The Fear of God!

[Carla]

Paul says it best!

What do you think? Do you think we need to have the fear of God in order to be saved?

Our relationship with God is NOT to be taken lightly.

[Deborah Sue Schenfeld]

This is kinda funny. The very first scripture that comes to my mind when I think about the fear of the Lord is the one mary Ann quoted, Isaiah 11:2 & 3.
Some one told me once that this scripture coresponded to Rev. 1:4, where John talks about the seven Spirits that are before the throne of God. I thought, "Wow, that sounds a little weird to me!" So I read the verse in Revelations, then I sat down with Isaiah and read it over & over and I kept counting only 6 things! Humm...
" The spirit of WISDOM...Understanding...Counsel...Strength...Knowledge...& the FEAR of the Lord!" I thought, Nope, that person must have been mistaken. So, I got out my Amplified Bible, the Strong's concordance & the King James version. And there is was! The fear of the Lord in the King James was broken into the 'reverant & obedient' FEAR of the Lord. So, I asked the Lord, "Am i just making this up so it will fit?"
This is what I felt the Lord said to me; "The REVERANT fear of the Lord is learning who you are before Me & compared to Me. I'm big, your very small. I'm God, you are not. No matter how much you think you know about My love, My power, My character, it's only a drop in the bucket compare to how Great & Big I really am. I AM! The more time you spend in My presence, the more you will know this & tremble at My Word."
The OBEDIENT fear of the Lord is this: "The light bulb goes on. I'm in AWE! This great King & God of all the universe CHOSE me! I want to please Him! I don't want to mess up. I don't want to dissapoint Him! If I have unconfessed sin in my heart I'm increasingly more & more miserable! This LOVE is what I was born for!"
So, I ask the Lord, "What am I suppose to do today?" I read the Word & search my heart to see if I'm being a doer & not just a hearer.
This is what I believe the Lord showed me.
As a young Christian, I didn't understand this and I was miserable a lot. God is faithful & patient with His children, but when it's time to grow up, His discipline can be quite severe. This is MY understanding of the fear of God. I'm sure others will see other facets of it. I fear God, but I'm not afraid of Him, because I know that He is GOOD, no matter what!

[Bob B]

I really liked what you shared here Deborah, I have learned something about God from my own experience that He will continue to discipline us over and over until we learn the lesson He wants us to learn.
Most of the time He will do this by leaving us to our own ways for a while and let us suffer in our own doings.
I fear the Lord that I am resisting his will and will end up in mess of my own making again.

I believe the story about the prodigal son is a story about who God is to His children. He just let his son go off and do his thing, knowing his son would come to the end of his self and one day return to him. Why, because the son knew his father loved him enough that he would at least let him be a servant.
I am learning to except, embrace, love, and submit to Gods will for me, because I know from experience that I never want to go down that road again where God disciplines me by leaving me to my own ways. I also want to learn the lessons He is teaching me, so I do not have to keep experiencing stuff over and over before I will learn the lesson. So in my life I am learning that to fear the Lord is stay with Him and respond to His discipline.

[LT]

Deborah,

Overall I like the concept you present here, but have a concern with this first part of the post. I have a concern with the manner in which Isaiah 11:1-2 is presented. I will express two reasons why. One is using your method and the other a more traditional study method.

1) To use the Amplified Bible and a concordance to determine the actual text is not a safe method. These tools help us to understand what the Bible is trying to convey, and in this we can understand that the Hebrew word in Isaiah 11:2 that is translated "Fear" relates to reverence and obedience. The problem is not in defining, but in establishing. You state that this establishes that there are 7 not 6 words in that verse. What does one do with the other 5 words in the text? If we expand the idea of one word using the Amplified Bible and concordance, we would be forced to do so with the other words. A quick searh in the NIV, and only using the popular words translated into English from the Hebrew leaves us with no less than 20 words, instead of 5 or 6. Again, the issue is regarding the proof that there is 7 and that then ties it in with Rev. 1:4.
2) The manner in which one determines what you are seeking to do is to look at the original language, the language that the original audience would have received this teaching in. In the Hebrew there are only 6 words. These words can be defined and reveal aspects regarding them that broaden them, but there are still only 6.

Hopefully this will be received in the manner which it is intended.

Lord Bless,
LT