“Whoever fears the Lord walks uprightly, but those who despise him are devious in their ways.”
My oldest son, Kevin, would send me things he read and listened to just about every day. As a night-shift ER nurse, he often sent even more during slow shifts. Last week, he sent me something that really had an impact on him. It was a preacher talking about the need for the “fear of the Lord” and how essential it is in a believer’s life with God. It challenged me. I had to ponder where I am in that area of my faith. I have always loved the understanding of grace and love in God’s kingdom. I’ve consistently tried to speak about it and live it, especially in working with lost and broken teenagers. However, I’ve neglected, to a degree, communicating the need for and the power of reverence for God. Reverence and awe—what these biblical terms truly mean—are crucial. An improper understanding of who God is can lead us to assume a familiarity with God that threatens to fall short of His true awesomeness. I remember back in the early ‘90s when the word “awesome” itself seems to have begun to lose significance. One day, as I was driving down the road, I heard one of my kids singing a new song they had learned in church, with the prominent line being, “Our God is an awesome God.” The very next moment, we passed a Domino’s restaurant, and one of them cried out, “Can we get a pizza? Pizza is awesome.” In their simple minds, one of them then said, “Hey, God and pizza are both awesome.” The sense of awe and wonder about a God we cannot fathom is something that seems to be missing—or maybe even cheapened. A reverent fear of the One who spoke the universe into existence and breathed life into man is vital for a child of God. Today, recognize Who He is and shudder a bit. #BeTheEdge
“Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God.” Deuteronomy 7:21 NIV
