I talk about this topic quite often, but in today’s post I wanted to briefly tie fear and wisdom together and emphasize their importance. “For those who find [wisdom] find life and receive favor from the Lord. But those who fail to find [wisdom] harm themselves; all who hate [wisdom] love death.” Proverbs 8:35-36 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10 “To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I [Wisdom] hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.” Proverbs 8:13 There is a simple truth at work throughout these three verses (and the rest of the Bible, really): (1) You must find wisdom. What is wisdom? (2) The fear of the Lord is wisdom. What does it mean to fear the Lord? (3) To fear the Lord is to hate evil. I discussed in a previous post that fearing the Lord has to do with literally being afraid of the Lord, as Jesus says to fear God who has the power to send us to hell (Matthew 10:28). Perhaps this is still true. I myself am learning much as I study the Word of the Lord. “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:16-18 Perhaps the fear of the Lord as defined this way (being afraid of God) is more a conversation than a single act. Think back to those instances when shepherds and God-fearing people trembled in terror before the Lord or someone the Lord had sent. “Fear not,” they often said. Perhaps we fear the Lord so that He, in His great love for us, can completely comfort us by telling us not to be afraid. Yet look at what Moses says to the Israelites when they are afraid of the voice of God after receiving the 10 commandments: “Moses said to the people, 'Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.'” Exodus 20:20 Do not be afraid…so that the fear of God will be with you. I haven’t quite figured out an answer to this question yet (are we supposed to literally be afraid of God?). Maybe I never will. If I do, I’ll be sure to post about it in the future. For now, I’m content to turn to God in prayer and have Him reveal to me if my fear is sufficient enough, or too much. What I do know is this: how to fear God is not a topic we can shy away from. We are to seek wisdom, lest we harm ourselves and love death (Proverbs 8:36), and wisdom is found first in the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10). At the very least, we know for certain that fearing God does mean hating evil (Proverbs 8:13). And to hate evil is to first know what is evil in ourselves and the world around us, through self-reflection and outward examination. If we are not testing ourselves and the world around us against the Scriptures, how will we ever know what is evil? Perhaps the same principle can be applied to God. To fear God, we must first know God, so that we know the awesomeness of the One we are worshipping in order to understand the extent to which we must fear Him. If to you God is just a guy in the sky who you chat with nonchalantly, how can you ever fear Him? But if He is to us the same God pictured in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4, fearing Him should come quite naturally. “Day and night they never stop saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.’” Revelation 4:8
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorFighting complacency and advocating change in myself for the world around me. Posts by Date
February 2019
Posts by Name
All
|