# 310: Do Modern Christians Truly Fear the Lord?

The question in the minds of some Christians is “Why should we fear a loving God?” Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” This verse connotes that all Christians must live their lives in a wise, understanding, and obedient way as we continue to fear the Lord God Almighty. Do we? Sad to say, I am afraid not! “Fear of the Lord” is a forgotten phrase in modern Christianity. The word “Fear” always has a negative meaning in the true sense, and is avoided by most intelligent people.

Our fear of God must be such that if we disobey Him, we can expect some type of consequences. One of the results will be that we will unknowingly distance ourselves from the love of God. To put it in a more descriptive way: Without fear of the Lord, experiencing His love for us has (or will) become vague and unreal.

This post will be one of the most difficult to write; it is tough to explain how and why fear is or must be an intricate part of our devotion to God through Jesus Christ. Repeating, some will say: Since God is all-loving, compassionate, and full of mercy and kindness, why do we have to fear Him?

The answer: Without a real fear of God, the door is wide open to feel/believe as if we don’t have to obey all that He requires. You see, His kindness and all the other lovely attributes He extends to those who are His are meant for when we inadvertently do something that goes against His rigid requirements. To put it another way, if or when we slip up and disobey the teachings of Jesus Christ, all is not lost; but because of our fear of the Lord, if we wholeheartedly repent and promise God that we will never repeat that ugly infraction again, that is when His love, compassion and mercy kick in.

Let’s be clear about this: When we knowingly sin because we don’t have a fear of God, you can bet your bottom dollar that our lack of fear may tell God that we are imposters, and God’s great mercy and grace can do nothing to help us unless we truly repent and start to be fearful of God’s wrath that will be released on judgment day.

Here is another situation God can do very little or nothing about, even with all His great compassion: when we don’t know all that God requires from us to please Him due to our lack of knowledge as to what the New Testament (NT) commands. Because of our lack of fear of God, we are as good as self-condemned. I believe this is the largest group of people who believe they are Christians; they are the ones who may be faithful churchgoers and may believe that belonging to a certain church is all that is necessary, with no mention of fear of God.

This complete blog, for the most part, was initiated to expose what most churches don’t teach from the pulpit. The reason is that the leaders of these churches have no fear of God; if they did, they would teach the sections of Scripture that are not pleasant to listen to and are even more difficult to implement. If they did preach these unpleasant sections, they would lose a lot of the church members who would start looking for more comforting messages in another church. In all of Christianity, this is the most grievous display of a lack of fear of God.

This is a hard statement: Without an active fear of God in the lives of many, there can be no Christianity that will be acceptable to Jesus Christ. In no uncertain terms, what would stop us from sinning if there is not a retardant (fear of God) to stop us if/when we do wrong?

How many bloggers are aware of this quaint verse of Scripture? James 4:17. “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” In other words, to God, what a person doesn’t do many times is more sinful than engaging in the act of sinning. These people have no fear of God in their devotion to Christ. They take God as a jolly old Santa Claus.

If, by some chance, God does not accept my devotion to Him as genuine, it will be because I somehow may have failed to implement James 4:17 in a wholehearted manner. My alibi most likely would be this: Matthew 7:6. “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” In other words, I attempt to be as certain as possible that I am doing my good deeds to those who are not trying to pull a fast one on me, but to those who truly need my monetary help, or those who have a hunger for accurate knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I am just guessing how many people regard sin—that doesn’t seem like sin—as being acceptable if it is intentional or not, because God’s grace and mercy will cover it and all will be well. That is a satanic lie. Many people believe that since we have a loving God, and that is true, then why should we fear our loving God? Look at it this way: If God, in one way or another, outright condoned sin, He would not be the God of love, since sin and love cannot mix. He does forgive sin when we are truly repentant, meaning at the time we believe we will never commit that sin again. Just remember this: We can’t pull a fast one on God. You see, He reads our hearts rather than our mouths and actions.

The main reason the fear of God is negated in most Christian literature and churches is because a God that must be feared is not a very nice God. Again, that is a demonic trick.

Could anyone imagine how children would end up who are not disciplined by their “loving” parents when absolutely necessary? Proverbs 13:24. “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.” Of course, at this time that type of physical punishment that this verse is referring to is now classified as child abuse in most of America. And it is no wonder why American children are going in the ungodly direction of the devil.

If God was not to be feared, as in the present time, it is no wonder that Christianity has gone and is still turning into an ungodly pussycat Christianity. The obvious way we can tell when fear of God is absent in our lives is when God must let us go and do whatever we believe is acceptable; at that time, we may still think we are genuine, heaven-bound Christians. Again, that is the work of the devil.

At this time, the other pending (although unobvious) way that we ignore the fear of God in our lives is when we will eventually, at the resurrection of the dead, on His great and terrible Day of Judgment, find that our destiny has become a lifetime sentence to hell, and just because we lacked genuine, authentic fear of the Lord that leads to obedience.

Let me inject a worldly scenario: Most people in America and even the world obey most civil and public laws that are implemented by the ruling authorities. Without even thinking why we obey, the reason is that if we did violate some law and were caught, we would be properly punished. Therefore, our deep-seated, mostly subconscious fear would stop us from doing what is unlawful.

Let me give an unheard of example that we all will understand: All the laws that we must obey in America are there for our protection. Let’s say that the laws are there but there was/is no type of punishment if and when we broke any of those laws. Would anyone be afraid to violate any of those laws? Of course not! Certainly, there would be no need for jails, law enforcement officers, etc. Since there would be no retribution of any sort, there would be absolutely no fear if we decided to violate any laws. This whole example sounds absolutely impractical and stupid.

Now let’s us get back to the breaking of any of God’s laws. Could it be that, because there is no fear of God and no immediate corrective action on God’s part when we violate any of His laws, there is little or no fear of God in America? As we all should know, we will have to answer for all of our infractions at the Day of Judgment.

The only thing is, we must first have an accurate knowledge of what is acceptable and not acceptable to our God, or our fear of God can do little or nothing to keep us on the straight and narrow. That gets us back to knowing what action we must take and what we must avoid.

Let us step back a little and be honest with ourselves. Do we truly know and understand what the New Testament teaches and what is doesn’t teach? In getting the correct answers (which may be a bit abrasive), we must, for a certain period of time, attempt to avoid what our church and other churches teach, since the vast majority of churches are biased in what they believe and teach. Then we must attempt to read the NT as if we were reading it for the first time. Remember this: The main concern of ALL churches—come hell or high water—is that they desire to remain in BUSINESS AS UNUSUAL. Therefore, they may avoid or sugarcoat certain sections of Scripture that seem absolutely absurd and most certainly are not in agreement with the sinful human nature we all are born with.

What bothers me is that when I am visiting with religious people, the majority claim to know and obey exactly what the NT teaches. Oh, how I pray that was true. They are in essence saying, “There is nothing more I can learn; I know it all.” Well, in truth, nobody knows it all. There is always room for improvement in our lives, including this author.

The final result is that we may not be aware that these necessary commands must not be avoided. Once we know these cleverly hidden verses, it should strike the fear of God in our hearts, thus allowing us to do everything humanly possible to obey them. This paragraph is what this complete blog is mostly about.

In conclusion: I truly understand how unnatural it is to obey this and other posts; yet, without fear of God prompting our ability to obey these seemingly secluded verses, we will be living nothing more than an easy sort of false Christianity. Isn’t that what our human nature desires, is to have life as easy as possible? The New Testament guarantees that without genuine fear of God concerning this pick-and-choose, cafeteria-style Christianity, we will certainly be led to hell.