Does that statement freak you out a little bit? Because if God is loving, why in the world should we fear him?
This was today’s Hebrew word study. Study number 89 in Revealing the Heart of God. And I just want to share a little bit of it with you.
Here’s the problem… back 1872, Charles Darwin gave us the definition of our modern day word “fear“. Before that, fear actually meant an “awe-inspiring event”!
Sadly, the church started to depend heavily on using fear to keep its members in line. So now we see God as more danger or perceived threat. Which couldn’t be further from the truth! Chaim Bentorah says in the book “ the end result is that we tend to avoid sin out of fear of God’s lightning bolts rather than out of fear of wounding his heart.”
According to Chaim, he says “the built-in commentary within the Hebrew word yara’ tells us that to fear the Lord means to accept His power, His love, and His heart; to let His hand rest upon us; and to submit ourselves to His authority and become one with Him.”
He goes on to say “to fear God means to fear that we may in someway be a threat to Him – the God, whom we love, the God who is protecting us. There is only one thing that can harm God, and that is, if we betray our love for Him, if we abuse, His love and break His heart. With this understanding, we do not keep from sin because we fear that God will punish us. We avoid sin because we fear we may wound God’s heart.”
I wish I could have written this blog post, but all credit goes to Chaim Bentorah. And honestly, I couldn’t have said it any better. I do hope this opens your eyes a little bit to maybe what you have thought about “fearing God”.
Happy Tuesday!
ShannonFabulous 