 "So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied."

How can both fear and comfort exist at the same time? The "fear of the Lord" is a concept introduced in several places in Scripture. We like to say it means "awe" or "respect." In reality the Greek word does mean "fear." It's the same word where we get our word "phobia."

So we are to be afraid of God, and that's how the church will grow? Well, sort of. We should fear God because of how good and pure He is. He is so much better than we could ever imagine, and our world is so much blacker than we would like to admit. We should fear the holiness of God breaking out amongst an impure world because I guarantee you, the world would lose.

The good news is that through Jesus Christ we have the Holy Spirit who comes to live inside of us, coming alongside to help (that's what comfort means). The Spirit is busy transforming us into the very character of the Holy God we fear from the inside out.

We can have the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Spirit as we grow into His image.

Pastor Tom