The Fear of the Lord
- Cole Cleveland
- Mar 27
- 4 min read
An excerpt from the book "The Ambassador Lifestyle"
Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.
—2 Corinthians 5:11
As ambassadors for Christ, we should desire to be heralds of the Word of God. We should be desperate to see souls saved. We should have a passion for the lost. Part of the responsibility that has been given to us is the ministry of reconciliation. We should preach the Word at all times and in all seasons so that the people around us “may know that the LORD is God; there is no other” (1 Kings 8:60).
Paul began this new section of 2 Corinthians 5 with “Therefore.” This word ties all that has been said from verse 1 through verse 10 into this next idea. Paul was basically saying, “Because all that I have said before is true, we persuade others.” But before you can get to this point as an ambassador for Christ, there is a prerequisite: you must fear the Lord. If you do not fear God, then you will not care about preaching the truth of His Word to other people. If you do not fear God, then you will not be passionate about the ministry of reconciliation. The fear of the Lord is the foundation for our purpose as ambassadors. We must understand what it means to fear God.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom
and instruction.
—Proverbs 1:7
Unless you are a God-fearing person, you know nothing. You do not know anything about God. You do not know anything about the kingdom of God. Step one of entering the kingdom of God is becoming a God-fearing person. As we walk by faith in a manner worthy of God’s calling, every step along the way is a step of increasing fear of the Lord.
You never outgrow the fear of God. It is not simply an attitude you have when you first come to faith in Christ, and then once you get to know God, you get comfortable with Him and cuddle up to Him and move to a different level in your relationship. As you grow in grace, you also grow in the fear of God. As a believer in Christ, you should always and forever take God very seriously, all the more as each day passes by.
Once we have the fear of the Lord and are growing in it, what do we do? “We persuade others” (2 Corinthians 5:11). Notice the positive tone here. The fear of the Lord is a good thing. We tend to think of fear as negative, but fearing God is actually the best thing that could possibly happen to your spiritual life. After saving faith, the fear of the Lord is the first step in walking according to our calling.
In this case, fear does not mean being afraid. It is also not about having good manners in church. How many times do Christians think of the church auditorium as where we need to fear God? We try to remember not to lie in church, not to run in church, not to say something mean in church. This is not what it means to fear God.
Having the fear of God means that we stand in awe of Him. There is a hush and a trembling within our souls when we think of Him. We always take Him seriously, more seriously than anyone or anything else in our lives. We have an attitude of respect and reverence toward Him. We are amazed by Him. Our hearts wonder at His greatness. We see ourselves as very tiny compared to Him.
The heart that fears God is a heart that worships Him. We acknowledge His Lordship. He is Yahweh, the great “I AM” (Exodus 3:14). We know that His rightful place is “high and lifted up” (Isaiah 6:1). We acknowledge that He has the right to reign over our lives. “Holy is he!” (Psalm 99:3).
We are so in awe of His greatness and His holiness that we cannot help but honor Him, worship Him, and obey Him. But make no mistake: the fear of the Lord is not the absence of joy. In fact, the fear of the Lord will produce true joy!
The fear of the Lord is standing in awe of God, kneeling before Him, and bowing in humble submission to His power and authority. The fear of God is being overwhelmed by His ultimate and infinite perfection. It will produce meekness, contrition, and self-control in our hearts.
When you come to know God, your soul is gripped by the understanding that there is someone way beyond you, someone who is beyond the entire universe. If the fear of God is not in you, you may not know Him at all.
The opposite of fearing God is to be very casual with Him, to be flippant about spiritual things, to live frivolously. To fear God is to have a trembling on the inside. It is not that you have laid hold of God, but that God has laid hold of you. You understand that He holds your life in the palm of His hand. He preordained the date of your birth and numbered your days before the first one began (Psalm 139:16). You know that it is in God that “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). In Him and because of Him, you take each breath.
Thoughts to consider...
Do I fear God?
Am I a God-fearing person?
Do I take God seriously, or am I taking Him for granted?
