Day 8: Spirit of Fear of the Lord

The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10

We often think of fear as something to be avoided. Who wants to be scared? SHOULD we be scared of GOD? There is a lot of really scary things that He did in the Old Testament and-if we are honest-the New Testament doesn’t show us a God who ‘mellowed out’. It shows us a God who has given us ample opportunity by His grace to not HAVE to fear Him. But we also see that there IS a time coming that He is so angry that the entire world will try to hide and Evan ask the earth to fall in on them to protect them! And lest we think “see, that is the mean, angry god of the Old Testament. Not loving Jesus of the New Testament” best we read that section very carefully-it is the wrath of Jesus-the Lamb-that will be doing such that people call o the very rocks to fall on them! (Revelation 6:16-17).

And of course who can ever forget reading the famous sermon from the great theologian Jonathan Edwards ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’? Well…ok, a lot of us KNOW of it, very few have read it. Because sermons-especially those of the past with their particular writing and delivery-can be tiresome. But still, fear is a good reason a lot of people come to the Lord-a fear of eternal damnation.

But fear doesn’t always mean that, and it doesn’t mean it here, either. The ‘Fear of the Lord’ is great respect, humility before Him, the realization of the awesomeness of Him, the pathetic creatures we are and the amazing thought that no matter what we do, He has offered us His grace. Our fear isn’t one of being afraid, it is one of being amazed. We are fearful in the idea that if it weren’t for Him-for grace, the perfect sacrifice of the Messiah-we WOULD be falling into the ‘Hands of an Angry God’. Instead we get to fall into the loving embrace of the Most High God, thankful throughout eternity that He gave us this opportunity.

Honestly, the idea of ‘dodging a bullet’ comes to mind…if only we hadn’t stop to say hello to the neighbor we might’ve been hit while crossing the street…if only we hadn’t heard the ‘Look Out’ shouted and stopped before the ball came flying in front of us-the adrenaline spike of the fear of ‘just missed’ quickly grows to thankful praising for NOT being hit. And so we see our Fear of the Lord quickly turns to absolute pleasure and adoration when we think ‘whew!”

This is hard to write, as it goes against everything we tend to think about the word ‘fear’ to mean. Sometimes the English language is difficult because so many words can mean different things with different usage, and the words themselves in form and usage changes over time. This is one of those words. ‘To grow in knowledge and fear of the Lord’ isn’t a bad thing. It is learning, trusting, being amazed and in awe. And the more we learn, the more we see, the more we grow-then yes, that adrenaline spike hits-we dodged an eternal bullet and get eternal salvation instead. Our fear turns to thanksgiving. 

We fear the Lord in our awe of Him…in our desire to grow closer to Him…in our daily walk with Him…in Him.

Psalms 19:9
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgements of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether.