Intro
The Bible says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear of the Lord prolongs life. Proverbs 9:10 and Psalm 34:12. With these great advantages, it’s important to understand this fear and grow in fear of God.
What does the Bible say about fear of God?
What does the Bible say of fear? It’s a clear and direct instruction. Fear God. Do not fear man.
A person can sin, displease God. The consequence of sin is separation from God. After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they feared God. When God came to the garden, Adam and Eve hid from God as they were aware of their sin and nakedness. When Moses went up to the mountain, the Israelites feared God after they heard the thunder and lightning. In both these instances, God did not want man to stay away from God.
Proverbs 8:13 says. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way. And the perverse mouth I hate. Perverse speaking is deliberately deviating from what is regarded as normal, good, or proper; persistently holding to what is wrong. So one needs to hate pride, arrogance, evil ways and perverse speech. One should not tolerate these behaviours within ourselves. The hatred and non tolerance should be extreme. Since God hates it, we should be intolerant to this behaviour. Only self examination will reveal this. Many circumstances people would not alert you on these matters. The Holy Spirit can help you identify instances of failures in these matters.
Jesus Christ conveyed this dimension of fear as conveyed in Matthew 10:26-28
“But don’t be afraid of those who threaten you. For the time is coming when everything that is covered will be revealed, and all that is secret will be made known to all. What I tell you now in the darkness, shout abroad when daybreak comes. What I whisper in your ear, shout from the housetops for all to hear!
“Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
We need to fear God only. This verse gives a powerful instruction that we do not have to fear man, nor to fear any sickness, bad situation, or even evil. Rather we need to fear only God. Empowered with this truth, we can walk in freedom from every lie of the enemy.
How can we hate evil? How to change our lives?
Understanding evil from the perspective of the Holy Bible helps. Searching for verses about Evil in the Bible in Google will help. With this you will generally start getting an understanding.
Then understanding about loving God is helpful. Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ (Matthew 22:37)
Exodus 20:3-5 says that we should not have any other God. “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.
Giving God Lordship over our lives is necessary in making the powerful verse a transformative aspect of our faith and life. Reflecting on this verse in the presence of the Holy Spirit will help us to gradually and steadily observe this command.
This is a progressive journey. In the beginning, we may feel we are already at the destination. But as we press on, we get to understand the need for change in the way we consider situations and matters in our lives. When we spend time in the presence of the Lord, the Holy Spirit will highlight the existence of fear in our lives which God does not want us to have. By the abundant love of Jesus Christ we can come from this kind of fear. In its place, we begin to trust in God. Thus we grow in our journey towards our destination of fearing only God. This way we get into a process, a journey of growing in the fear of God.
