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The Fruit of Fearful Faith: Worth
10 The Fruit of Fearful Faith: Worth
Once again, let’s begin this chapter with a little overview and review before our preview of some of the fruit of fearful faith. In our previous chapters, we saw that a true fear of God results in what the Bible calls wholeheartedness. And the evidence of that kind of wholehearted love and obedience is that we love what God loves and hate what God hates.
Conversely, we saw that a lack of a fear of God results in wickedness, or hating what God loves and loving what God hates. We also saw that just like there are degrees of fear, there are also degrees of sin. However, all sin is still sin! There is never a time or circumstance when sin ceases to be sin. It is the same in every circumstance, country, and culture. Sin never evolves or morphs into non-sin. When God says something is sin, it is sin for all eternity.
If we could give degrees of sinfulness to sin, the greatest sin of all is wickedness or iniquity. This sin is a spiritual heart problem. It represents inward corruption, willful inversion, and character perversion. This describes the rebellious heart before God.
However, wickedness or iniquity is not primarily a sin of the heathen committed out of ignorance. This is a sin of willful rebellion. It is a sin of religious perversion by people
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who should know better. They have received God’s law, but have perverted it, all the while remaining religious and pious.
Through Scripture, we saw that Satan and Judas were the greatest examples of the sin of iniquity—and neither could ever say their problem was ignorance. Lucifer had direct access to the eternal Godhead and Judas spent three years at Jesus’ side, and yet both rebelled.
We saw, then, that iniquity is a sin for which God often indicted His people, as He did through the prophet Isaiah: “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2).
But the Good News for the Christian is that Jesus died to forgive and cleanse us of all our iniquities: “Jesus Christ . . . gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own” (Titus 2:14).
With those understandings fresh in our minds, let’s turn now to the positive side of fearful faith, which is the primary theme of this book. Let’s examine the fragrant fruit that a holy, loving, reverential fear of God produces in our lives. Like the fruit of the Spirit that Paul writes about in Galatians 5:22–23, the fruit of fearful faith comes in a cluster. Rather than one single fruit, it is a spiritual basket of fruit. There are at least seven fruits of reverential fear, so let’s carefully examine each one.
Worth
This is an especially important fruit, and we begin here because it is a key part of showing us how to faith down our bad
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fears. Most of us grow up with a sense of worthlessness. Because of the Fall, virtually every human being grows up with some kind of inferiority complex, even though some try to mask it and overcompensate through a superiority complex. But they still struggle with a sense of inferiority. And inferiority always produces insecurity over one’s sense of self-worth.
In our heart of hearts, most of us secretly feel that we are rather worthless as human beings—especially to God! We fear that He does not value us like He does other people whom we deem more important or more spiritual and therefore of more worth to God. This is a lie from the devil or a lie we have come to believe based on the negative things others have told us about ourselves. But to God, you and I are of infinite, eternal worth! This brings us to a transforming principle I never want you to forget.
Listen to what His Word says about our worth to Him as expressed by His everlasting, unconditional love for us:
• “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him” (Psalm 103:11). • “The Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love” (Psalm 147:11). • “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your
God rejoice over you” (Isaiah 62:5). • “For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with victory” (Psalm 149:4).
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• “The Lord be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant” (Psalm 35:27).
In our culture today, advertisements often make women especially feel inferior and insecure in their femininity in order to sell whatever new clothes, new makeup, new makeover, new workout, new spa or gym, or new diet will make them eternally young, perpetually beautiful, and seductive! But all the while they live in the secret fear that their femininity is gradually fading. And as it fades, so does their sense of worth.
Here is a very timely word for women about the source of true beauty: “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30).
Solomon emphasized the inner beauty of the spirit that never fades, wrinkles, or grows old. This is an authentic femininity and a beauty that radiates from inside out. It does not come from lotions, potions, Botox, face-lifts or breast implants! As Peter wrote,
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment . . . Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear (1 Peter 3:3–6).
Because these holy women of the past had a reverential fear of God, they were submissive to their husbands by faith
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and they did not let feminine fear control and manipulate their lives. However, if they go to God’s gym through the Word and have regular spiritual workouts directed by the Holy Spirit as their trainer, they will adorn themselves from the inside out! In doing so, they will find their true worth in God’s sight, which is their only source of feminine security.
Across the years, I have had the joy of watching this take place in Patt’s life. As her reverential fear of God has grown through her spiritual maturity, she is less fearful and far more secure as a woman. As a result, in our seventh decade of life, she is more feminine, beautiful, and alluring to me than ever!
So no man or woman, husband or wife, ever finds his or her true worth apart from God. When we find our true worth in His eyes, our sense of worth rises tremendously in our own eyes and in the eyes of others.
It is obvious from several of the teachings of the Lord Jesus that He discerned His own disciples struggling with this foreboding sense of worthlessness:
• “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29–31). • “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail” (Luke 12:32–33).
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What an incredible verse that is! It is truly transformational for our sense of self-worth. You see, we tend to place a value on a person and determine his or her worth by asking, “How much do you have?” or “How much did he leave?” God determines our spiritual worth not by how much we have but rather by how much we give. Our true, eternal worth is not determined by how much we have in the bank, but by how much we have banked in heaven. If God has graciously given us His Kingdom, we should not be so concerned and consumed by building our own little kingdom.
Before going to our next fruit, let me repeat our principle again: You only know your true worth when you know your worth to God. Peter reminded us of our worth to God when he reminded us of how much God paid for us:
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect (1 Peter 1:18–19).
These incredible verses should confirm the basic principle that price determines worth. In other words, the more valuable something is, the higher the price. As incredible as it may seem, we were of such value to Him—we who were rebels and sinners—that He purchased us at the unbelievable price of the blood of His Son. That’s the value His love placed upon us! That’s our worth that grace placed upon us.
Remember: Price determines worth.
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