Do you FEAR the Lord?
In my last post, I talked about fear. Fear of mass shootings, terrorist attacks, pandemics, and airplane crashes. Fear of stuff coming at us from circumstances and people themselves. I said the best we got is to call on Jesus and lean on faith in a God who loves you.
But what about God Himself? Should we be afraid of Him? Can He be trusted? Is He all good?
Are the Chinese philosophers right when they talk about the ‘yin’, the positive, “light” side of God and the ‘yang’, the negative, “dark” side of God? Sounds good, doesn’t it? Puts God in a nice neat box. We’re grateful for the “light” side of God that gives us good stuff. But we fear the “dark” side of God that brings the bad. Maybe we have to appease that part. But somehow, it seems like man designing god from observing his circumstances. Man creating a god he can rationalize instead of the other way around…a God who made man and gave us a way to rationalize life and death and reality and eternity. For me, a god who is both good and bad is no god at all. Such a god wouldn’t elevate me, or anything else. I might as well worship the steering wheel.
Back to the topic of do we fear God or not.
One definition says fear is “something that causes feelings of dread or apprehension”. Another is “reverential awe, especially toward God”.
I found a website about fearing the Lord. (http://www.feargod.net/verses.php) and as I read all the verses, it came to me that it’s both/and.
God clearly wants us to give Him ‘reverential awe’. But I think we’d be brain dead if we didn’t feel a little apprehension when we think about the God of the universe. The Creator and Sustainer of heaven and earth. God, who created this beautiful world, people, love, truth, and forgiveness. So full of grace, He even created a life to follow this life when we messed this one up. So generous, He gave His son as a sacrifice so we could become holy and live there with Him forever.
And at the same time, an Almighty God…. so powerful that all the nuclear weapons on earth exploding at the same time would be less than a spark from His campfire. God so holy that anyone who saw Him wouldn’t live. God only approachable by those covered in the sacrificial blood of a human being…..God’s son himself being that sacrifice.
I’ve never been on Air Force One. But I can imagine a little bit of this dichotomy. The glorious furniture and décor. The amazing craftsmanship and beauty of the rooms. The finest of everything. But just down the hall is the “suitcase”. The “nuclear football” on the same plane. A few feet away from the best stuff in the world is the mechanism to blow up the world.
My brother in law met George Herbert Bush one time…back when he headed up the CIA. He said “As I sat there talking to him, I thought about all the stuff he knew about what was happening in the world that I didn’t”. Same with God. There’s a gravity about God. An importance. A weightiness that says He’s important. Very important.
I think it comes down to this.
Is God good?
If you believe He’s completely and totally good, then He’s to be revered, respected, honored, worshipped, and surrendered to….not feared, dreaded or run away from. If you’re not sure God is good, you’ll never totally trust Him, and you’ll never have real peace about the events of life. I’m not saying it’s easy, even when you believe God is good. I’m saying it works. And I personally believe it’s true.
Miller Nuesse was a 21 year old pre-med major at Georgia College. He was a role model. Didn’t drink. Didn’t smoke. Worked in high school ministry. Went on mission trips. Was in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Had a Christian girlfriend. He had it going on.
On September 19, 2010, he posted this message on his Facebook page…
God is good, and that’s all we need to know.
The next day, he had numbness on his right side and couldn’t pronounce his name. Hours later, he was dead. A ruptured aneurism in his brain. It was like God gave him this message for his family and friends in advance.
Maybe it was also for us.
Question: Do you believe God is good? Can you prove it? Share how with the rest of us here.
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Responses (2)
I believe God is good.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
If you look at just the material prosperity alone that God has blessed us with in the last hundreds of years.
Citizens of typical First World Countries have more than a sturdy roof over their heads, plenty of food, multiple electronic devices, vehicles, travel far distances in a short amount of time, and much more.
I have a few other ways to tell, but I’ll just leave this one up here for now.
I do too.