Who is God? Everyone at one time or another will answer that question. The Bible declares that God is powerful, and as such God is to be feared. Psalm 128:1 NIV says, “Blessed are all those who fear the Lord, who walk in His ways.” Quite honestly, we live in a world that wants to ignore the holiness of God, minimize sin, talk about grace, and water down the concept of fearing God. As I see it, we water it down by saying – to fear God means to respect Him., to revere Him, to esteem Him. And that’s true but it is more than that! Are you inclined to minimize the fear of God?

What does fearing God look like in the Bible? It’s the kind of fear that the disciples had on Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17 when they heard God's voice and fell to the ground terrified. Or in Isaiah 6, Isaiah wrote, In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne. Isaiah was so overwhelmed by God’s presence he cried out, “Woe to me. I am ruined.” In John 18, Jesus was about to be arrested, and the soldiers asked Him if He was Jesus of Nazareth. When He responded - I AM, the mob drew back and collapsed to the ground. Or in the book of Revelation 1, when John saw the resurrected Jesus, he said - I fell at His feet as if I was dead. Would you agree that all those examples describe a fear that is more than just reverence?

God is to be feared because of His unrelenting authority, His all-consuming power, and the majesty of His presence. And to have an accurate view of God, there needs to be a healthy tension between a fear of a holy, all-powerful, righteous Judge and a child-like, peaceful confidence in God as our heavenly father. A healthy tension. But in our culture today, that tension has been lost because the fear of God has been so watered down.

Credit to Chris Tiegreen, Worship the King