The Fear of the Lord: Our Hearts Shall Awe and Tremble

When we think of fearing the Lord, what comes to mind? The fear of the Lord means to frighten, reverence, venerate—to regard with reverential respect or to honor. It means to treat with deference, respect and esteem due to a superior, with reverential obedience and awe, to be struck with amazement. To tremble means to be excited, disturb, disquiet, or to quake.

The fear of the Lord dictates how we do things. It will show up in everything we do. When we understand to fear the Lord, our hearts submit to how God does things—His views versus our views. We submit our hearts.

Understanding Different Types of Fear

There is segregation between three levels of fear: fear that is considered unacceptable and unhealthy, fear that is normal as a human emotion, and fear that is permitted and required by God.

Fear can weaken us and lead to flight or foolish actions on our part. Like Belshazzar who saw the writing on the wall—his countenance changed, his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.

On the contrary, the fear of the Lord leads to freedom, preservation, love, peace, worship, truth, purpose, and divine counsel. As Paul said in 2 Timothy 1:7, "God have not given us the spirit of fear but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

The Right Perspective and Heart Posture

The fear of the Lord prompts us to have the right perspective and heart posture concerning all things.

Worship is in our conduct, but our attitude must be right so worship can be reflected in our conduct. Fearing the Lord is understanding and respecting what God has put in place—offices, positions, and people, all sacred things. This means our attitude towards men and women of God is linked to the fear of the Lord.

It is divorcing our opinions and taking on God's idea and heart concerning what He has established. Our heart's posture in worship, which is an expression of the fear of the Lord, must be that we love what He loves, we cleave to that which is right in His sight, we hate what He hates, we pursue Him in all we do, and acknowledge Him in all our ways.

We are to keep those things that are set apart and reserved for Him strictly pure and uncontaminated. We must reverence our temples in the same manner. We ought to tremble at the thought of defiling it. When we truly fear God, we will automatically become accustomed to checking our heart motives.

Supernatural Benefits

The fear of the Lord possesses supernatural benefits.

It is wise to do all things God's way. When we fear God by worshipping Him for who He is, we gain benefits beyond our knowledge or capacity to manipulate benefit ourselves. The secret of the wise counsel of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will let them know His covenant and reveal to them through His Word its deep, inner meaning.

When God directly links benefits and blessings to a spiritual command or principle, it is just that. We cannot benefit from what we try to fit into our framework of thinking or an altered version of what He said because we want to be comfortable.

When we trust God with a ready heart that is stable, with faith that is unwavering, the blessing of the Lord will be upon you. Reverencing God builds maturity. There are some things you just will not do.

Awareness of God's Power and Authority

The fear of the Lord gives awareness to God's power and authority.

Psalms 33:8 declares “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him” (KJV). It is our duty to yield to God's power and Jesus' authority. Fearing God triggers obedience. We cannot receive Jesus as Lord without a healthy reverence for God.

When we exalt and reverence God, we exalt Him above all things. Even our passions, desires, and will come under subjection because we realize there is nothing in this world to attain that is more beneficial than who He is!

When we worship and go up in praise, the Lord inhabits it because we are saying you are worthy, beautiful, mighty, you have no equal, no rival, you are sovereign, eternal, ever present, and we speak well of Him.

God is a jealous God and will have no other Gods before Him. It's time to repair the altar so we can give the Lord a sweet-smelling savor from the sacrifice we make unto Him to lay our lives down and ask His fire to come and consume everything resisting His order. The only acceptable sacrifice in this dispensation is a living one.

A Call to Action

Put your idols on the altar in this season. Idols are anything robbing you from seeing God in the fullness of what He is revealing to His people and robbing God of the fear, respect, awe, and glory that is due unto Him. Nobody before Him!

The fear of the Lord promotes a proper foundation to our relationship with Him. As Proverbs 1:7 tells us, it is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction, but those who fear the Lord gain divine counsel, supernatural benefits, and awareness of His power and authority.

Let our hearts awe and tremble before the One who is worthy of all reverence, honor, and praise.