Fear the Lord

Fear the Lord

I want to start by looking at Psalm 103:8-18. It says

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children— with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.

This verse shows the depth of the love Christ has for us. But it also shows us something about God that can be confusing if read the wrong way. That is that we are supposed to “fear” God. Fear is something I have struggled with my whole life. From spiders, to murderers, to failing tests, you name it I have been afraid of it. The Bible says “do not fear” 365 times. That’s one verse for each day of the year! So if He commands us not to fear that many times, why does he tell us to fear Him?

When God says for us to fear him, he is talking about respect and reverence. A King can be “good” but if he is not feared then no one will do what he says. Since I am a teacher, I deal with this daily. I consider myself a “good” teacher but if I do not instill a respect and reverence for my teaching in my students, they will walk all over me. In the same way, God asks us to fear him. We read in the Bible what has happened to those who went against Him, and it is never good! The Israelites had to live in the desert for 40 years and they were constantly being captured by other nations. The Old Testament has several stories of people being struck dead on the spot for disobeying God. He uses these stories to show us that he means business. He is all powerful and being under his command is not to be taken lightly.

Lucky for us our God is also benevolent, loving and compassionate as the verse above says. He knows we are going to mess up. Fearing God does not mean we are perfect, it means when we mess up we know who to apologize to. One of my favorite quotes of all time is from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. In the story when the children see Aslan the Lion for the first time, Lucy asks Mr. Beaver if Aslan is safe. Mr. Beaver replies “Safe?... Who said anything about being safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King…”

Our God is good but he is not safe and he is to be feared as the King above all Kings. May we continue to fear Him and show our respect and reverence as we go about our lives this week.