Daily Devotional

Do you remember what happened in Exodus 20:18-20? God has just given Moses the Ten Commandments. He then follows it up with thunder, lightning, sounds of trumpets, and a smoking mountain. It's quite a show of power! Why? Because God wanted them to always fear Him and to always respond appropriately to His divine power. It is a power that is infinitely more powerful than anyone or anything they would ever face. That’s an important message to us, as well, especially during these confusing days.

Remember the words of Christ in Luke 12:4-5 “...do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who after He has killed has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!” Then Christ turns right around in the next verses (Luke 12:7) and says in Luke 12:7, “...do not fear, you are of more value than the sparrows.”  

We deal with our fears by running into His loving and powerful arms! If we view God as really puny and really unloving, then we should expect our fears to be really great and overwhelming. Unrighteous fear and worry is nothing short of a denial of God's power and love. It says He cannot not handle our lives nor wants to. It is a declaration that we really do not believe that God is on His throne and that He really doesn’t care about our lives. It tells those around us that He is not the Sovereign Lord of our lives nor is He the lover of our souls.  

We read some unusual words in Psalm 19:9, “The fear of the Lord is clean...” The Hebrew word tahor speaks of something that is not mixed with a bunch of impurities and therefore is not complicated to sort out. In other words, the fear of the Lord is simply responding to what the Bible clearly says about God. It is the response of the creature to the infinite majesty of the Creator. It involves obeying His precepts, trusting His promises and responding to His the One who is infinitely powerful, everlasting in His loving-kindness and therefore supremely capable of handling everything we fear. In these times of uncertainty, we can be “certainly be certain of that!”

New American Standard Bible (NASB)
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