Maintaining a Healthy Fear of God

He alone is God; And He is God alone. Part 2

“And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” (Job 28:28)

“Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:28-31).

We are still looking at the very important asset we need to have in these perilous times; in other to be able to keep our eyes set on the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ – The Fear of The Lord. In this post we will conclude on why He “Fainteth not, neither is weary”; How  – “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength” because He alone is God; And He is God alone.

As we said in our last post, sometimes when we have ceased to have our whole being totally and absolutely “fixed on the Lord”, all the Lord does is to refer us back to some lessons we have learnt earlier but may have forgotten, often due to the wiles of the enemy being projected at us from all angles or when we allow fear (not a healthy fear of God this time) to have it’s way.

 “The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.” (Proverbs 29:25)

The way our loving heavenly Father does this is to have the Holy Spirit help us by teaching us more about Him, assure us of His own unconditional love for us (The power of The Father’s Approval), remind us of the extra ordinary things our Father has done in the past and then teach us more about our Father’s Holy attributes: we will now conclude on the rest of His attributes:

The next set of attributes are:

God is Omnipotent –

The whole of creation declare the fact that all, I mean “all” power belong to Him; all power that was, that is and that is to be, belongs to God. Even from the very beginning right through the creation of all that exist, all  as the physicist declares, belongs to Him.  So, as the physicist also declares that energy transfer can be used to do work, so power is also the rate at which this work is performed; time here being from eternity to eternity –

 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters………..Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” (Genesis 1:1-2:3)

“And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth” (Revelation 19:6).

He has the ultimate power to do whatever He wills. God’s nature limits His will and as such He cannot do anything that is contrary to His being God, such as sin or ignore sin –

“Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face” (Psalms 89:14).

There is nothing He cannot do except that which is contrary to His nature. There is no power that can confront Him or His children that is beyond Him: With His power he conquered sin and death. That’s why King David concluded –

“God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God. Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for thou renderest to every man according to his work” (Psalms 62:11-12).

“But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, with men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

This is the reason why we can have cast iron believe in His promises and when the enemy comes with his trials, we are able like Job to focus our attention on Him and not our own power to overcome and say –

“I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee” (Job 42:2):

God is Omnipresent –

As with His infinity He fills the whole of creation which makes it possible for Him to be present everywhere at once. No other has the ability to this –

“Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:23,24).

What a relief this is – to know that The One who watches over us can be anywhere our adversaries are at any point in time –

“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3).

His presence everywhere means He is there even when man sins and no one is present and there is nowhere we can hide to sin that He is not present. The Psalmist observed –

“If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there” (Psalm 139:8).

God is Omniscient –

Like God’s omnipresence, His Omniscience means that because He knows all things that can be known in the past, present and future, nothing can escape His knowledge. The fact that He is interwoven into everything (BUT APART FROM, ABOVE AND BEYOND EVERYTHING)  that exists, means that nothing in the heavens, on earth, even underneath the ground escapes His knowledge  –

“He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:4-5):

“Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10).

Just as He knows everything that can be known of all creatures great and small, even the number of hair on everyone’s head –

“Known to God are all his works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18).

He knows our intensions and motives for all our actions. No surprise man keep trying to build a database that is as big as God’s (man’s struggle to “DO IT WITHOUT GOD”), but then –

He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. (Daniel 2:22)

“The Lord looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men” (Psalm 33:13).

God is Love –

God’s love for us is just as and backed up by His attribute of being immutable – it cannot be wholly comprehended by man except through His Son Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. A.W. Tozer in “I talk back to the devil” tells us of the connection between God’s love and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit when he said:

“Brethren, it is well for us to remember that as human beings we can never know all of the Godhead. If we were capable of knowing all of the Godhead perfectly, we would be equal to the Godhead. For illustration, we know that we cannot pour an entire quart of water into a vessel which has a capacity of less than a quart. So you could never pour all of the Godhead into the experience of any being who is less than God Himself.

A similar kind of illustration was used long ago by ancient fathers in the church as they argued for the trinity of the Godhead. They pointed out that God the eternal Father is an infinite God, and He is love. The very nature of love is to give itself. But, the Father could not give His love fully to anyone not fully equal to Himself. Thus we have the revelation of the Son Who is equal to the Father and of the eternal Father pouring out His love into the son, who could contain it, because the Son is equal with the Father. Further, these ancient wise men reasoned, if the Father were to pour out His love into the Son, a medium of communication equal to both the Father and the Son would be required, and this was the Holy Ghost. So we have their concept of the Trinity –the ancient Father in the fullness of His love pouring Himself through the Holy Ghost who is in being equal to Him, into the Son who is in being equal to the Spirit and the Father”

God is love and that’s why the greatest power that man can possess is love –

“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (I John 4:16).

But then real love (God’s agape Love) in the world we live in today would make anyone look naive and stupid; Real love as should be infused of by a bond servant of Christ, seems to be a strange phenomenon in the world we live in, even among the so called ‘men of God’. Real love as described by Apostle Paul –

“As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned”  (1 Tim. 1:3-7).

THE GOAL OF OUR COMMAND IS LOVE; that comes from a PURE HEART, GOOD CONSCIENCE AND SINCERE FAITH.

Now, If you look at these 3 components of love:

Pure heart – Hold no evil whatsoever against anyone.

Good Conscience – knowledge shows what is right or wrong, but it is the conscience that approves of what is right and disapproves of what is contrary to it.

Sincere Faith – no matter how bad it looks in reality, I have this hope that it shall be well – “substance of things hoped for; evidence of things not seen”.

To have these 3 qualities in the world we live in today qualifies you as being excellently naive. But then it is these three qualities that equip any living being with LOVE that is the greatest power on earth. Jesus warned us when describing the end of the ages –

“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:12.).

It is also said that –

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love” (1John 4:18).

I have come to see the act of walking in love as one that can be compared to tightrope walking. Walk it through without falling, everyone applauds; but when the reality of learning to walk in love as in training for a tightrope walk show, you will sometimes fall off the rope at different points along the journey, and people will naturally jeer – it is a lowly point to be in, a point where one is vulnerable, a point where the ungodly sees a chance to take advantage, a point where you realise that –

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9).

You do not just see this from afar off, and judge others, but more importantly come to the realisation of the fact that if not for the GRACE of God; ones own natural heart can be just as deceitful.

But as the saying goes “practice makes perfect” – Until we are able and have perfected the act of walking that tight rope (walking in God’s Agape Love) without falling off along the way; we just have to keep moving on; practising how to walk in this wonderful attribute of our creator putting into consideration the advice of His Son Jesus Christ when He said –

“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16).

I Tosin, personally would rather be misunderstood to be naive than lack the power of God and continually have my whole being totally and absolutely “fixed on the Lord”.

SO WHEN WE REALISE THAT:

God is Holy– This is the pure loving nature of God separate from evil.

God is Life – He is the essence of the breathe of life

God is Spirit – It is impossible to see Him with human eyes, but through the eye of the spirit

God is Infinite – He is, if I may say, interwoven into all things.

God is Immutable – God cannot change because He is the beginning and end ‘Alpha & Omega’

God is Omnipotent – He has the ultimate power to do whatever He wills.

God is Omniscient – He knows all things that can be known in the past, present, future, so nothing can escape His knowledge

God is Omnipresent – He fills the whole of creation which makes it possible for Him to be present everywhere at once

God is Love – God’s love for us is just as His attribute of being immutable, it cannot change.

THEN WE CAN SEE WHY:

“Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isa. 40:28-31).

What are you going through at this point in your life? Do you feel God cannot see your troubles? Or even if He sees them, He has decided to turn a blind eye? Or even worse still He is powerless to do anything about them? We all go through this but the solution is to always wait on Him. When we put our focus on who our God really is, the grace to trust Him is bestowed upon us;

“Thou wilt keep him in Perfect Peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee” (Isaiah 26:3).

Then we can be rest assured that when we wait upon Him, we can never, I repeat “never” be disappointed.

Ray C. Stedman asks about Isa. 40:28-31 in “WHO IS LIKE OUR GOD?”:

How many thousands through the centuries have taken those promises literally and found that to “wait upon the Lord” does this very thing. It all hinges on that one word, wait. Wait! The hardest word to learn in the language for some, especially young people. Wait. Let God work. The Hebrew word has a note of expectation about it: expect God to work, wait in expectation that God will move. It takes time, you cannot have it overnight, but they that wait upon the Lord shall find their own strength renewed. They shall find their spirit mounting up like the eagle in its flight, their souls able to run the gamut of emotions. They shall never be weary. And they shall walk (in body) and not faint.

What a wonderful God we serve.

Admit your spiritual need.

We all are sinners: nobody likes that title “SINNER”, but the bible says in Romans 3:23 that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”.

What is the result of sin?

In Romans 6:23 we read “The wages of sin is death…” in other words, every sin is another step towards death. One thing that we need to remember is that God never sends anyone to hell; one can send himself there by rejecting the truth.

Since we can never measure up to God’s standards by our own strength; God has reached out to mankind.

John 3:16-17. In Romans 5:8 we read, “God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. It is Jesus, after all, who is the source of life’s greatest high.

What must a person do to accept this gift?

Simply receive it! Matthew 11:28 states –“come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…for my yoke is easy and my burden is light”.

Revelation 3:20 says, “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me” Jesus stands at the door of your heart and knocks, seeking entrance into your life to give you peace, change you for the best. John 1:12 says: “For as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God”.

If you haven’t already received Christ as your Saviour, don’t put it off another day! Take time right now to reflect on the state of your life, how does Romans 3:23 apply to you? Ask God to empower you to see the true state of your heart – “The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) then when enabled, invite Jesus into your life. Confess your sins. Receive His forgiveness and the gift of eternal life. You might pray something like this:

Dear Jesus, I know that I am a sinner in need of a Savior. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. Thank You for giving me eternal life. Help me to live my life in a way that pleases You, for whatever time You give me here on earth. I look forward to living forever in Heaven with You. Amen.