By Ryan Shaw

These bi-weekly memos are to provide encouragement, exhortation, and spiritual nourishment in the lives of those who have signed the Message Bearer Creed as you prepare to serve the Lord globally, and are influencing your peers with this vision.

Series Title: Stewarding The College and Beyond Years Wisely: Cultivating A Life Fully Devoted To God Now

Through growing in the "fear of the Lord" lifestyle and deep intimacy with Christ

The phrase “the fear of the Lord” is one that many today have misunderstood. It can be a quite confusing concept and yet it stands as one of the most important keys to walking with God throughout life and ministry and sustaining a warm and intimate relationship with Him. God is calling us to partnership with Him in making Him known throughout the earth, and to effectively be used of Him we must cultivate a greater awareness and understanding of what this little phrase means.

“The Fear of the Lord is to hate evil…”

The place to start is to ask the question of what this phrase really means. Proverbs 8:13 tells us, “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil…” If we are going to rightly grasp and internalize a life that manifests the fear of the Lord it will start with us learning to hate evil. This is a more difficult feat, however, then most of us realize. I sometimes wonder how much believers today really hate sin. Most of us will not commit adultery or murder or other blatant acts of sin because the consequences for such actions are just too much, but a little lust in our minds and hearts, or some bitter emotions toward someone who got a better job then we, go undetected and for the most part uncared about. We justify ourselves because no one can see our small sins and we compare them with other people who are sinning worse then us. All the while we go on tolerating sin but not really hating it.

God’s holiness

To begin to hate sin we must first grasp the holiness of God. For it is in the light of God’s holiness that we begin to see how rotten to the core our sin is. Apart from a revelation of God’s holiness we cannot recognize how utterly grotesque our sin is and thus we will not hate it as God hates it. We start to get a grasp for God’s Holiness as we hear the angels constantly, never ceasing, in Revelation 4: 8 to declare “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty.” The angels never tire of declaring this utter reality. They are observing in absolute brilliance the purity and holiness of the King of Kings. How can this be? They are seeing something that most of us have never truly caught a glimpse of: Jesus in His splendor and holiness. It is His holiness that causes Him to be beautiful to us. He is absolutely different then us. We are stained by sin and He is pure to the very core of His being, sinless! As we meditate on the beauty of Jesus in His sinless purity our hearts begin to see sin in a new light (Psalms 33:8-9). It’s not simply about staying away from blatant sin and tolerating most other sin, but seeing how any sin grieves His heart and out of a deepening love for Him, we choose to turn our backs on those areas of sin and grow in our hatred of them. The hatred is simply born out of a seeing Him in His purity and beauty and allowing His view of sin to become our standard on it as well. Proverbs 16:6 states, “…And by the fear of the Lord one departs from evil.” Thus the fear of the Lord does two distinct things in our lives:

1.         It produces the same attitude toward sin that God has

2.         It gives us a deep respect for the Holiness of God

Obedience Directly Related

The fear of God is directly related to obedience of God. We find in Genesis 22:12 that Abraham was willing to slay his own son, Isaac, out of sheer obedience to the clear leading of God. What a standard! His trust and belief in God’s character and ability to raise Isaac from the dead caused Abraham to be willing to respond to God’s test with obedience. He had a right awe and vision of God and His incredible character. Abraham’s was a high view of God and one that we do well to ask God to create within us. For a lack of obedience shows a disregard for a right fear of God. If we don’t think enough of Him to obey His commands and His leading, even in tough circumstances, then will we not turn from tolerating sin. In Jonah 1:9 we see the prophet declaring that he fears God as he is running from the very calling God had placed upon him. His actions betrayed that he really had no true fear of God. For the evidence of a true and vital fear of God is instant, joyful and whole obedience to God.

Dying to the Fear of Man

We often lose our way when it comes to the fear of the Lord lifestyle because of the fear of man. Most of us have major struggles with the fear of man. We might have sensed God asking something of us, but then the important question arises, “What will others think about me if I do this?” How will they perceive me and often times we shrink from obedience as a result? To live with the fear of the Lord we must come to a place of being willing to obey Jesus in whatever He may ask. He will test us in this along the way multiple times. This is not easy for it means slaying a part of us that doesn’t die easily. The fear of man is a huge scheme of the enemy in our generation. The cost or toll to fearing God above fearing man can be quite high: the loss of friendships, being misunderstood, closed doors in ministry, rejection of many kinds, persecution and possibly even life itself. What encourages our hearts as we think along these lines is that Jesus lived like this. He portrayed the fear of the Lord lifestyle to the hilt as is described about Him in Isaiah 11:2-3, “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. His delight is in the fear of the Lord, and He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor decide by the hearing of His ears.” (emphasis added).

The Purpose of God

At the center of God’s heart in all of this is to cultivate a deep and intimate relationship with His people. He knows that if we hate sin as He hates it and understand the implications of His purity and holiness, then we will be able to walk closely with Him in fellowship. Psalm 25:14 says, “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant.” To fear the Lord is to have the “secrets of the Lord” opened up to us. To have fellowship with Him that brings forth revelation and understanding concerning life and ministry. For in this type of relationship there is trust built and a proper understanding of the character of God. As we “draw near to Him, He draws nearer to us” (James 4:8). May this be our single-minded goal!

Grasping A Right Understanding of Repentance

The last point I want to highlight surrounding the huge concept of the fear of the Lord is the nature of true repentance. It lies at the center of the fear of the Lord. Without it, we are fooling ourselves. But how many of us confuse mere confession with repentance. The two could not be more different. Confession may acknowledge sin, but it is not committed to turning away from it at all costs. It has not hated it so much as to do whatever it takes to turn and go the other direction and thoroughly forsake it. It has not made restitution for it where necessary. In Exodus 9, we find the Pharaoh of Egypt who, under intense pressure from Yahweh’s plagues, confessed his sin. Yet we find him not really meaning this and calling back the children of Israel to bondage when he’d let them go. In 1 Samuel 24 we come across Saul who has been seeking David’s life and finally he confesses his wrong, only to rise up and do the same thing again within a short amount of time. Repentance turns from our sin and asks God to help us not go back to it. We must receive His help to walk in the fear of the Lord lifestyle. It is impossible without Him, but through Him exhilarating and wonderful!

Prayer: “Jesus, I am desperate for you. I cannot grow in this fear of the Lord lifestyle apart from your intervention. I submit myself to you and ask for your power and help to walk victorious in this manner. To become a person who doesn’t tolerate sin but absolutely hates it, as you hate it. To see it and view it as you do. I cry out to you for a revelation of your holiness. I want to see you for who you really are. When I get a right concept of you, I will live vastly different. Show me your glory in this manner. I choose to grow in this, Lord. Give me grace, strength, and courage to not live in the fear of man, but instead to bank all on following you in obedience, no matter what it might cost me. More then anything, I want to walk in deep intimacy with you and I know that the fear of the Lord is the pathway to such a life, so I embrace it and welcome it. Change me Lord for your glory’s sake among the nations and use me as your beloved servant!” I love you!”

*Some concepts in this article were adapted from a book by Joy Dawson called, “Intimate Friendship with God”