Luke 12.5,8-9 records, Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life—body and soul—in His hands……Stand up for Me among the people you meet and the Son of Man will stand up for you before all God’s angels. But if you pretend you don’t know Me, do you think I’ll defend you before God’s angels? MSG

We are in desperate need of people who will live the way God warns us to live in this passage. As the culture increases its antagonism toward Biblical Christianity, that is the recorded will of God in the Scriptures, Christians will have to choose between fearing God and fearing society. What does that choice look like practically?

Fearing God is obedience to the Great Commission, owning and working toward the building of God’s kingdom upon earth as it is in heaven. Because people love darkness more than light they will persecute those who proclaim His Name just as they persecuted Him. Some however, will believe, and will be reconciled to God, receiving eternal life. This is the goal. People are the prize. Christians are the means for making known the gospel which is the power of salvation for all who believe. To fear God is to fearlessly make God known in the world so that all can know God and live forever in His world.

Fearing people is to deny knowing God. It is to acquiesce to the dictates of the culture. To fear people is to give in to their demands that we not live, speak or disciple others in the ways of God that conflict with the ways of the current culture. It is to promote the ways of people that conflict with the ways of God in advertising, in our corporate training and with our charity dollars.

The days of passive Christianity are quickly coming to an end. Our long passivity has led to an increasingly hostile culture to the ways of God. Now, like our church forefathers, we must stand with Christ, but some will suffer harshly for His Name’s sake, yet their reward in heaven will be great if they feared God more than they feared humanity.