Fear God, 37

~ The Israelites Were Commanded to Fear God, 25 ~

God does not want His children living in fear.  “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue” (2 Peter 1:2-3).  However, God does want His children to have a proper respect and reverence for Him.  We are told in many places in Scripture to “fear God.”  

This Week’s Passage  ~  “So Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel.  And Moses commanded them, saying: ‘At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of release, at the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.  Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God and carefully observe all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess” (Deuteronomy 31:9-13).   

Fearing God Results in Salvation  ~  “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).  “A wise person fears and departs from evil, but a fool rages and is self-confident” (Proverbs 14:16).  This does not mean the Christian is to live a fearful life—but a life which reverences God and seeks to do His will. 

Fearing God Results in Fearlessness  ~  “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1).  The answer is: only God.  With the gift of salvation comes responsibility.

Fearing God Results in Witnessing  ~  “Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will declare what He has done for my soul” (Psalm 66:16). 

~ Robert Lloyd Russell, ABUNDANT LIFE NOW

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