Fear of the Lord – Intimacy & Religiosity – Repost

Fear of the Lord – Intimacy & Religiosity

 

“Teach me your way, O Lord and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart an I may fear your name”. Psalm 86:11.

We learn in our “religious education” that we are supposed to fear God.

The heavenly purpose of us to fear God is not based on the idea that we should respect the Lord for the sake of  our own survival or dismay, but  on the knowledge and relationship.

Can someone, not knowing God, fear him consciously, legitimately and gladly? Of course not.

If we nurture any touchy and paranoid behavior about the fear of the Lord that has as maximum the performance of an imaginary list of “does and don’ts”, we are practicing a religious rite, just as anybody who follows a recipe to bake a cake.

The knowledge of the person of God constrains, attracts and inspires us to reverence Him with passion, devotion and sacrifice. Thus we find a God whose pleasure and joy is revealed when He sees in man, the first fruit of His creation, the true desire to love him and to know not only His power that is a consuming fire, but also his grace that justifies us and makes us decent. The fear for fright, guilt or religion only contributed for the construction of a cold god, inquisitive and inaccessible.

The fear of the Lord is for a purpose in life, of intimacy with God. Then our prayer, so that we are fearful to the Lord, should be grounded in cry, repentance and the knowledge of grace, which converts us and makes our hearts willing to fear the Lord in joy, love and gratitude.

“The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death”. Proverbs.14:27.

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