THE GOD OF ALL TRANSCENDENT ATTRIBUTES

How do we recognize the fear of God in people? Why is it even important to take notice of this type of reverential fear of the Lord? 

When a person doesn’t fear God, there is a missing link in the chain of the way that person views God’s authority, and His sovereignty. He is omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (everywhere at the same time), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnibenevolent (all-loving). While it’s difficult for any person to truly imagine a being of this stature, the Bible teaches us that this God exists, and that it is in fact, by this very God, that we exist. This amplifies our need to grow in understanding of this God to a very serious degree. By growing our understanding of God, we should develop a healthy fear of being apart from God because He is good, not merely all-powerful. We need to understand what this fear means for us as Christ-followers, and just how important it truly is to our walk of faith.

ONE “OMNI” ISN’T ENOUGH TO DISTINGUISH HIM

A lot of us mistakenly view God in partiality, rather than in the fullness of His truth. For example, to only view God as all-powerful is to limit our sight in seeing Him in all of His glory. It also hinders our ability to recognize the God of the Bible from any other ideological god a person could conjure up on their own. Even a secular, unbelieving heart could at least conjure up the fantastical idea of an all-powerful god, even without including other pertinent details; such as, for one example, how personal He is in sending Jesus to die for us so we could have salvation through faith. To imagine a being that is bigger and more transcendent than man—it almost sounds like Superman; someone larger than life. But again, omnipotence by itself isn’t strong enough to help us distinguish God from false gods. 

GOD IS THE FOUNDATION OF WHAT WE CALL TRANSCENDENT

In another instance, an all-powerful God isn’t automatically an all-loving one. And an all-loving God isn’t automatically an omnipresent one. When we separate His attributes as though only one or two could contain Him, we do not allow a fullness to our understanding of the complexity of the God of the Bible. The biblical God isn’t lacking any attributes; in fact, it’s because of Him that we even have attributes to refer to. He’s is, and therefore He defines, the very attributes that the Bible assigns to Him in order for us to better understand Him and His nature of being sovereign, and our ultimate authority. 

WHAT WE ARE TOLD NOT TO FEAR

Adding to this point is a critical juxtaposition in how, in our fear of God, we are told through so many verses of Scripture in the Bible, not to fear anything below God:

Psalm 46:1-3 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

Psalm 118:6 The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Psalm 23:4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Psalm 27:1 The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?

There are even more Scriptural references to this topic, but listing every single verse misses the point. The point is, if we are going to have fear, let it be a holy fear: let our fear be a reverential, respectful and honorable fear of our Lord God, and not an emotional reaction due to the results of a fallen world our Savior has overcome (John 16:33).

OUR REFUGE, OUR PROTECTOR, AND OUR MESSIAH

God is sovereign, almighty, perfect, and good. Our fear of Him is based on humble subservience to His care over us as His children. Furthermore, our God wants a relationship with us. He doesn’t want to be just a spiritual bodyguard, but to be our best friend and Messiah. Proverbs 18:24 says:

“The man of many friends [a friend of all the world], will prove himself a bad friend, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (AMPC Bible version)

GOD AS ALL-LOVING & ULTIMATELY RIGHTEOUS

God isn’t trying to be distant, He wants to be intimate in relationship with us. He desires to be our closest friend, as well as being our Redeemer and Comforter; our Refuge. But to see God as only one or the other, or as a couple but not as the sum of all His attributes and characteristics—to see Him as all-loving but not remember He is a God of righteousness and our ultimately Judge—we are missing the fullness of what makes God sovereign, holy, and perfect.

This is why objective morality is so imperative to the way we live in fear of God: to believe, and to live by an unchanging moral system, we are exemplifying our understanding of fearing the Lord by placing significance on the way we view right from wrong; not according to the ever-changing and corruptible world, but according to an ever-lasting God who requires justice for sin.

CONSUMED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT

When we seek out counterfeit gods in this world, what we ultimately discover is that nothing is as satisfying or fulfilling. We find pieces of fulfillment in this life through material possessions, hobbies, passions, people, and admittedly each of those have wonderful qualities, but they do not offer anywhere near the level of fulfillment we receive when we pursue God first. God created all of life, but He isn’t confined to His creation, therefore we also shouldn’t be consumed with His creation, but rather, consumed with His Holy Spirit, who dwells in us when we accept Jesus Christ as Lord.

A GOD OF MAJESTY AND WONDER

To be fully satisfied in our life is to completely surrender to God in our heart, and to give our lives up to His will. By doing this, we are fearing a life without God; we are fearing God by expressing reverence of His immense power, His unfathomable love, and His incomparable grace. We understand God doesn’t need us, but He wants us so deeply. What kind of God creates a cosmos where the only life-sustaining planet known to man is the one planet we’re on; where the rest of creation is solely to put us in awe and wonder at God’s creativity and might, His love and passion for the art of creation, and for His desire to have relationship with us? The biblical God, that’s the only one.

 FEAR OF GOD LEADS TO A DIFFERENT KIND OF LOVE

This is why it is important to distinguish people who fear God from those who don’t: people who fear God love God more than the world, and therefore they seek the Truth of the Good News over any comfort or convenience of this world, and they love their neighbor because they love God.

Without this specific type of holy fear, we are merely cold people with cynical minds and hard hearts. Is it not so simple? Without God’s grace, we are already dead. There is no hope if there is no God, and there is no hope if the Good News of Jesus Christ isn’t true. But history has been recorded, lives have been changed, and 2,000+ years of testimonies, faith, and hope have helped us to see that Jesus didn’t end with the grave, He continued to resurrection and ascension! Therefore, we are hopeless without the grace of our Lord. And our fear of God helps us to see how crucial it is that we glorify God with our lives by extending gratitude for His mercies, and by living our lives as reflections of His love through our choice to grow in Him.

THE CHRISTIAN WALK WITH HOLY FEAR

The true Christian walk is subservience of our spirit to the Holy Spirit at work in us, and our desire for His desires to be ours. It’s fearing the missed opportunity to be used by God to glorify Him in our interactions, and in our work; in our marriages, our families and communities, and with strangers and homeless people. The Christian walk is never constrained to four walls, it is as unlimited as the grace and command of God leads us to prevail to the ends of the Earth:

Matthew 28:19-20: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

REPENTANCE & A CONTRITE HEART

Not all people who claim to be Christian truly fear God, they simply believe in Him and perhaps read about Him in Scripture, but they don’t understand what it means to revere Him as both a God of love and a God of righteousness. He will be the Judge one day at His white throne. Justice will be delivered to those whom He demands to depart from Him (Matthew 7:21-23). Sins that haven’t been repented of with a contrite heart will lead many souls to the lake of fire (Psalm 51:17, Revelation 21:8). The Bible isn’t hyperbolic with these words! It’s serious, and it’s real.

God is not just a God of love. He is a God who demands that we be righteous as we seek after Him, as we place our faith in His Son, Jesus, and repent. We turn from our old ways and embrace a new heart of flesh, desiring to sin no more and always seeking God’s help in every area of our lives. Fearing God means leaving nothing out of our relationship with God. When we fear God, we’re fearing the consequences of sin taking us from His presence in eternity. It’s a humbling fear that makes possible our desperation to be close to Him, always, and never far from His truth.

MISUNDERSTANDING OUR LACK OF LOVE FOR GOD

This is why it is so critical not to overlook our fear of God. If we love God, that’s great—it’s the Golden Rule, after all. But if we don’t fear Him, if we don’t feel terror over the thought of being away from Him for all eternity, how much less love do we feel for Him? God is our protection on this planet, and Jesus is our promise to heaven; why would we want to depart from our protection, our provider and sustainer? To not fear God is to love Him and simultaneously misunderstand how much less love for Him we have than He deserves.

PRAYER THAT WE ALL NEED

Lord God, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for teaching us how important it is that we abide by it, that we are to fear falling away from it, and how we fear You in all of Your holiness and perfection, in awe and wonder and a holy trembling. Let us never forget Your words that move us to love others the way You’ve loved us in Jesus Christ, that our fear of You would encourage us to be bold in how we love, forgive others, and serve You in the way we live, speak, act, and think. Grant us courage in these difficult times to reflect Your character to the unbelieving population, now more than ever, as we come so close to Jesus’s return. Praise you, God, for Your goodness and mercy. We pray this in Jesus’s holy name. Amen.

Photo by Anders Drange on Unsplash