{"id":5975,"date":"2013-02-07T09:45:57","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T17:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=5975"},"modified":"2013-02-07T09:45:57","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T17:45:57","slug":"the-ultimate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2013\/02\/07\/the-ultimate\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ultimate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/h6>\n

Hi friends. Here we are at the end of Ecclesiastes. After most of a year and 77 posts, we arrive today at the ultimate climax.<\/p>\n

Now all has been heard;<\/strong>
\nhere is the conclusion of the matter:<\/strong>
\nFear God and keep his commandments,<\/strong>
\nfor this is the whole duty of man.*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Easy: one precept. Remember that and you don’t have to remember anything else.<\/p>\n

It’s like we have an invisible compass, dependable for all guidance. That’s pretty reassuring in the plethora of paths.<\/p>\n

The only challenge is that the compass is invisible. It’s too easy to not check it, or think it must not be working.<\/p>\n

Fear God.<\/em> It’s not an expression we use much. Instead of “fear” we like to use a lighter touch, like “profound respect.” That works. But it lacks the ultimate weight of consequence.<\/p>\n

That which we fear we generally stay away from. But in fact, the fear of an also benevolent God frees us from fear of anything else.<\/p>\n

I scanned the headlines in today’s paper . . . full of accounts where no such fear exists. The stories are about the consequences.<\/p>\n

There’s a telling account in the Old Testament where Abraham traveled to a country and sensed danger. His remark to himself was, “There is no fear of God in this place.”** He took measures, and those measures are part of his story. But that story is not my point, rather that a place where there is no fear of God is a dangerous place.<\/p>\n

Why? Because there’s no sense of consequence.<\/p>\n

What we tend to forget is “delayed consequence” is not the same as “no consequence.”<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of that final Ecclesiastes passage:<\/p>\n

For God will bring every deed into judgment,<\/strong>
\nincluding every hidden thing,<\/strong>
\nwhether it is good or evil.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Happily, the commandments of God are not onerous. All are for our sake. Only in a few instances has he had to say, “Not that.” All else is ours for exploration, enjoyment, and free abandon.<\/p>\n

And when we do blow it, he’s got a solution for that too, if we’ll take it.<\/p>\n

Meantime, fear God. It’s very freeing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

____________________
\n* \u00a0 Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
\n** Genesis 20:11<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just remember one thing, and all else will go well. Trouble is, we tend to forget it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5975"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5975"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5994,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5975\/revisions\/5994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}