{"id":7276,"date":"2018-10-16T23:15:22","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T03:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=7276"},"modified":"2018-10-16T23:30:14","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T03:30:14","slug":"beyond-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=7276","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Fear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Zahnd-6.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Zahnd-6.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7281\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Zahnd-6.jpg 800w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Zahnd-6-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Zahnd-6-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Yes, I understand the Bible commends the fear of God, and I do too, but only as a preliminary beginning.  God desires us to grow beyond the rudimentary beginning of fear.  The apostle John said it this way:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. . . .  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In what is called the fear of God, what I fear is not God but the suffering my sin can inflict on myself and those around me.  What God calls me to fear is the destructive results of sin &#8212; and I take God seriously.  The shorthand term for this is the <em>fear of God<\/em>.  The malevolent consequences of sin are all too real.  But I&#8217;m not afraid of God.  I used to be, but I am no longer.  I am no longer afraid of God because I have come to know God as he is revealed in Christ.  I have come to know that God&#8217;s single disposition toward me is one of unconditional, unwavering love.  The knowledge of God&#8217;s love has made it impossible for me to be afraid of God.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Brian Zahnd, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Nonfiction\/sinners_in_the_hands_of_a_loving_god.html\">Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God<\/a><\/em>, p. 96-97<\/p>\n<p>Photo: Chateau de Chillon, Lake Geneva, Switzerland, November 2000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, I understand the Bible commends the fear of God, and I do too, but only as a preliminary beginning. God desires us to grow beyond the rudimentary beginning of fear. The apostle John said it this way: God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}