Fearing God...

"Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, 'Assemble the people to me, that I may let them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth..."--Deuteronomy 4:10.  Moses, reminding the people of the events at Sinai.  One of the first lessons they would learn would be about fearing God.

Fearing God.  Proverbs 1:7 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.  So before anything else we need to know what it means to fear God.

Fearing God.  If you have obeyed the gospel, what caused you to do so?  I imagine each and every one of our stories is unique in their own way.  A friend of mine and brother in Christ, Scott just told me his story last night.  One of the most important things he mentioned was that he realized he needed forgiveness through a series of prior events.  I would imagine though that each and every one of us probably had a certain amount of fear of God if we did not make that great decision.

But again what does it mean to fear God?  There is a misconception going around that fearing God simply means to respect God.  This might be true to a very short extent.  However, according to the definition I found, to fear God is to quite literally FEAR God.  The definition of the Hebrew word involves not only reverence.  In the Greek, the language the New Testament was written in the word is φοβέω (phobio).  Of course this is the word from which the English word phobia, the fear of something is derived.

Deuteronomy 4:10 reminds us that when the people of Israel first came to God, they were to learn to fear Him. As we read through the pages of Scripture, God's power is displayed over and over again.  God's power is that which no nuclear weapon, weapon of war or any man could ever ever match no matter how hard they tried.  In Matthew 10:28, Jesus tells us quite plainly that we are not to fear he who can kill the body but unable to kill the soul (man) but to FEAR Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.

Fearing God.   So we know God has power to destroy both body and soul but we also must realize that ONLY God through ONLY Jesus has the power to save our soul from the fires of hell. We have the capability to take advantage of this power by simply following God's commands as they are lined out in Scripture.  We must believe in Jesus, repent of our sins, confess Jesus before men, and finally be baptized for the forgiveness of our sins. Click on the highlighted words for more information on each of those steps.

We also need to understand that just because we have completed the steps I just gave does not by any means we stop fearing God.  Again, Proverbs 1:7 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the BEGINNING of knowledge.  Just because we have obeyed the gospel does not mean that we should stop fearing God.  He still expects us to follow His commands.  The New Testament bears out that there are consequences if we choose not to do so.
 
Fearing God.  Deuteronomy 4:10 reminds us that the people assembled before the Lord to hear His words.  Why?  So they may LEARN to fear God.  We learn to fear God by hearing His words.  His words can be found in the pages of Scripture.  Over these next couple of days take some time to study the passages that speak of fearing God so we can further learn more about fearing God.

DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! PRAY ABOUT IT! LOVE Y'ALL! GOD BLESS!