What Excites Us

What gives us thrills and adrenaline? The very things that both excite us and frighten us.
 
Standing on the edge of a mile-high cliff at the Grand Canyon. You look out and see the vastness of this massive crack in the earth’s crust, the deep chasm stretching between you and the other side, the stunning layers of rock God formed in creation. The closer you step to the edge, the more adrenaline fills your body. Your heart races. You freeze in fear and awe. For a moment, you forget everything else. Time seems to stop as you take in the glory of God’s creation.
 
Or have you experienced this: instead of hiding from a violent thunderstorm, you find yourself running toward it, wanting to feel the power of a lightning strike crashing nearby. What makes us do such unthinkable and irrational things? Power and glory! It draws us in even as it fills us with fear.
 
This is why millions are spent on storm chasing. God has created us to hunger for glory and might.
 
Or perhaps you have stood beneath a waterfall, watching tons of water crash against the rocks, feeling the force of the wind it produces as you move closer and closer, knowing there is a point where one more step would destroy you.
 
Greatness, majesty, glory, and beauty attract us. Sometimes even power that could overwhelm and destroy us pulls us closer, as we seek a greater sense of awe and intensity. Yet as we draw near, fear and reverence rise together. We are drawn in, and at the same time, we recognize something far greater than ourselves.
 
Over this past weekend, these kinds of vivid illustrations were shared at the Reality Conference, which many of our youth attended. The topic was the fear of the Lord.
 
This deep and profound biblical truth is often misunderstood. Some are unsure what it really means. Others reduce it to simply being afraid of disappointing God. Manny Pereira, the main speaker, helped us see it more clearly. He showed that the fear of God both attracts and humbles us. It stirs awe, excitement, and even trembling, as we are drawn into His glorious presence. Scripture reminds us that God has authority even to cast into hell (Luke 12:5), and yet He is also the One who saves, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).
 
There was also a warning: the small pleasures and distractions of everyday life can easily block our view of God’s glory, just as a small thumb can cover the sun in the sky.
 
My desire is that all of us would be drawn into the overwhelming presence of God.
 
If you are interested in this topic, you can find Manny Pereira’s sermons on Word for Grace Church YouTube channel.

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"So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness."
Romans 6:11-20