Wednesday 28 December 2011

No Fear of God.


Do you know what's wrong with many of us?  I will tell you: we have no fear of God.  If only we feared God more, we’d worship and serve Him better.  If you and I knew what it was to fall prostrate before His awful majesty and His blinding purity, then we’d be much better Christians.  But alas, that is not the case. And do you know what the consequence of that is?  We have no fear of treating God and things of God with utter contempt.  We have no genuine concern for God’s people – anything goes and anything will do; nor have we any great concern for God’s prophets.  We despise His people and His prophets. And why? Because we do not fear God. The fear of God is not in our hearts.  We treat Him as a religious commodity, as a kind of spiritual insurance policy, as a nice thing to believe in.  But no more.

That’s why God gave us His Word, and especially the Psalms – they teach us Who and what He is.  They teach us His ways; they show to us the wonder of His grace;  and they show us how much He really loves us.  He wants us to kn Him really well; He wants our knowledge of Him to increase daily.  When we truly know God, we will fear Him.  We will stand in awe of His awful Majesty. We will shut our mouths at very thought of His dreadful power and  might.  And we’ll wonder at His marvellous providence in the world and in our lives.

Our problem is that we talk too much, not only about God but. to God. We do not know what it is to stand in dreadful silence before Him. We rush in and babble away, as if we were speaking to our best mate.  We have no idea of the fear of God in our hearts.  

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