Understanding the fear of God
When reviewing the Gospel and what it means to have a genuine relationship with God, understanding the importance of our view of Him and how we relate to Him is crucial. I believe that this begins with fearing Him.
Now, you may fall into the following groups when thinking about what this means:
You don’t know what fearing God means tangibly, although you’ve heard it referenced many times within the church
You struggle with this term, and have a negative association with it
You have a neutral position, but curious as to a new take on the subject
Great, hopefully I’ll speak to all three positions.
For the last several years, I’ve been on the search for understanding what exactly the fear of God really means. It was always confusing to me that we should have a fear-like relationship with someone who we’re supposed to feel fully loved by. In a world overwhelmed with all kinds of heinous abuse, the link between fear and love may send shivers down your spine. Why would we want anything to do with such a bipolar-seeming God?
Two Kinds of Fear: Reverence & Terror
First, let’s get into what type of fear we’re talking about. Because there’s two kinds: fear as in terror and fear as in awe. The fear of God refers to the latter, a reverent, awe-struck response to something.
Since God is good and has no evil in Him, His power and wrath are all singularly directed towards sin. And we know that sin directly opposes Him and all He stands for (being love, truth and goodness, to name a few).
Fearing God is responding to Him - both His power and His love. We wouldn’t be able to respond in fear unless there was something to respond to. We see demonstrations of His power all around us through His creation. The life that He breathes through us, the sunset beaming in our gaze, the intricate galaxies we study. There is no lack of His display of power. Psalm 19 demonstrates this beautifully.
But He isn’t just a form of power that rules over all things. While He is all powerful and He rules over all things, His character doesn’t stop there. Or else we would have no reason for a relationship with Him. Since His very character is built out of love, He made a way possible for us to have a relationship with Him. But that only came to be because He came towards us first. We couldn’t ever have a loving relationship with God if we only knew Him as a non-personal, power-seeking God. We are able to respond to His power in fearful worship because of His great love.
So, if you have a loving relationship with God, your response to Him is in a reverent fear of Him. You understand His position of power and as you love Him, you’re aligned with Him. You’ve responded to His love and reciprocated that love. While we are far from perfect in our reciprocal love, our lives are centered towards Him. We stand for what He stands for. And since sin opposes Him, He calls us to hate sin.
Is Loving & Fearing God Synonymous?
It seems that loving God and fearing Him are somewhat synonymous here. Think about it. God, the creator of the world and the very author of all love and truth chose to love you specifically. He wants a relationship with you. And He relentlessly pursues you, deeply desiring to give you His love. He wants all of you. Because He knows that He will be the only thing to really fulfill or satisfy you. As a Christian, these truths will leave us in melting, reverent awe.
When you fear God reverently, since He is God, nothing else supersedes your fear of Him. That means, nothing else in this world, no matter how great, could ever surpass Him. No one is greater, smarter, more loving, more good, more truthful than Him. And we can rest in this knowledge. That since we have a relationship with Him, we don’t have to fear anything else. Because God is sovereign.
It’s not as easy as “resting in this knowledge”. God knows we are human and live in a fallen world, and we still fear other things quite a lot. But time and time again, He will gently remind us of Himself. And slowly, as our hearts will learn to trust Him more and more. And suddenly things that once sent us in a spiral, will fade into the background.
When we fear other things, they will always let us down. Fearing God leaves us towards peace in the knowledge and assurance of God’s goodness.
God’s Power & Love
If you don’t have a relationship with Him, His power and opposition to sin evokes a fear of Him in the terror definition. Since you only see Him as a sort of power, you don’t see or respond to His love which He extends to you. Therefore, the only thing you respond to is His power. And if He’s all powerful and not loving to you, how could you possibly fathom having a relationship with Him? Not seeing His invitation is probably due to a lot of things, namely a fear of something else.
What you fear - in a reverent way, is what you worship. To be sure, if you don’t fear God in that way, you’re fearing something else. Whether it be the ‘almighty dollar’, success, approval of others or even yourself. If you desire to fear God in that way to build a relationship with Him, you must discover within yourself what is taking that position in your heart right now.
So, what do you fear more than God?
