DO YOU FEAR THE LORD?

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Hey guys and welcome back to Daily Manna daily.

I’ll be honest, I had a completely different topic lined up, but as I was getting ready for work this Wednesday morning, I was listening to a podcast and it got me thinking, do I fear The LORD? That simple question is what changed the direction of todays topic. Sometimes GOD works in interesting ways like that, I was supposed to put out an article that same day and HE’s placed it on my heart to put out a different one. But with that being said, do we really fear The LORD? I love the fact that although this has been set up last minute, it still intertwines with last weeks message. We spoke about the meaning of sin and today were discussing the cause of sin.

In 2 timothy 1:7 it says, ‘GOD did not give us a spirit of fear’ and that’s true because the presence of fear is the absence of faith. However, we’re not talking about the fear in our emotions but holy fear. This is wholly and willingly submitting to GOD’s perfect authority. Holy fear does not dwell within our regular emotions as it is not something that grows with us like a moral compass. It is something that comes with a sincere relationship with GOD, we must continuously pray to be in fear of GOD as it brings forward a sense of humility. Before we commit a sin, we feel the beating of our hearts, the reason for each person is different, its either your moral compass kicking in or you have fear of The LORD. The difference with them is one will stop you from doing the wrong thing. When we kill or even steal from someone, we are placing our emotions and wants above GOD and what HE wants from us. GOD doesn’t want us to fear him because we will receive punishment for our wrongdoings, but we should fear HIM because we don’t want to do wrong in HIS eyes, be separated from him and we should see it as a sense of trust; ‘I’m turning down my worldly wants and needs because I trust you to lead me down a better path’.

When we think of someone as fearless in the world, we think they do whatever they want without a care of the repercussions even if they are advised against it; they would jump of a building even if they may break a bone. This is very similar to a lack of holy fear, you do what you want without a thought or care of the consequences even when GOD has shown HE’s against it. In other words, it is disobedience. A lot of sins listed in the bible are to do with other people on earth or yourself, but not obeying GOD is a sin against The FATHER himself making it one of the greatest sins that you could commit. We see Jesus and other prophets in the bible telling us how silly and foolish we are if we disobey GOD and his messengers, for example, Matthew 7:26-27 Jesus says, “anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish”. Disobedience doesn’t have to look like a toddler who has discovered the word no, when we choose to ignore that ‘push’ to go and pray or read our bible, that is a direct refusal to do what GOD wants from us. It is so easy to go against GOD when we do not fear him but in Luke 1:50 it says “HIS mercy extends to those who fear him”, so even when we do fall short and we are filled with sincere repentance, there is grace on the other side.

We currently live in a society that finds pleasure in the continuous mocking, ridiculing and cursing of GOD and Christianity which is due to ‘lack of knowledge‘(Hosea 4:6). We see it everywhere; in the 2024 Olympics, all over Hollywood and pride events. In Proverbs 1:7 it says, “The fear of The LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Unfortunately, we live in a world full of rebellion and a disinterest to learn and understand GOD. Those who don’t understand mock, we all know they laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round but if we look in the textbooks now, they all say Columbus was correct. There are Christians who fear the world and their social standing more than The LORD so they find it hard to speak out against the mockers, even if its correcting a friend (I have been guilty of this in the past) but GOD says “whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in His glory” (Luke 9:26). Don’t be afraid to correct your peers, there comes a time when GOD will test the believers to really see if you are for him, don’t let other people be the reason you are set astray. When Job’s wife told him to curse GOD and die to end his suffering, he rebuked her and told her ‘she is talking like a foolish woman’(Job 2:9-10), we should learn from the greatest test in the bible. Like Job, many of us have friends and family that offer horrible suggestions that go against GOD, but we must stay strong in prayer that we may be able to learn to fear GOD more than the response we would get for speaking out against those who are not for HIM.