Today you will be with me XIII

“Do you not fear God?” asked the one thief to the other.

I’ve heard that people of every place and every culture have an awareness and a fear of God.

I’m not sure that’s true.

In the news this morning I read of the beheading of another American journalist by the Islamists. Supposedly these are particularly God aware people, who are willing to do absolutely anything to gain His favor. I don’t believe it. I believe these people are willing to do absolutely anything, but I think this willingness is because they do not have any awareness of God. They are only aware of each other. They will do anything because they have worked themselves into a state of group frenzy.

I wonder if a better question the one thief could have asked the other would have been, “Do you not fear what others might think of you even at this very moment while you are hanging on this cross receiving the worst that others can do to you?”

"Fear of man is a snare," wrote Solomon. It's a snare because it so often overwelms any fear we might have of God.

The one thief actually did fear God for he was aware of His very Presence at that very moment. This awareness, this fear, this faith, was what elicited the response from God Himself in the Person of His Son, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”