On the Fear of God and Loving One's Neighbour

        What exactly is the fear of God?            
        And how does it influence our lives?
        These are some questions which I had when I first read about the fear of God. There are many places in the Bible which talk about the fear of God: Deuteronomy 10:12, Ecclesiastes 12:13, Proverbs 9:10, and 1 Peter 2:17 are just some of the references to the fear of God. The first question can be answered fairly quickly: the fear of God is a reverence of Him and His works as well as a trembling regard for His awful power and majesty.  If we have a fear of God, we will be so careful that what we do fits in line with what He has commanded us through His Word - because not fearing God is also the most absurd and wrong thing we could ever do.
    But how does this fear of God influence our lives?  I enjoy studying logic and one of the benefits of that is when a question like the one above comes up, I start thinking in logical terms how this question can be answered and explained, which is what I shall do in following paragraph.
    If the fear of God has had a impact upon our lives - in other words, if we understand what the fear of God is - then we will begin to grasp how it affects our day to day life.  In John 14:15 Jesus says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."  Now, we know that Jesus is God.  And if Jesus is God, then He is also the one whom we should fear and love.  One of God's commands is to love our neighbour as our self (Leviticus 19:18b).  So if we have a fear and love of God, we will obey His commands, one of which is to love our neighbour.  That love for others will be evident in our lives when we truly seek to revere and serve God in everything we do.  When we love and serve others, we ourselves will be blessed, because the Lord will reward those who love and fear Him - and keep his commandments. Colossians 3:24:  ". . . knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. [For] you are serving the Lord Christ."

Fear the Lord, for it is the beginning of wisdom ~ Proverbs 9:10


Written and Posted by William A Moore