As a follow up to last week’s blog on the wrath of God, I thought it would be good to consider fear as a motivating factor in our lives.
If the consequences of our sins can be made real enough, will the sinners get saved and the saints get right? Is fear an effective motivational tool?
Ps 36:1 An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes.
Most unsaved people face tragedies in their lives. They lose loved ones, lose everything financially, or contract a life-threatening disease, and many times still don’t turn to the Lord. Take it a step further and consider people that have even gone to prison. Many had no fear of God whatsoever as they committed their crimes. They were angry-at their parents, at God-and felt they got a raw deal in life. They were rebellious and wanted what they wanted so they broke laws. The fear of God was not a motivating factor for keeping them from doing what they did.
Think of a hard dictator, Kim Jung-il in North Korea, for example. In this country, people do live in fear, do have a level of obedience toward their ruler, but it is only outward conformity, not inward respect. Jack Frost used to say, “Only love matures”.
Obedience, where we have a deep respect for God, is born out of a heart of love and humility. It is where I am beginning to trust God, laying aside my ways of anger and rebellion. I believe those who preach how angry God is, and how much trouble we are all in, have very little effect motivating anyone toward true heart humility and obedience-inward conformity.
From Vine’s: Fear “Yirah” (OT:3374) – This is not simple fear, but reverence, whereby an individual recognizes the power and position of the individual revered and renders him proper respect. In this sense, the word may imply submission to a proper ethical relationship to God; the angel of the Lord told Abraham: “…I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.”
The fear of God that is productive, that causes us to start having wisdom, comes from a relationship with God. It is a reverence, an awe, a deep holy respect-built on love and personal connection, not on “fear tactics”.
I completely agree with your comments…as I have studied God’s Word and read “out” of His Word, not “into” His Word what I have heard others say about Him, it is His love that has wooed me and compelled me to draw closer to Him and want to surrender to His will daily for my life…I don’t always get it right and never feel I could love Him as He so deserves but my desire is to ask Jesus , “what can I do for you today?” I want to make Him smile even though no matter what I do will ever change His love for me(I don’t want to hurt Him)…God’s love is unmeasurable, incomprehensible, so vast, so amazing….thank you for reminding so many that just simply don’t know the Father God who is to be reverenced , to be in awe of but who so longs for us to simply believe that God sent His One & Only Son to die for our sins because He loves us so much…to Him be all the glory, honor and praise!