Have No Fear

 

Have no fear of sudden disaster …

—from Proverbs 3:25

Have you ever felt really afraid? I’m talking about feeling terrified. Most of us have had something happen in our lives that has produced within us genuine fear. Please let me illustrate:

During a live fire drill back in the spring of 1968, I was ventilating the roof of a two-and-a-half story single family dwelling, when the roof gave way due to the fire in the structure right below the roof. I fell, albeit rather slowly, through the roof, through the fire-damaged second floor, through the fire-damaged first floor, and into the basement of the building. Fortunately, I was wearing full turnout gear and my helmet and breathing mask stayed in place during the fall. I was not injured at all, just a bit dazed. But, I was frightened out of my wits!

Needless to say, since I’m writing about this more than 57 years later, I made it out of the basement successfully. But, for several moments, I felt that I was facing imminent death, and it truly gave me such a shock of fear that I can still feel the anguish all these years later.

As we followers of Jesus walk the road of life, we can rely on God to care for us in such a marvelous way that we can put all fear aside. King Solomon wrote about this in Proverbs 3:25-26:

Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being snared.

Far more terrifying than falling through several floors of a burning building is the tight grip that sin can have on our lives. Even though our sins were forgiven by Jesus’ birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension, we still can fall prey to the entanglements of sin in our daily lives. Nevertheless, God promises to keep our feet from being securely snared by sin.

As we begin another new day, let’s take comfort in the truth of King Solomon’s words. Let’s rejoice that God protects us from becoming tightly snared. And, let’s make certain we follow closely the pathway God has laid out before us, as we strive to represent Him well to those who connect with us along the road of life.

 

_{Copyright © 2025 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}

 

In His Care

 

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.

—Matthew 6:25

We Christians—“Christ’s-ones”—live our lives in God’s care. God has promised to care for us in spectacular ways—well beyond our ability to comprehend or imagine.

That is not a promise for an easy life, nor for a life free of problems. We are, after all, still trapped in these sin-stained bodies, and are subject to all manner of disease and difficulty. But, whenever we face trouble in our lives, we do not do so alone. God is with us. God will take what Satan may intend for evil and turn it into something that will bring glory to God’s matchless name. Here are Jesus’ own words on this subject, as recorded in Matthew 6:25-27:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

As we begin this new day, let’s do so with full awareness that God is caring for us every moment of our lives. We are free from having to fend for ourselves. He will give us whatever we need to face the trials of each day.

 

_{Copyright © 2025 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}

 

Our Portion Forever

 

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

—Psalm 73:26

Have you ever felt that you were in deep trouble and you called out to God for help? Most people find themselves in such a situation from time to time. Maybe it wasn’t even something directly affecting you. Perhaps it was a situation that had overtaken a beloved member of your family. It might even have been a situation you read about, heard about, or saw on television that prompted you to plead with God to intervene.

If you have ever cried out to God for help, then you can understand the situation Asaph found himself in when he wrote these words found in Psalm 73:23-26:

Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

This pleading prayer is one we should adopt and make a very real part of our lives. God longs for us to call out to Him. He also wants us to realize that, in our time of need, He alone is the only One to whom we can ask for help. We need to come to God unashamed of our requests for His help. He actually delights to help us. Why? Because of God’s enormously great love for us. And that, my dear ones, is something we need to remember all through this new day.

 

_{Copyright © 2025 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}

 

Wages and Gifts

 

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

—Romans 6:23

Here’s a scenario for you to consider:

It’s your birthday. Your Aunt Sally approaches you with those ruby-red-painted lips of hers that you used to dread when you were four or five years old. Remember those kisses she always planted on your cheek? No matter how hard you seemed to scrub, that lipstick would not come off easily! Nevertheless, here comes Aunt Sally carrying a medium-size box wrapped in colorful paper with cartoon drawings of balloons all over it.

Aunt Sally smiles as she hands you the box. “Happy Birthday, Sweetie!” she says with a smile.

“Thank you, Aunt Sally,” you dutifully reply.

“That will be $29.95,” Sally intones.

“What?” you reply.

“I said that will be $29.95 for your gift,” Sally repeats.

You stand there immobilized by the shock of it all. Pay for my gift? you think to yourself. That’s absurd! How can it be a “gift” if I have to pay for it?

And, there it is. You can’t pay for a “gift.” You simply don’t pay for a “gift.” After all, a gift is a gift.

Furthermore, wages that you earn because of something you have done is certainly not a gift either. Wages are paid for what you’ve done. You’ve earned your wages. No reasonable person pays you wages and calls it a gift.

Please take note of what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 6:23:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We surely have earned the “wages” resulting from our sin. Yes! We most definitely earned those wages. You earned them and I earned them. Our sin extracted a price, and that price was justly paid to us for our sin.

However, the good news is that the “gift of God”—the substitutionary death of His Son, Jesus, in our place on the cross, along with Jesus’ resurrection from the dead—has freed us from sin, from the power of Satan, and from eternal death. God gave this redemption to us as His special gift of love. We did nothing, absolutely nothing, to earn this salvation. It’s a gift. In fact, it’s the most precious gift we could ever receive.

As another new day begins, we need to make certain that we make the distinction between spiritual wages and spiritual gifts. It’s important we understand what we’ve earned as our wages—eternal death for our sins—and God’s undeserved gift to us of eternal life, through His one and only Son, Jesus.

 

_{Copyright © 2025 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}

 

Great Power

 

The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.

—Proverbs 18:10

There is enormous power in words. Words can uplift and words can destroy. Words can bring hope and words can bring hopelessness. Words can speak truth and words can tell lies.

The use of profanity has increased exponentially over the course of my lifetime. When I was a child, nearly eight decades ago, I never heard a woman use profanity. That’s right! It was unheard of to imagine that a “lady” would swear or curse. Now, I’m certain that in some circles to which I was not exposed, women may well have used coarse language, as a symbol of their independence, or of how brazen they were, or of how “cool” they thought they were. But, in the normal course of a human exchange of words, women just didn’t speak profanely.

Today, many women speak with such profanity that there is not enough soap in the entire world to effectively wash out their collective mouths. Yes, there still are some women who purposefully do not speak coarsely. I celebrate them and give them the distinct honor that is their due. But, for the most part, both men and women now use words that heretofore were scorned and never accepted as a common part of their everyday speech.

Part of the gigantic up-tick in the use of profanity involves the vane use of God’s name. In spite of the fact that the third of the Ten Commandments forbids the improper use of God’s name, countless millions of people curse and swear using His precious name improperly, almost every moment of every day. Even devoted Christians have fallen into the trap of using profanity. When you live or work in an environment where such language is constantly used, it’s very hard to not begin to use it yourself. It takes lots of self-discipline. And, one thing we people of America are not known for is our self-discipline.

The sadness in all of this is that the names of the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are powerful, amazing names. Notice what King Solomon wrote, as recorded in Proverbs 18:10:

The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.

Here we see the power of God’s name. His name is a strong tower, one that is fortified against attack. His name has power to protect His chosen children. Those children can seek refuge in God’s name and find safety in His glorious name.

As we begin a new day, if we have fallen into the trap of using profanity because we hear so much of it around us, let’s determine to put coarse speech aside. Instead, when we speak of the God who loves us, let’s focus on how important His name is to us. After all, God loved us so much that He willingly gave us His one and only Son, Jesus, to die in our place. Shouldn’t we honor His name instead of using it as a means of expressing anger or surprise?

 

_{Copyright © 2025 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}

 

Follow the Rules

 

… keep your father’s commands …

—from Proverbs 6:20

Do you always follow the rules? Okay. Do you almost always follow the rules? Or, are you one of those Concrete Randoms™ who believe that the rules don’t apply to you? ¹

I’ve shared this example before on this blog. The classic CR example occurs in the multiple-story department store. A man or woman approaches an escalator pushing a baby in a stroller. A sign at the base of the escalator warns that the use of strollers is forbidden on the escalator and gives directions to the nearest elevator. Nevertheless, the man or woman boldly pushes the stroller onto the escalator and begins a tortuous ascent to the next floor. Why? It’s likely because he or she is a dominant CR. And, dominant CR’s sincerely believe that rules do not apply to them.

In life there are Rule Makers, Rule Takers, and Rule Breakers. I’ve spent most of my career in fire protection working on various Technical Committees of the National Fire Protection Association, writing codes and standards—in other words, “the rules”—for the National Fire Codes. So, I understand the process of rule-making all too well.

I have also spent most of my life determined to follow all the rules. Of course, like all sinful humans, I’ve not always succeeded. But, I’ve tried to do whatever I’m told to do—whether it’s by traffic signals, or signs, or authority figures. Oh, all right. Once, in Miami, I did drive the wrong way down a one-way street to purposely scare a fellow NFPA committee member that I picked up at the airport.

You may not realize this, but following the rules—obedience—is now, and has always been, the way God measures the loving response of His chosen people to the way He cares for them. Read through the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible—and the first five books of the twenty-four books in the Hebrew Tanakh—and you will see that God measures the loving response of His chosen people to the Covenant that He made with Abraham by observing their obedience, or lack therof.

That same Covenant is critically important to Christians, as well as to Jewish people, because it forms the foundational basis for the New Covenant that came into being when God sent His one and only Son, Jesus, into the world as a human baby, so that Jesus could ultimately become the once-for-all blood sacrifice to cover the sins of God’s chosen people, both Jews and the now-grafted-in Gentiles. ²

God also intends for obedience to mark our lives, as a symbol of love with regard to our interactions within our families and in our dealings with the people who cross the pathway of our lives. Note these words from King Solomon, as recorded in Proverbs 6:20:

My son (or daughter), keep your father’s commands and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.

As we begin a new day, let’s ask ourselves whether or not we are truly willing to be people of obedience—obedience to God’s perfect and divine will, obedience to His written Word, as well as obedience to the rules of the society under which we live. For, as long as those human rules do not conflict with God’s rules, we do well to humbly and quietly observe them.

 

______________________

1 Gregorc, Anthony F., PhD. The Mind Styles Model: Theory, Principles, and Practice. Maynard, MA: AFG Publishing Company, 2006. Please note that in each case, citation of Copyrighted material is made on this blog post strictly for Educational Fair Use illustration purposes only. All Rights Reserved by the original Copyright Holder.

2 Please carefully read Romans 11:11-24, where the Apostle Paul clearly explains that God has grafted Christians—“Christ’s-ones”—into the bloodline of God’s original chosen people: the children of Israel, the Jews. Thus, Christians have become “God’s chosen ones” in the same manner in which He originally chose the Jews to be His special people here on earth. Christians have joined the Jews in serving as God’s ambassadors to the needy world in which we live.

 

_{Copyright © 2025 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}

 

An Overflowing Measure

 

“Give, and it will be given to you …”

—from Luke 6:38

Please allow me to begin this blog post by sharing the following narrative:

Many years ago, soon after I had begun my career as a fire protection engineer working for an insurance company that insured large industrial facilities, I met a man who had worked in this field for nearly 20 years. He had accumulated a large number of books related to the field of fire science and engineering. He also had a collection of municipal and industrial fire alarm boxes.

On one occasion, he invited me to his home on a weekend. In the basement of his house he had a large area constructed with walls that held part of his collection of fire alarm boxes and other equipment related to fire protection. Each box had been restored to full working order and connected to a network of other boxes, so that they all functioned just as they would have functioned when they were originally installed on telephone poles and pedestals throughout some community.

After he had carefully demonstrated the operation of each box and showed me the internal working mechanisms, he explained where he had obtained each box and how long it took him to restore each one to working order. I was utterly fascinated.

As our time together came to an end, he carried a large cardboard carton to my car. In it he had placed several of his “spare” boxes. “I thought you might like to start a collection of your own,” he said with a smile.

His generosity overwhelmed me. He had not only given me some boxes to start my own collection, he had given me some of his very best yet-to-be-restored boxes. He had given me above and beyond what anyone would have ever imagined.

That’s the way God is with we dear ones, whom He has chosen to belong to Himself. As followers of Jesus, God gives us “abundantly more than we even dare ask or think,’ as the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 3:20. In fact, Jesus Himself said these words found in Luke 6:38:

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

As we are generous in giving of ourselves to others, as an expression of God-breathed love, God will bless us in ways we can’t even conceive. That’s something very worthwhile for us to remember at the beginning of this new day. God gives generously—yes, with enormous generousity. And, that’s a good pattern for us to follow.

 

_{Copyright © 2025 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}