The fear of the Evil is the beginning of foolery.

The world’s ugliness is self-evident.

As a follower of Jesus, I am not called to preach the ugliness and the wickedness of the present world and then write moral prescriptions as cures.

If the strategy of a preacher rests in scaring people to death as some Doctors do in order to prescribe moral treatment against the ugliness of the world, the devil and the flesh, then he must prepare himself for a big disappointment.

It is not what you want them to believe and be afraid of that will cause them to believe and be afraid. No, my friend. It is your faith and your own fear that they need to see and as surely as dog begets dog your faith and fear will beget faith and fear in your listeners.

There is no passage in the whole scripture that teaches that the fear of the world and its ugliness is the beginning of wisdom. But as clear as it is the noonday light, so clear is the opposite teaching that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

The first sign of the fear of the Lord is that in our hearts “We shun evil.”

Loving and fearing God we immediately create distance with evil.

If we preach moralistic principles in gory detail against the ugliness of evil the more likely we will end up scaring ourselves to death and our sermons will become Russian roulettes.

If a preacher is a good salesman of ideas; how can he not keep himself from becoming the first client of those ideas and eventually become the addict consumer of the fear of Satan more than a fear of God?

To dwell on the past failures the more likely it leads us to repeat those failures which we hate so much, And what is worse is that it will keep us from greater victories.

I don’t need to talk about how ugly or beautiful was every other woman I dated before coming to know my wife. I need to talk about how beautiful was the one that I married.

A man honors his wife by not talking about every other woman that he did not marry in spite of how beautiful they were. No. We honor our wives by lifting her as the chosen one and as the most beautiful one and the most trustworthy.

Preach about the beauty of God in Jesus and the attractiveness of heaven.

Preach about God. Preach about your wife and your family as if you really love them and trust them. Because the first convert of our churches is ourselves.

If we don’t believe what we preach we cannot expect others to believe and be more exciting than us.

The beauty of ministering is when we ourselves are the first converts of our own messages. The first listeners become twice learners as Emerson said, “He who teaches learns twice.” It is good for us to preach and to believe what we are said to believe, because that is the only way to keep faith alive and well and fresh.

A preacher is a disciple of himself. If you don’t believe your own message don’t expect others to believe your messages. If you are in great need of encouragement then read your own messages and you will find the beauty of the word of God being alive. Encouragement of yourself and others only with the same encouragement you have been encouraged in your private and intimate walk with God.

You might have noticed that ours is a self-serving religion in the purest sense of the word. And that is right because in the realm of the perfect and the pure all things are pure again as before the fall. The appearance and the minutia in the details of life under the Law will be over. Yes, my brothers when redemption is completed, we all will be above the Law.

Gerry Gutierrez.

PS. The photo is from yesterday at church with my Gabriella. The First good day in a long time and thanks to God's grace and your prayers.