Cultivating a Fear of the Lord

“Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.” (Prov 28:14)

Fearing God is living in reverential awe and submission to Him. Instead of living the way man thinks about you or wants you to live, it is living in obedience and submission to the One who created you.

The quick test for whether someone fears God is to look at their pattern of obedience, or lack thereof. Solomon made this statement which would be a fine life verse for any Christian – “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecc 12:13). The order is significant, because obedience is produced by the one who fears – the one who reveres God. Fearing God is the spring from which obedience flows.

Fearing God is not something that frightens or scares us away from God but draws us near Him.

How can one cultivate a fear of God? Let me give you 5 prescriptions for cultivating Theophobia.

1. Remind yourself that you are always in the presence of God. Since God is omnipresent, that means we can never flee from His presence. He sees every motive, every so-called secret sin, every action we perform alone, and every word muttered under our breath. Remember in Genesis 28 when Jacob had a dream where a ladder went to heaven and angels were ascending and descending from it? After waking from that dream, Jacob said, “’The Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’ And he was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven’” (Gen 28:16-17). God is never absent. The more you meditate on that truth, the deeper your fear of Him will become.

2. Dwell on the meaning of the forgiveness of your sin. Think on the words Jesus uttered from the cross – “It is finished”. The slate is washed clean! The psalmist said, “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared” (Ps 130:3-4). Knowing your own forgiveness of all the wretched sins you have committed will help lay a foundation for fearing God. God could release His fury against us, but He, instead, released all His forgiveness. That will get you moving to fear Him.

3. Daily commune with God in His Word. The kings in the O.T. were required to write out the Law upon receiving their kingship – “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved bythe Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, THAT HE MAY LEARN TO FEAR THE LORD HIS GOD by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them,that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel” (Deut 17:18-20). You can’t help but cultivate a fear of God as you grow to know Him and His deeds from Scripture. Those who fear God know His word and they know it well. They don’t have a causal understanding of it or barely read it every now and then. They know it like a king is to know the laws he enforces.

4. Invest time with others who fear God. When you choose friends, choose God-fearing ones. Good friends with good convictions can become contagious, which is why Scripture warns us about bad company corrupting good morals (I Cor 15:33).

5. Petition God to deepen your fear of Him. The Bible says that if we ask for things in Jesus’ name, we will receive them. Think God wants us to fear Him? That is a request God is “dying” to grant. James 4:2 same the reason we often lack things in the Christian life is because we don’t ask for them. If you lack a fear of God or your fear of God is weak, ask God to bolster it. I guarantee He will direct you the spiritual resources necessary to honor that request.

The choice is clear: choose today whom you will fear. Will it be man who is just like you? Or will it be God who made you?