What Does Fearing God Have to Do With My Purpose?
Today I will be discussing why we need to fear God. However, you may be asking what does God have to do with my purpose and why should I fear Him? Scripture says that we need to look to Jesus because He is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2 KJV).
Definition of Fear
In order to understand what it means to fear the Lord, let me define the word fear. There are two types of fear as defined in Webster’s 1828 dictionary
- Slavish fear
- Filial fear
Slavish fear is the effect or consequence of guilt; it’s the painful apprehension of merited punishment. This is the fear you feel when you do something you know is wrong. This type of fear is not what I am talking about when referring to fearing God.
Filial fear is holy awe or reverence of God and his laws, which spring from a just view and real love of the diving character, leading the subjects of it to hate and shun everything that can offend such a holy being and inclining them to aim at perfect obedience. This is the definition of the word that I will be using here on out as it relates to fearing the Lord.
Why Fear God
This awe and reverence are what’s needed when we are worshipping Him. When we have this type of fear towards God, we find how significant He is and how insignificant we are compared to His majesty. We also find that we are insignificant without Him because it is in Him that we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:18 ESV).
When we have complete awe and reverence for God we surrender every part of our lives to Him. Our hopes, dreams, purposes, joys, frustrations…everything! It all comes under His Lordship which is where it needs to be. Proverbs 1:7 states
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.
So if we are to discover what our purpose is, we need to have the fear of the Lord. We need to have a holy awe and reverence of him so much so that we want to honor Him in all we do and turn away from our sins.
Only then can we begin to gain the knowledge of what it is we are put on this earth to do. This knowledge comes from God who knew you with all your quirks and what you were meant to do even before you were born.
Does this bring you joy like it does me? Please comment below.