Fear the Lord

Fear the Lord

God requires that we fear Him first of all.

Deuteronomy 10:12, 13

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God….”

So then, what does our Lord and Redeemer require of us?

We note first of all that He requires that we fear Him. To fear the Lord is to know Who He is, who we are, what we deserve of Him, and what He is capable—and justly so—of doing to sinners such as we. Even though we are redeemed and delivered from slavery to sin, yet we fall into it from time to time. And, lest we become casual about such lapses, the Lord promises to act in discipline in order to return lapsed sinners to the path of righteousness (Heb. 12:3-11). Such discipline is not pleasant and can be very hard to bear. We should fear the Lord because of His power and resolve to discipline us.

We should also fear Him lest we be found to be not His children at all. The fear of the Lord keeps us striving for holiness to prove, day by day, our calling and election (Heb. 3:12-4:1; 2 Pet. 1:5-11). The fear of the Lord’s discipline and wrath is wholesome and good and is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. By nurturing fear of the Lord we may press on day by day to bring holiness to completion (2 Cor. 7:1). Thus, because God wants us to be holy (Matt. 5:48), and because He knows that sin is destructive of our well-being, He requires that we fear Him, so that, fearing Him, we may walk in the holy and righteous and good path He has marked out for us in His Law (Rom. 7:12).

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.