Fearing God

February 4, 2009

Today's Reading: Exodus 19-20 and Matthew 24

I believe that this is the first entry in this blog that I have ever done about the fear of God. That’s odd, considering I have covered half of Proverbs by now, which is all about how the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Maybe by this time next year, I’ll touch on it.

That, or I could start now. After all, there is a lot of reasons to be afraid of God in today’s reading. Not only did we talk about how Moses talked with God on Mount Sinai, but Jesus talked today about the last days.

I couldn’t have picked a set of verses that really make God sound just plain scary. It is no wonder that no one but Moses was willing to go see God on Mount Sinai. Mix that with a little endtimes prophecy from Jesus, and it is enough to even make the godly quiver with fear.

Sadly, I don’t think most of us know what godly fear is, because we usually associate the fear of God with Mount Sinai or Second Coming of Christ experiences.

I will tell you about one time where I thought I was experiencing the fear of God. It happened after I went to a Youth Group meeting, where a guest speaker was talking about the Book of Revelations. There was a lot of talk about the Tribulation, and how everyone was going to have to have a tattoo on their head and hands.

This is not the fear of God, just fear. I was not afraid of what God would do to me, but rather what man would do to me.

So what is the fear of God? Does it mean being afraid of God all the time? Yes. The problem is, we can only associate that with something negative because that is all we know about fear.

If you think that God wants us to walk around like a little kid in a dark cave, I don’t think we know God. The truth is, we should love God.

So how can we love and fear something at the same time? If you have been in love, then you already know the answer to this question, but let me help you put it into words. The more you love someone, the greater the power is that this person has to hurt you. I mean, if someone comes up to me on the street and insults me, I can easily ignore it, because he don’t know me. However, if it is my wife who says it, it will be the worst blow in the world.

The thing we need to fear about God is that He could just as easily insult us. After all, his love is not a right, it is a privilege. He could take it away on his will, but he tells us that he won’t. If we believe that, than we really have nothing to fear.