" 'Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me,' declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty." -Jeremiah 2:19-
Translation: Evil begins when there is no fear of God.
As I have been reading through scripture over the last couple years, one reoccuring theme is the awe that we should have of the Lord. And this isn't just the "ooooooo, ahhhhhhhh" kind of awe either. This is the, "God is so mighty and powerful that simply the thought of his unlimited power causes such, fear/respect/reverance/amazement/terror/ in me that I lose control of my bodily functions," kind of awe. Have you ever been in that kind of awe of God? Read through the Bible, especially the Old Testament and see the reactions that people had when they were in the presence of God or even His heavenly messenger (which I'm convinced many times was Christ himself). Often times it was pure terror that overtook people when in God's presence.
Jesus said in Luke 12:4-5: "I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him."
The beauty of what is happening hear is that Jesus goes on in the following verses to talk about how this same one we should fear (the Lord Almighty) Loves us more than we could ever fathom and cares for us better than we could ever care or provide for ourselves.
Basically, once we come to a point of truly fearing/being in awe of God, we have nothing else to fear. Because, "if God is for us who can be against us" (Romans 8:31) and (Romans 8:35-39) "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: 'For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Here's what I'm driving at: this world is constantly trying to please us with stuff. It is constantly coming up with this new thing or that new thing, trying to give us satisfaction. Trying to fill that "hole" inside of us. We are seeking that peg to put into the peg-hole. The problem is that nothing of this earth can ever satisfy us? Why? Because we are made in the likeness of God and God is an eternal being!! So, therefore, despite these finite and limited bodies that we are currently living this life in, our souls are made to be eternal, like God. And so that hole that all humans are seeking to fill, in whatever way they are trying to do so, can only be filled by something or rather someone of eternal value. We long for something more; something more than this temporal earth can give us. We are made for eternity with God and only an eternal realtionship with him can fulfill that deep longing inside us. That is why hell will be so painful and tormenting for anyone who spends eternity there because all those souls were fashioned and designed by God to exist in His presence for eternity, not separated from Him for eternity. But because they do not fear Him in this life they cannot know Him, cannot have relationship with Him, and cannot spend eternity with Him.
All this is why it is supremely important for us to always be in AWE of God,because once we come to that place of awe, then we can begin to meet with God, know God, have a relationship with him, and know that there is nothing else that is worth our fear. Fear of God brings us to a place where we are primed and ready for a relationship with Him. We can then begin to fill that eternal longing that nothing in this world can satisfy. That eternal longing for an eternal God and Savior.
Are you in AWE of GOD?
