“What does it mean to Fear God”?
This is a question that I asked myself constantly but was never brave enough to ask at church. You see, growing up in the church, I constantly heard two phrases that bounced around this little space between my two ears, I like to call my Noggin. “Fear God” and “Love God”. As a kid, I knew two things for sure. 1. Sharks are a huge fear of mine. 2. There is no way I could love a shark. I could not wrap my brain around the idea of “fearing God”, because the first thing you hear when you go to church is that God loves you. So why should I be afraid of Him??? Well, I’ve given this question ten or so years of thought and I think I’ve come up with my answer. To fear God is nothing compared to an Earthly fear. It is not being afraid of swimming in the ocean because there may be sharks, or having a fear of needles, or even shaking in your boots while talking in front of your peers.
Fearing God is a form of respect.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of ANYONE on this earth that has the ability to do what he has done.
He spoke everything that ever was and ever is into existence. He said let there be light, and there was the Sun- a ball of blazing energy that is close enough to warm the earth but far away enough to not burn everything to a crisp. He created hundreds-THOUSANDS of different species of animals that fit perfectly into a food chain so that there is balance in each ecosystem. He drew up the trees from the ground and made this thing called the carbon cycle so that the air is breathable, and he threw a splash of water in the earth so that the trees could live. He established the human race- and man, did he do a special job. He created billions of people, each one unique. Unique abilities; talents; features; functions. Don’t even get me started on the human biology. The fact that there are chemicals in our brains that react to allow us to FEEL emotions so we are not just mindless blobs wandering around…that’s crazy if ya ask me.
You guys, I could go on forever about how complex this life is. There are still so. SO many mysteries we can not explain, cancers to be cured, hearts to be understood. So back to my question: What does it mean to FEAR God? It means understanding His power. In my opinion, it is foolish to disrespect the maker of everything that ever was and ever is. He put this earth into rotation and breathed life into our lungs, and I believe he can take that away at any given second. But here is where the love part comes into play.
We do disrespect God, all the time. This is called sin. Maybe we do it intentionally in an act of rebellion or maybe we don’t realize the destruction we cause. But this God, The ONLY God, the one who created us, knew that we would fall short of his perfect standard. And through it all, He still loves us. So much in fact that he sent Jesus to earth, 100% human and 100% God, to take the weight of our sins so that we are given the decision to follow him. He gave us freewill to choose eternal life with him after death or to choose eternal life apart from him.
I cannot think of a better way to honor God than to live my life to please him AND fear him. Because, he is THE MAN.
