Fearing God (I Peter 1:17-21)

Yesterday we looked at a variety of verses about fearing God.
I think we can all agree on some things that fearing God is not.... it isn't a subservient kind of feeling, beaten down, mopey, no will of our own, no choice in anything.
It isn't a cringing, scared kind of feeling, either, like any moment we're going to be punished ferociously, so we look over our shoulder all the time, frightened.

So what IS fearing the Lord, our God?
I think it combines two things -- love and respect. And I think we must have both.
Let me clarify, OK, before you shake your head and say I'm bonkers?
I believe the fear of the Lord combines the two into loving respect and respectful love....in other words, we love and respect God at the same time.
If you turn it on its head, you can see it clearly: where there is no respect, there is no love.

Can't we see that in human relationships, too?
If there is no respect in a marriage, there is no real love, either. If there is no respect in a parent and child relationship, there is no love there, either.
And the same thing applies to our relationship with God, our Father. Remember this verse?

...since they hated knowledge    and did not choose to fear the Lord. (Proverbs 1:29)

There's the key! Sorry to shout, but I get excited when the Spirit makes something clear to me!
We make the choice to obey God -- why? because we love Him and want to please Him. The fear of the Lord is an ongoing, daily, ever-growing attitude of my heart....it causes me to choose (over and over again, each day) to obey God, even when it might be easier to do something else. So the fear of the Lord is not a cringing fear -- that would be respect without love. And the fear of God is not being flippant, or irreverent, which is love without respect. When we combine respect and love, we see the true fear of the Lord!

Perhaps we have a close relationship with an earthly parent. Even when they were strict on us, when we were young, we probably never truly doubted their love. Oh, there may have been times of crisis or of discipline when we thought they were just out to get us, but most of the time, even if they were not the type to be demonstrative, we knew their love was there. We tried to do the tasks they assigned, and we knew if we didn't, we'd be in trouble!
In much the same way, the fear of the Lord is not the opposite of love -- instead, it is what real love is all about. A healthy sense of fear (like when we didn't want our parents to punish us) can be a positive motivation for doing the right thing. That loving respect is the basis of our relationship with God, too. When we choose to fear Him, we are choosing out of respect and love to do the things that please Him. Everything that we do in our lives should really come back to this principle; it's the most positive attitude that we can have.

Let's think about it another way.....if the whole world rages at us, we'll get over it, right? But if we antagonize God, we have a real problem! One result of this is that Christians don't fear the same things that the world fears.....
Political unrest? No panic.
Rogue regime tossing missiles about? No worries.
Craziness in an election? No lost tempers here.
Many people get stressed out, depressed, angry at others. Believers need to be careful of that. If we get very angry or very uptight about world events, what does that anger or stress mean?
Doesn't it mean that we don't fear (love and respect) God very much?  I believe if we fear God as we should, we won't lose our temper when talking about politics. If we truly fear God, we won't stress about some country that is lighting fuses on rockets. We must do our part as citizens (vote and tell our representatives how we feel on issues) and then remember that all of this rests in the hands of Almighty God. If we feel ourselves getting uptight, or angry, perhaps a quick check of our own hearts is in order -- do we fear God as we should?

If we love and respect Him, we will remember all of His promises to us -- and that puts rogue regimes, elections, and more in the right perspective! If we respect and love Him, we can reverently pray and ask for His guidance and His protection.

In the next few verses, Peter offers us three reasons why we should fear God. We'll study these three principles, for they are motives for godly living, and truths that we help us take God seriously.

Join me next time, please!