Fear and Reverence God

“He who believes and trusts in the Son and accepts Him [as Saviour] has eternal life [that is, already possesses it]; but he who does not believe the Son and chooses to reject Him, [disobeying Him and denying Him as Saviour] will not see [eternal] life, but [instead] the wrath of God hangs over him continually.” (John 3:36 AMP)

“He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36 KJV)

“And anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God’s angry judgment.” (John 3:36 NLT)

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Proverbs 9:10 NIV)

To even begin to have any real and meaningful concept of Who God is – we need to come to a point of acknowledging that “God IS God” and our created human minds will never fully comprehend, never fully understand, everything about the One Who created us.

In our society we are dealing with an increasingly secular and humanistic worldview – and most non-Christians and even many, many Christians have no concept of Who God is.

God created the world. God created us. And because God created the world and created us He has every conceivable right to do with us as He chooses.

God has chosen to operate within His character – His WHOLE character, not just love.

God is love, but He is also mercy, compassion, righteous, holy, trustworthy, faithful to His Word, truth, wrathful, and Judge.

In a dog pack there is an Alpha male – and while he will lead the pack, he will also very smartly put a subservient in their place if they get out of line. And by virtue of his position he is entitled to do so – and does so for the good of the individual and the pack as a whole.

It is the same with God.

If people understood that God, Who created us, has every right to destroy us – but chooses instead to give us every opportunity to have an intimate relationship with us – then perhaps we would be giving Him the fear, reverence and awe He so rightly deserves.

That means if He tells us to do something we should do it without hesitation – knowing He has every right to ask us – in fact He has every right even to insist that we do what He asks – though because of our ‘free will’ He never does insist.

He will let us suffer the consequences of our disobedient actions though.

If we truly understand this then we would begin to understand the Biblical concept of “Fear God“.

The Bible says that: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Proverbs 9:10)

No wonder so many Christians do not have wisdom or understanding – they have no concept that “God is God” – and that as such we need to fear Him.

We have watered down this “fear God” to an unBiblical meaning of just having awe, amazement, or reverence – but it is far more than that.

I will leave you with a few quotes from Francis Chan:

“Can you worship a God who isn’t obligated to explain His actions to you? Could it be your arrogance that makes you think God owes you an explanation?”

“God is the only being who is good, and the standards are set by Him. Because God hates sin, He has to punish those guilty of sin. Maybe that’s not an appealing standard. But to put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards.”

“The core problem isn’t the fact that we’re lukewarm, halfhearted, or stagnant Christians. The crux of it all is why we are this way, and it is because we have an inaccurate view of God. We see Him as a benevolent Being who is satisfied when people manage to fit Him into their lives in some small way. We forget that God never had an identity crisis. He knows that He’s great and deserves to be the center of our lives.”

“We are a culture that relies on technology over community, a society in which spoken and written words are cheap, easy to come by, and excessive. Our culture says anything goes; fear of God is almost unheard of. We are slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to become angry.”

Watch Francis Chan’s “Basic” series on: Fear God

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