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For the past two weeks, I have written about fearing God as a means to freedom from our own fears. Click here and here to catch up if you wish. For the final segment, I wanted to highlight specific scriptures that teach us what actions we need to take to fear God. I venture to say we all want to fear Him, but what about the HOW?

So, here are hands on practicals from scripture as to how we are to fear Him.

Deut. 6:24 . The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. 

Sam. 12:24 But be sure to fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you. 

PS 86:11 Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.

PS 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. 

Prov. 8:13 To fear the LORD is to hate evil.

From these scriptures we see a few action items:

obey all these decrees

serve Him faithfully with all your heart

consider what great things He has done for you

ask for an undivided heart

follow His precepts

hate evil

Breaking it down makes the practicals of how to fear God seem a little easier. In fact, we all know these things and we want to do them. But to me, the challenge is giving Him even the small stuff, the every day things that can derail me so quickly. 

 The fear verse that is most impactful to me is 2 Timothy 1:7 (New Living Translation)

⁷ For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

Some translations end with the word self-control.  

This isn’t parenting advice- I can guarantee you I’m the last person you would want parenting advice from but when my two year old and four year old are frustrated about something and need help making the right choice, a friend taught me to  ask them to put their hands together and say ‘self control’. Giving them a positive action to take that replaces whatever action they want to do that they shouldn’t be doing really helps them choose obedience.

I mention this because I think we all are familiar with these scriptures and know how we should respond. So many times, we too need to just take a step back and put our hands together and say ‘self control’. Just a pause and a prayer of realignment can mean the difference in getting worked up about something or surrendering that fear to the Lord.

So, I end where I started 3 weeks ago with the thought:

“The more or our lives we entrust to God, the more radically we will see Him provide and protect.”

May we ALL entrust more of our lives to Him daily and then wait expectantly for His fingerprint on our lives.

“If we put our fear in God, we have no need to fear anything else.” - Oswald Chambers

This post is a continuation of last Friday’s post. If you haven’t read it and want to start from the beginning, click here.

What does it mean to fear God? I mean, how can we fear a God who is defined by love? To me, it would be easier to fear the God whose wrath we see displayed in the Old Testament. This brings me to a life situation that shed much insight on our need to fear God.

Several years ago, someone I knew died unexpectedly while in his 30′s. Without giving many details, I had known this man to live a double life. He was a respected deacon, Sunday School teacher and church leader. He was also extremely dishonest in his career during the week, despised by most, known by all. The news of his death really sent my reeling. The thought would creep into my head, “Did God do this to punish him?” As soon as I thought it, I would immediately be horrified by my own thought. “It isn’t my place to judge him.” and then “But he’s dead.” and then “Who am I to wonder why?” Back and forth I went, never resolving this issue until just  a couple of weeks ago when a good friends Scott and Abby pointed me to 3 instances in the New Testament of God still being a God of wrath.

The first one  Scott pointed out is Luke 13 when the tower of Siloam just fell and killed 18 people and the onlookers were struggling with the same question I had. They went to Jesus and asked him for an answer to why those particular 18 had died.

Jesus’s answer: ⁴Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? ⁵I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

The truth is, regardless of the fate of my aquaintence, I myself deserve death.

Acts 12 -Herod’s last speaking engagement.

²¹On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. ²²They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” ²³Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died. 

Herod stole the praise of the Lord and gave his life for this momentary gain.  

In Acts 5 Ananias and Saphira held back a portion of their tithe and consequentially both fell over dead. 

They stole what God had claimed for himself.

I find it interesting that two of these three examples are those who took away from God what was rightfully his. In one instance His praise and in the other His offerings.  

The good news for us is that even though God still may still operated under this premise occasionally, he is also a God of Love, Mercy, Justice, Forgiveness, and Patience. I only bring up the other because I think our cultural Christianity sometimes overlooks this aspect of fearing the Lord. In order to have a healthy view of fearing him we must combine both the God of justice and God the merciful, compassionate forgiver.

So, this week be sobered by the God of Justice and next week we will rejoice together as we look how to truly fear God the merciful, compassionate forgiver!