Fear of God Explained: Reverence, Power, and Living Fearlessly

The phrase “Fear of God” is often misunderstood and misused. We frequently understand fear in a good/bad paradigm, with fear being always bad. Yet fear isn’t always bad. Fear makes sense within the created order of the world. The Zebra fears the lion; the fish fears the shark; the mouse fears the hawk. The fear here makes sense, as the lion, the shark, and the hawk all hold the power of life and death of these animals. 

When I watch the Planet Earth series, I find that, for an episode, if I follow the story of the Zebra, if the Zebra gets attacked by the lion, I want the Zebra to get away. However, if we were to flip the encounter, where I had followed the lion the whole time, I would want it to get its meal. My desire is not based on what is good or bad but, on the perspective, I was exposed to. In this way, fear is not good or bad; it is a survival instinct, a recognition of the power something else has.

We fear God because we know his power. Understanding God as the involved creator, he is leaves us with fear of what he is capable of. If he can do anything, then surely, he could strike me dead if he so wanted – and we just need to read the bible to see examples of that. He created the world, and he could end the world. He is a God who can do many things. He is all-powerful and all-knowing.

Fear in God is our recognition of His power. The fear of God is the humble respect and reverence for the all-mighty and all-powerful creator. He can do anything with that power, and he uses it to enact justice and love – though we may never understand the extent to which he does and how he does it.

Fearing God is about having reverence and awe for God’s power. To fear the lord is to stand in a posture where we are aware of his almighty power. It is the humble respect for the Almighty Justice and all-powerful love. It recognizes that this is a God who has power over life and death, that he both chose to die for us and, in his power, rose again

If we think back to the Zebra, the fear of the lion drives the Zebra’s actions. It is what causes the Zebra to run away. It is a well-researched psychological trait that people often use to make decisions out of fear. The risks they take with their choices are usually dictated by their fears. A person who is afraid of death may run away from skydiving, whereas a person who is afraid of not having ‘lived’ may run towards it.

Fear is something that can control us and drive our behaviours and patterns. Fear is a huge driver of the decisions people make, and what we fear changes our risk tolerance. If we let anything control us like that, it should only be God because he should dictate our risk tolerance. If we fear things and avoid or let that impact our decisions (which is what fearing something looks like), then we still let fear control us. What we fear is what we let have control over our lives.

We fear God because he is the only one worthy of our fear and, therefore, reverence.

This has been one of the hardest things for me to abide by. I find it very easy to be fearful, worrisome and anxiety-ridden. (I hate to think of where I would have ended up without God if this was me with God). There are many decisions I have made from fear that were not for my benefit but because I feared an outcome that might happen. For years, I avoided sitting on the top deck of a bus (and I will still sit on the bottom if I can). There were many decisions that I made in my life because I was fearful.

Yet fearing God should leave no space for other fear. Nothing could hurt me in the way God could, yet I trust God not to. He is to be feared, but he is good, so there isn’t anything to fear. I fear what he could do, but I also trust what he does. He knows everything, so he also knows what is best for me.

I find fearing God difficult because there are so many things I find that there are to fear. We live in a world full of worry and people seeking our attention. So many things are trying to grab our attention by trying to illicit some sort of fear-driven response that will keep us engaged in the content.

However, by fearing these things, am I trusting God? I know I am trying to, but often I fail.

I am slowly learning to step out of the fear I have of things in the world and into the fear of God. But stepping into the fear of God is stepping into trusting him wholeheartedly. It is allowing me to hope in a whole new way. Or if I fear God since he is all-powerful and all-knowing, then that also means he knows what is best. Since He is good, he will do what is best, which means I can trust Him and put my hope in him. This means I need to let go of my fear of other things because that fear cannot give me hope or trust; instead, it will only destroy my soul.

Learning to let go of that fear allows me to let God be in control fully. My fear, when not in God, results in my trying to control everything, but when my fear is in God, I trust he is controlling everything because otherwise, I would not fear God.

Fearing only God is a complete acknowledgement of his power and everything.

Fearing God leads us to complete devotion to God because we are living in awe and reverence of him.

Fearing God gives us a sense of fearlessness, where we find there is nothing we cannot do if it is what God has called us to do.

From our fear of God, we find we can trust and have hope in him.