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
