Fearing God

Yesterday I started trying to wrap my mind around the concept of fearing God. We want God to be an accessory... our last resort... in the periphery of our lives...

Most of us believe in God... or "some higher power"... who is benevolent and charitable and who can grant us that which we desire.

Many of us believe that you have to have some sort of relationship with God to insure that we go to Heaven when we die... although we all probably have some variation of understanding as to what establishes that relationship. For some faiths, you're born into it.... for others, you're raised in it... and some others believe that you have to seek a relationship with him. Still others believe that you achieve immortality by the things you do here on earth.

Many of us seek that eternal assurance or earthly assistance but we mainly do it because we need God, not because we fear God.

I don't know what made me start thinking about fearing God... but the thought formed in my mind during church and sort of lingered. I spent a lot of the day napping and resting and nesting. My back is bothering me and I knew that I wouldn't have free time for a few days (although I love that there's a holiday in the middle of the week! Woohoo!) so I took advantage of a quiet Sunday afternoon. But as I nested... the thought stayed in my mind, "Do I FEAR God?"

I googled the words, "Fear the Lord" and found a sermon on the subject. I actually found several things on the subject. I looked the word "fear" up in the concordance of my bible and thought about several of the verses there. Lots of stuff in Deuteronomy.... that's a book that's all about the nation of Israel and them learning the Law and it's really dogmatic. Truly, at that point in biblical history, people had a fear of the Lord... if you realize all that they had to do to have a promise of eternal life, you realize they lived in fear. (and I suspect in a constant state of discouragement because NOBODY could keep the Law, which is why we needed a Savior... but that's a different topic.). There are verses in Joshua, 1 & 2 Samuel, Job, Psalms... and then we get to Proverbs - the book of wisdom - and it's chock full of verses about the fear of the Lord... here are a few thoughts for you:

Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Psalm 2:11
Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere Him. Psalm 33:8
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers them. Psalm 34:7
Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. Psalm 34:9
Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways. Psalm 128:1
The Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love. Psalm 147:11
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. Proverbs 1:7
To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech. Proverbs 8:13
The fear of the Lord adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short. Proverbs 10:27

There are more.... but I'm running out of time this morning... here's the point: we have made God, the creator of the universe, the one who holds the planets in place, the one who controls every breath we take... we have turned Him into a warm, fuzzy, cuddly creature who we can entertain at our leisure. We ignore Him, we ignore His commands, until such time as we need him.

I have this problem with Austin. He won't do his chores until he faces a consequence for not doing them. I can talk until I'm blue in the face. I can yell, scream, beg, cry... nothing works. But when I take the remote control away from him, he becomes very obedient. The problem? He doesn't fear me. He loves me. He appreciates me on some levels. He wouldn't want to live without me. He doesn't WANT me to be angry. He just wants me to be in my "mommy box"... provide for him and not expect anything in return. That's how we view God. And by we, I mean me... and maybe you, I don't know. Maybe you see yourself in this.

What has happened in Christianity since the feel-good sixties - is a turning from the hellfire and brimstone preaching that taught people to fear God.... to respect who He is. We have tried to make God politically correct. We have tried to appease man and not offend anyone by speaking what God really says. We complete our Sunday morning obligatory church service (or not) and we do our little cursory bible study and prayer every day (or not) but we don't fear Him. We don't worry that we are not obedient. We don't worry about the fact that He is displeased with our actions. We don't worry that when we claim to be a Christian and then act like the devil, that we are preventing people from approaching Him - because they don't want to be near us or like us.

My goal for 2009 is to respect God... to acknowledge God.... to appreciate who God really is... I want to fear God.