{"id":3738,"date":"2023-08-31T03:53:15","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T07:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=3738"},"modified":"2023-08-31T03:53:15","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T07:53:15","slug":"the-fear-of-the-lord-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=3738","title":{"rendered":"The Fear of the Lord #6"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>See the previous posts in this series <a href=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=3703\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=3712\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=3716\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=3725\">here<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=3730\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Approaching the conclusion of our reflections, let\u2019s recap. You desire success? You\u2019ll need wisdom. To have wisdom, you\u2019ll have to embrace the fear of the Lord. You\u2019ll never embrace the fear of the Lord apart from God\u2019s revelation of Himself to us, supremely in Jesus as held before us in the pages of the Bible.<\/p>\n<p>We come then to the third movement in the fear of the Lord. <strong>The fear of the Lord is evidenced by obedience to God<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/obedience-7086960_1280.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3739\" src=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/obedience-7086960_1280-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"676\" height=\"507\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/obedience-7086960_1280-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/obedience-7086960_1280-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/obedience-7086960_1280-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/obedience-7086960_1280-676x507.jpg 676w, https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/obedience-7086960_1280.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>How do I know whether I fear the Lord? There\u2019s only one answer: Am I currently walking in obedience to God?<\/p>\n<p>How do I know if someone else (maybe someone I love deeply) fears the Lord? Same answer \u2013 are they walking in obedience to God?<\/p>\n<p>The Bible underscores this repeatedly. Here are just a few samples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">\u201cThe fear of the LORD is hatred of evil.\u201d<\/span> (Proverbs 8:13a)<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">\u201c\u2026 by the fear of the LORD one turns away from evil.\u201d<\/span> (Proverbs 16:6b)<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">\u201cLet not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the LORD all the day.\u201d<\/span> (Proverbs 23:17)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The evidence of whether one fears the Lord is <em>not<\/em> how passionate one feels during corporate worship, how much passion arises within one over certain issues, nor how many Bible verses one can quote. There is only one test \u2013 obedience to God.<\/p>\n<p>If you obey God\u2019s Word, you fear Him. If you, at any point, do not obey God\u2019s Word, at that point you fear something or someone more than your fear the Lord. That thing is your god, whatever else you may say.<\/p>\n<p>In C.S. Lewis\u2019s masterpieces known as <em>The Chronicles of Narnia<\/em> there is a passage in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/100915.The_Lion_the_Witch_and_the_Wardrobe?ac=1&amp;from_search=true&amp;qid=nCpOlUKh2r&amp;rank=1\">the opening book<\/a> that sets before us this matter of the fear of the Lord.<\/p>\n<p>In the account the children Lucy, Susan, and Edmund have entered into the make believe world of Narnia. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver were showing them about and have begun to tell them of Aslan.\u00a0 He is a mighty lion, who represents the figure of Christ in the story. They described Aslan\u2019s might, power, wisdom, and awesome presence. Yet the children did not seem to grasp who he was. Finally Mr. Beaver said, \u201cYou\u2019ll understand when you see him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut shall we see him?,\u201d asked Susan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy, Daughter of Eve, that\u2019s what I brought you here for.\u00a0 I\u2019m to lead you to where you shall meet him,\u201d said Mr. Beaver.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs, is he a man?\u201d, asked Lucy?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAslan a man!\u201d said Mr. Beaver sternly. \u201cCertainly, not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don\u2019t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion\u2014the Lion, the great Lion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOoh!\u201d said Susan, \u201cI\u2019d thought he was a man.\u00a0 Is he\u2014quiet safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat you will dearie, and make no mistake,\u201d said Mrs. Beaver. \u201cIf there\u2019s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they\u2019re either braver than most or else just silly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen he isn\u2019t safe?,\u201d said Lucy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSafe?\u201d said Mr. Beaver. \u201cDon\u2019t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe \u2018Course he isn\u2019t safe. But he\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Therein lies the heart of the matter. The fear of the Lord is not the opposite of love for God. The fear of the Lord is love in full blossom. And love for God is the fear of the Lord at its designed zenith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>See the previous posts in this series here, here, here, here, and here. Approaching the conclusion of our reflections, let\u2019s recap. You desire success? You\u2019ll need wisdom. To have wisdom, you\u2019ll have to embrace the fear of the Lord. You\u2019ll never embrace the fear of the Lord apart from God\u2019s revelation of Himself to us, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,52,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fear-of-the-lord","category-proverbs","category-wisdom","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYGxX-Yi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3738"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3742,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738\/revisions\/3742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}