by John Mcsteinberg

Created on: January 07, 2009

Fear of god may seem silly to some, an almost antiquated concept. There are those that may not believe in god and others believe that god is loving and therefore, should not be feared.. The truth is god is loving, and wants what is best for us, as does a parent. Though a parent may love their children very much, they also want them to grow up to be good people. Often they may have to use discipline to correct a child's behavior and to get them to understand the severity of their actions. God is no different in this respect. While he loves us and wants us to be happy, sometimes there must be correction for our sake.

In essence it is good to fear god, fearing god is what is necessary for us to stay righteous people. This is just part of the equation however. For fear of god without love of god means nothing. Sadly, many people believe that you can not love and fear something at the same time. They feel god would not act this way. That such a description of god, lends him to be nothing more than a bully or tyrant.

Yet god is far from any tyrant, he wants control over us not because of his ego, but because if we do not submit ourselves to him, we will inevitably fall prey to our own human nature. God wants to keep us from the shallow wasted lives that we would live without him. God wants us to live this life with his love in our hearts, and toward each other. He wants us to live this life righteously. He has given us the ability to do this, by forgiving us our sins, but we also need the fear of god to fully commune with him.

It probably seems strange that fearing gods allows us to draw closer to him. The truth is god forgave our sins not just so we could go to heaven, but so that we could commune with him while we were still here. This is an amazing gift he has given us. Yet we can not draw closer and commune with god, without first humbling ourselves, and we can not humble ourselves unless we fear god. Through the love of god and by fearing him and humbling ourselves we are changed by him. God breathes new life into us as we allow the holy spirit to come into us, and live through us. Our old selves are stripped away, and we live as god intended us to.

Our lives are transformed through the power of god. But unless we obtain a reverence and fear of the lord, we can never truly know his grace. We do not end up serving him, we end up serving the world and ourselves.

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