tell me a story about.............

Tuesday July 22nd, Romans 8: 12 My dear friends, we must not live to satisfy our desires. 13 If you do, you will die. But you will live, if by the help of God's Spirit you say "No" to your desires. 14 Only those people who are led by God's Spirit are his children. 15 God's Spirit doesn't make us slaves who are afraid of him. Instead, we become his children and call him our Father. Angel encounters in the scripture are met with the words from these heavenly messengers, “Fear Not!” From there the church has all too often gone on to instill fear. The twisted gutting of the gospel in the popular “left behind” series is a prime example of how easily demonic deception of fear based religion can be swallowed by a public the church of Christ has left largely alone as we hold our meetings and potlucks. Most of the statements about God alluded to on Monday’s thoughts, relate to a god who must be feared. And our politicos know that fear can be a very useful tool in an attempt to fulfill the desire for power and control exerted over others. Too often the church has succumbed to this same model. As the children of God, we are called to introduce to the world in fear, the God that children can call father. In other texts, Jesus even uses the word Abba, or Papa. When my granddaughter was up for a visit she would often come to me and say, “Tell me a story about………. And the blank would be filled in with various subjects. That is Abba, That is the God we need to introduce into a world left behind in fear.