Day 99: Fear or Familiarity
Proverbs 9:10
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Principle
Familiarity breeds contempt.
The pendulum has swung to the extreme – a few years ago, the general theme of religious people could have been summed up with Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Now, the counterbalance of that message has taken root in many Christians who seem to have become extremely familiar with God. They’ve gone from fear to familiarity – in which both positions are extreme. You can error by emphasis. For every mile of road, there are two miles of ditch.
Our Advisor’s use of the phrase, The fear of the Lord, establishes the genesis of wisdom; without the respectful distance of awe toward God, we’re fools. Familiarity breeds contempt.
The prophet Ezekiel described his response to seeing the glory of the Lord – “I fell facedown!” (Ezekiel 1:28) The byproduct of seeing the shadow of the Lord also caused Moses’ face to radiate glory for days. Others describe themselves as falling as “dead men.” It truly is an overwhelming and weakening moment actually to see the glory of God. We should fear Him. To not fear Him is just asinine.
We need to have a respectful fear – not the terror of a murderous maniac god of the Gnostics that was recently portrayed in the movie Noah. Nor do we need to have a flippant familiarity that He is the “Man upstairs.” We should never trivialize the awesomeness of our Father.
Remember:
The man who fears God will avoid all extremes. - Solomon (Ecclesiastes 7:18) Share on X
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