Holy Fear

What is Holy Fear? When it speaks of Fearing God in the Bible, what does that mean? What was their understanding of it then, do we understand it now? The definition when looking it up is to show reverence, awe and submission to God.

When I look at today’s society it’s more about friendship and being buddy, buddy. I think we sometimes forget who God is. How mind-blowingly powerful He truly is. He is indescribable, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. He is outside our understanding of time and space!

I love my friendship with the Lord, but I have to remind myself that He is “I AM” and doesn’t just stay in my pocket to be brought out at my whim.

The power of who God is, is reflected throughout the Bible. We see it through what Jesus does in the New Testament. But you realize God’s raw majestic power is in the Old Testament too. I think it’s even more apparent there. In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, you watch as God creates the world and then in the last book, Revelations, the majesty and power of the Lord’s throne in Heaven and the mighty beings He controls in the heavenlies, that can destroy the world!

Noah was kept safe in an ark while God destroyed the entire surface of the world with water!

The Lord changed everyone’s language at the Tower of Babel to drive them to new destinations. That means everyone! The different languages from around the world all started there, when God chose to create them. People may wonder about the gift of speaking in tongues, but you realize if God can create languages for people groups, then our prayer languages are no different!

Moses and the Dead Sea splitting in half to let the Israelites walk through. If that isn’t a show of power I don’t know what is! (Exodus 14:21–31)

When Joshua was fighting against the enemy, he prayed that the sun would stand still so they could continue and win the battle, and God did it! There is actual scientific proof that rotation was slowed, halted in that era. (Joshua 10:12–14)

When Joshua and the Israelites walked around Jericho for 7 days and on the 7th day after walking around it 7 times, God knocked the walls down! These were not your regular walls, they were monstrous and the king was confident for good reason! No man could enter, but God sure could! (Joshua 6)

Daniel was thrown into a Lions’ den where their mouths were shut by the angels who guarded him. (Daniel 6)

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace and came out without a burn or even the smell of smoke on them. (Daniel 3)

The time Hezekiah prayed to the Lord about the invading army of Assyria and He sent angels to kill 185,000 of them so they withdrew. (2 Kings 19)

King Jehoshaphat prayed and then sent out singers in worship to precede the army against Moab and God sent the angels before to ambush the enemy, causing confusion so they turned on one another and not one of them escaped. (2 Chronicles 20:1–30)

Gideon also went out with just 300 men because God wanted to show his glory against the massive army of Midian. Then the Lord sent out his angel army and caused great confusion, turning the armies against one another and they killed each other, before the Israelites finished off the rest. (Judges 7)

Elijah called down God’s mighty fire from heaven that completely took out an entire bull, hundreds of gallons of water and the altar itself! This happened when Elijah asked the Lord to show Himself so the people of Israel would understand that God is the great I Am and the ONLY one to be worshipped! And this was after God didn’t allow it to rain on Israel for 3 years! (1 Kings 18)

Elisha had an army surrounding the city he was in and his servant was afraid. Elisha prayed and God opened the servant’s eyes to see the army of angels that surrounded the army that was meant to attack. Then Elisha prayed that the men might be blinded and they were!(2 Kings 6:8–23)

We need that Holy Fear in order to have the proper reverence for God and be respectful in what we ask of Him. Yet we also need it in order to grow and deepen our faith. For when we understand how great God is, then we understand how much more He can do for us and through us. I spoke of the Holy Spirit in my previous blog. If we have a close relationship with Him we can build the faith to understand and ask the type of requests the kings and prophets did and know they will be answered!

May we choose to remember these things and understand what it means to enter the throne room with praise, but also in holy fear and trembling. God wants us to enter and be with Him, but we should do so with respect and not just nonchalantly, like we are raiding someone’s kitchen without really asking, just assuming we can.

Holy Fear is vital. The priests when they went into the inner temple, where the Ark of the Lord was kept, wore a bell with a rope connected around their ankle, just in case they did the wrong thing and were not worthy to be in God’s presence, dying because of it. If they did not survive the others outside would have the rope to drag their bodies out. This sort of punishment wasn’t only in the Old Testament. You don’t hear of it so much in the New Testament, but in Acts 5 you see it happen when a couple disrespected the Holy Spirit by attempting to lie to not just the apostles, but to Him. They paid with their lives.

I love my relationship with the Lord, though it definitely continues to need improvement on my side! I’m glad that I can send him “arrow” prayers when I’m in the middle of something and need His help. I enjoy talking with Him when I’m driving to work or on a cross country trip. He gets to hear me sing praises to Him, even if I can go off key during those alone times! Yet, I’ve started to grasp a better understanding of who He truly is. He is “I AM” as He told Moses at the burning bush. There are times when we need to take off our shoes, for we stand on Holy Ground. (Exodus 3)

Personally as I write this I am realizing I need to spend more time being in awe of Him. When I get up in the morning, during that time of connection and prayer, as well as at night when I think of kneeling by the bedside to pray. If I do that I can be more trusting and full of faith when it comes to holding someone’s hands as I pray for them or by a hospital bed when everyone is crying out in desperation.

One way of praying that I started years ago that helps to bring me into more awareness of that Holy Fear is declaring this statement, “I come above time and space to the throne of God.” By praying those words, “above time and space,” it reminds me how all encompassing God truly is. It wakes me up to the fact that I need to humble myself, physically and mentally bowing in honor of the LORD Yahweh.

I pray today that you may be filled with what God wants to show you through this. That you be filled with Awe of our Almighty LORD. That you can experience His mighty raw power in an inspiring way that deepens your faith and makes you bold when He asks you to be.

In Christ,

Faye

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