Fearing God (I Peter 1:17-21)

We are diving back into our study of I Peter!
Ready?
To refresh our memories, Peter is writing this letter to believers who are scattered across what we call today the country of Turkey. They were separated from each other and they were facing persecution, but Peter began his letter by encouraging them to stand fast in spite of their trials. He reminded them that God had caused them to be born again, and had given them an inheritance in heaven. Their fiery trials can't change any of that -- nor can the trials change the fact that in the future, they will see the Savior face-to-face! He told them that the prophets searched for this salvation, and the angels don't fully understand it, but nothing that happens to us here on earth can cause God to break His promises to us.
Whew! Anyone besides me saying "Amen!"? There's been a lot packed into this first chapter so far!

Because of that great salvation, Peter now writes three commands to the scattered believers:

Be holy

Fear God

Love one another

Last week we studied the "Be holy" portion.

This week we're going to talk about the "Fear God" part.....

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially,live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. (I Peter 1:17-21)

I bet that if one of us were writing this letter, we would put things in a different order! Let me explain....I think we might list "love one another" first. We all understand that one, and we like it. It's warm and fuzzy and doesn't take a lot of discussion. We would probably put "be holy" in second place. We know it's important, and we understand it. We might put "fearing God" in the last slot. Why? We're not sure what it means, and we kinda don't like the sound of it. God is our Savior, our Friend, our comfort and our refuge. He loves us. Fearing God kinda sounds negative, no? Like He is angry, and He might do as the cartoons show, and "zap" us? (Grin)

To tell you the truth, I can't remember the last time I heard someone preach or teach on the fear of God. I feel a bit like a salmon swimming upstream, ya know? Going against the tide of modern church culture. It's not a popular topic -- we'd much rather talk about the love of God any day!

Ahh, but wait! If we only pay attention to the Scriptures that we like, will we ever grow? If we only read the warm and comfortable verses and promises, will we ever mature in faith? I believe that if we read only the comfortable passages, we will stay just as we are. If we want to grow as believers, we need to read the ones that tug us away from the comfort zone, and challenge us to grow. I want to grow! I want to examine this concept of fearing God, don't you?

We're going to dig deep on this one, and tomorrow's study will include a lot of different verses to consider....maybe we should dig on our own before we meet again. Let's look at our concordance or commentary and read some of the verses that contain the words "fear God."