He’s got the fear of the lord in him now…you need to have a healthy fear of the lord…worship your father in heaven with fear and awe…

How many of those have you heard in your life…or variations of them…even if you aren’t Christian?

Fear fear fear.

People make alot about the fear thing. On one side you have the folks who cringe because they cannot handle the notion of a loving God who would expect us to fear him too. On the other side you have folks who preach and teach and trumpet how you must fear God so much that all they have listening to them are people who have long since tuned them our or who are peeing their pants worrying that God will cut them off from their salvation at any moment.

The rest of us of course are in the middle somewhere, either secure in our feelings toward God, confused as hell, or just plain apathetic.

We should have some fear of God let there be no doubt. But people make too much of it frankly. God isn’t primarily about scaring folks not even with the hell thing. Hell isn’t there to scare us but to be a mirror to heaven. If people don’t choose God, they have to go somewhere. Hell isn’t a stick held over are head but a destination that has to exist if you are to have salvation/damnation, acceptance/rejection, good/evil, etc. etc. etc.

No God is most about love really. That’s why he made it so Jesus would come along and so that we could have reconciliation with God. So what’s with the fear thing? Simple. Didn’t most of you have some fear of your parents? Some more than others of course. For my part I loved (and still do) my dad but I also had a really significant fear of the back of his hand when I knew I was doiing something outside the bounds. I didn’t live in fear of him, but at times I did fear him, and that wasn’t a bad thing. God is a good father, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t respect him and…yes…fear him at times knowing that he holds creation in his hands. And one reason we should fear is that it gives us a chance to examine ourselves and see if we really do feel bad for letting him down so often and whether we really have faith in him.

Because it’s a fearful thing to imagine what our future holds if we go through it without God.