Have you ever been afraid of anything? Everyone tends to be afraid of something, but are we suppose to be afraid of God? It's been said that we are to respect God and have a reverence for Him, but be afraid of Him? I dare to venture and say that we are suppose to so show some fear towards Him. If you were to read through all 31 chapters of Proverbs you would find "the Fear of Lord..." listed 11 times. How can a God of love, grace, mercy, peace, joy, tenderness, and care be scary? This God that loves you so much is also a God of justice and righteousness. A God that is not controllable, able to be contained, and can do whatever He wants. If we're honest that's terrifying.
Lets take a look at some biblical evidence of this. In 3 of the 4 gospels of the Lord Jesus we find an amazing example of fearing the Lord. We look at Matthew 17:1-8, Mark 9:1-8, and Luke 9:28-36 for this recorded example. This is the transfiguration of Jesus on the Mountain. In all three accounts Peter, John, and James all witness Jesus in all His glory with Moses and Elijah. They see Jesus in all His glory as God. (Philippians 2:5-11) These weren't just some random men. These men knew Jesus, they were probably the closest to Him out of all the apostles. Though when they witnessed and were before Jesus in His glorious presence they showed fear. In all three accounts the three men were either terrified or they were afraid. Mark 9:6 uses the word terrified. Translated it means stricken with fear or terror, exceedingly, frightened, or terrified. Matthew 17:6 and Luke 9:34 uses the phrase "they were afraid", which in the Greek vernacular is the same word. This word is translated into to put to flight by terrifying , to fear, be afraid, and to be seized with alarm. Then the very last part of that definition stops me in my tracks. It's finished by saying, "To reverence, venerate, to treat with deference or reverential obedience." There's that reverence stuff again. The words also mean to be afraid though. So, how do we put this together?
Working through this I started thinking of things that I'm afraid of. The more I thought of it, it started to make sense. I respect the things that I fear. Think of something that you're terrified of. Do you show some kind of respect for it because of your fear? If you don't fear the God of the universe at least a little you bit you're missing out on a whole bunch of blessings. I admit that we shouldn't just be motivated to worship God by fear, this is just one of the many attitudes we need to have towards Him. When you fear the Lord you find:
1. The beginning of knowledge (Prov. 1:7)
2. Hatred for evil, pride, arrogance, and a perverted mouth. (Prov. 8:13)
3. Strong confidences (Prov. 14:26)
4. Refuge (Prov. 14:26)
5. The fountain of life. (Prov. 14:21)
6. More in what little you have. (Prov. 15:16)
7. Instruction for wisdom. (Prov. 15:33)
8. Humility (Prov. 15:33)
9. A way to stay away from evil. (Prov. 16:6)
10. Direction to Life. (19:23)
11. A woman worthy of praise. (Prov. 31:30)
When you have the right attitude and perspective of who God is and who Jesus Christ is, everything changes. We worship God for who He is and by having the correct feelings toward Him it helps us to give Him the worship that He deserves.
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