As believers, we have a loving relationship with our heavenly Father which is based on the work of Jesus on the cross. However, this personal relationship does not give us the permission to be nonchalant with an awesome and mighty God who is the creator of heaven and earth! The knowledge of God should bring us down to our knees and keep us in reverent fear of a holy God who is all powerful!
The very thing that man fights in his carnal nature by thinking and acting independently from God is the very issue that brings us under a curse and bondage to sin. The fear of God brings many blessings to our lives. In this devotional and the next one, I will share some of them with you.
We serve one Master
Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD! Joshua 24:14
We are called to serve God. When we choose to serve God, He asks us to put away all other gods. We cannot have two masters. Even in the natural realm, a servant, an employee, or an athlete can only serve one master or a team. The kingdom of our God is in enmity with the kingdom of this world and darkness. Jesus told us that we cannot serve two masters.
While we have a personal relationship with the Lord, we are still called to submit to His authority for the rest of our lives and serve Him only. We will never grow so old or so mature that we would not need to be submitted to the Lord. We always need to have a healthy reverence and fear of the Lord!! We fear God because He is mighty. He is the one who subdued the Egyptians and delivered the Israelites. He can subdue any one of us who is not living according to His plan, or He can deliver live us we if we live according to His will!!
His fear leads us to transformation
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. Psalm 19:7-9
Isn’t it powerful that the law of the Lord converts the soul!? Our souls are in desperate need of conversion; our minds, will, and emotions have been corrupted and ravaged by years of living in sin. When we fear God and recognize that His laws need to be obeyed, we see the transformation that we so have been longing for. As our soul gets converted, we get revelation of how God judges because His judgments are righteous and true. It gives us clarity of vision and understanding. It changes our perspective and gives us a fresh, new, pure way to look at things. That brings joy to our hearts because we are not stuck in the darkness of our perspective, but now we have light, and we can see clearly. Praise Him!!!
God Trusts those who fear Him
The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, Psalm 25:14a
Our mighty, omniscient, omnipotent God has secrets that He chooses not to share with just anyone, but he chooses to share them with those who fear Him. If we don’t fear the Lord, we can misuse His secrets by using them to show off, talking about them when it’s not the right time. The Lord knows those who fear Him are not going to take advantage of them. These individuals know it’s a great privilege for the Lord to share His secrets with them, and they will stay in tune and in step to know what to do with those secrets.
Abraham had the privilege of God telling him that He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:16-33). Moses tried to change God’s mind and he succeeded because the Lord told him that if there were ten righteous people in those cities He wasn’t going to destroy them. Unfortunately, there weren’t even ten righteous people in those cities!! That was a powerful position for Moses. What would we have done if God had shared a secret like that with us? Would we have been excited because of their gross sin that God was going to destroy them!? Or would we have interceded like Moses did and asked for God’s mercy?
While our culture indoctrinates people into independence from God and has no regard, respect, or reverence for Him, we know through the scripture and through our own personal lives that there are so many blessings to fearing God and walking closely with Him.
Do you fear God? Do you live life the same way whether someone is watching or not?