What is the Fear of God?

Many people can go into their Bible’s and with head knowledge try to define what the fear of the Lord is.  But have you actually experienced it?  In my recent encounters with God I honestly couldn’t do the feeling justice with just words, but here is my best attempt at it:

The fear of the Lord, is the manifestation of how you feel when you stand before Him and realize that His Love and goodness are so ridiculously beyond what you have ever imagined, and you realize that you are nothing compared to Him, that your goodness is but filthy rags, and you realize that every evil and wicked thing is exposed out in the open for everyone to see when you are around Him because of the stark contrast that there is in His Presence. It is the feeling of being overwhelmed with how good He is and wondering how do I relate to Him? He is so good that He sees right through my evil desire to not be completely transparent with Him and to not want to completely show my heart to Him. It is the feeling that comes about when you realize that because of the incomprehensible Goodness and Love that He has, He has every right to judge you and in every regard, because He is perfect in every regard. There’s no escaping the fact that you have nothing to bring to Him in your defense, and there is nothing you can do and nothing that you can come up with to bring against God because He has never done anything wrong. Our normal defense mechanisms won’t work with Him, and our normal verbal manipulation that we use on other people are useless to justify ourselves before Him, nor to manipulate Him into agreeing with our point of view. God is absolutely beyond all manipulation, all reproach, and all blame, and has nothing but Loving and Good intentions for every human being on the planet. It is the realization that nothing escapes His notice, and with a simple whiff of His breath you would cease to exist.

It is the realization that you absolutely deserve to be whisked away into non-existence by this absolutely Perfect Being and that He would be fully justified in doing so. It is the realization of His goodness when you realize that His Goodness and Love surpasses anything that you have even imagined or realized.  This is when all of your fears are put at bay, when He comes to you and tells you that He died for you to justify your sin. It is the absolute feeling of reverence and overwhelming awe towards Him that you feel when the reality of His goodness and Love finally hits you.

When we truly come to the realization of who He is, the only reaction possible is the healthy fear of God that drives you to want to change, and allow Him to transform you into His image so you don’t feel so fearfully awkward standing before Him anymore.

Look how Isaiah, one of the most righteous people on the Earth at the time, responds when he comes to this realization:

Isaiah 6:5(NLT)

This is naturally how anyone would respond when they actually see God for who He is.

Blessings,

Machew