What does it mean to live in the fear of the Lord? As I said last week, many people think of the fear of the Lord as this dreadful approach of terror, and others approach it as just respect and awe. And again, we need both. But how is this practical? What does it look like? And what results from it?
Proverbs 1:7 states that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. This means that unless you have a proper fear of God, you really do not know anything. God is the source of all knowledge. He is the all-knowing one. Everything that can be known, he knows. To fear the Lord means in this context means to know that in and of yourself, you know NOTHING and the only things you can actually know to be true come from God. For me this is a challenging one to truly grasp because I am an intellectual type. In humility, I must keep reminding myself that all I know that has any value whatsoever is a gift from God.
Proverbs 8:13 states that the fear of the Lord is the hatred of evil. If we are going to claim to love God, then we must also love what he loves and hate what he hates. God HATES sin. Sin is enmity towards God. It hates God with everything of its being. This is why it is not enough to “show Jesus” to lost sinners. In their sinful nature, they will only hate him even further as darkness hates being exposed to light. We need to show them that they are enemies of God and will face God on Judgment Day one way or the other. The law is useful for converting the soul, to show that we cannot do it and are in need of a Savior.
Do we hate sin or do we love it? Does seeing sin rile us up and makes us want to take action to stop it, or do we turn a blind eye (which is a very different thing than showing grace and mercy)? If we hate sin, we will start with ourselves and strive against it so that it will not have dominion over us. If we hate sin, we will not have anything resembling that sin in or around us. It will not be in our home, it will not be put in storage. If we see it, we will strive to destroy it on sight. I love living in a place where mosquitoes are rare. I HATE mosquitoes because I used to live in a place where you could build a massive bonfire and you could not even be right next to the fire and not get eaten alive (I know from experience). If I see one, I hunt it down to destroy it. The same concept should be our mindset towards sin.
By living in fear of the Lord, we will seek to get people out of sin as much as possible, not in a legalistic, fear-driven, law-dominated manner, but rather from a position of wanting to see these people no longer bound by sin. But too many of us take our own sin too lightly, and as a result we often take it around us too lightly as well.
Proverbs 6 gives us a good sampling of the kinds of things God hates. So do numerous passages in the New Testament about who will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Some of those can be found in Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, 2 Timothy 3, and Revelation 21:8. Not a single one of us is innocent of those lists entirely. Do we hate those activities enough to not just keep away from them but speak against them and not tolerate them? Do we hate the sin enough to plead with those who practice it to save their lives from it?
The fear of the Lord causes us to put God first. We know the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. The fear of the Lord drives us to put him first and foremost. Is he truly first in every area of our life? I can easily say the answer is “no” for each of us. Why? Because even as Christians we are still a work in progress. But are we in the process of making him first in each area of our lives? This includes decisions about where to go to school, where to work, where to live, and what activities to participate in. Do we seek God to place us where he needs us? Even the little decisions including what clothes to wear should be made with thinking of God and his Kingdom first. I know have a ways to go on this one.
The fear of the Lord will drive us to obedience. If we do not fear God is going to return and hold us accountable for our actions, we will not take his commandments seriously. While Jesus’ work on the cross freed us from the law, he did not free us to do whatever we want. He still gave us commands. These commands do not save us, but they are still to be obeyed. There still is a yoke to submit to. It is easy and light, but not if you fight against it. Jesus also warned that there will be many who will call his name and he will reject them because he did not know them as his own and they lived as though he gave no law to follow. A fear of the Lord will help us to obey him.
There are severe consequences for having no fear of God. It always leads to taking sin lightly and eventually to the practice of sin. God warned Israel of numerous curses for disobedience, for lack of fearing God. He also cursed the Northern Kingdom of Israel into captivity because they lost the fear of the Lord and kept returning to idolatry. God’s threats are real and he is serious about them. He will not be mocked and we will reap the consequences for disobedience.
But if we live in the fear of the Lord, there are great benefits. Proverbs 10:27 lists an easy one: a longer life. If we live in the fear of the Lord, seeking him and obeying him, he will lengthen our days; but if we continually reject him, that sin will find us out and may kill us earlier than we would have otherwise.
Walking in the fear of the Lord will mean we never have to be watchful over our shoulders. We never have to fear our boss, manager, employer, administrator, etc. from being around because we are automatically going to be doing what we are supposed to be doing. And perhaps the best benefit of all is to receive the greatest possible complement: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Let us walk in the fear of the Lord. We can never go wrong in doing so.
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