What is the Fear of the Lord? Part 3. Where are you at?

In our last post, we indicated that a true Christian can be defined by Jesus’ statement in John 14:21 among others. We then said that we are going to look at some of Jesus’ commands. Would you agree with me that the letters from the Apostles were inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, and therefore are actually Jesus’ words?

When we look at 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 we see that Paul reprimanded the church for acting the way the world does by taking one another to court. In verses 7-8 he asked: “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters.” In other words, we need to be the least, we need to act like Jesus instructed His followers to act by serving one another in purity and holiness. Then he made a profound statement by saying:  “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

Many Christians believe that you are set free from the consequences of sin once you are saved and that you can act the way you’d like to, like the Corinthians in verse twelve: “I have the right to do anything,” you say—(and then Paul's response) but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—(and then Paul's response) but I will not be mastered by anything. As a result many Christians live mediocre lives void of the power of God because they yield to their carnal desires instead of resisting sin to the point of shedding their blood (Hebrews 12:1-4). I have used 1 Corinthians 6:12 often out of context to justify what I wanted to do, but I’ll get to my testimony later. I want to discuss the activities, which Paul listed to the Corinthians above, individually as a test for all of us as to where we stand with the Lord.

He mentioned the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God. What is in your thoughts with regard to the opposite sex? Do you at times entertain fantasies about another man or woman you happen to like, even though you’re married, do you maybe interact with one on the social media, thinking it to be innocent? How do you look at a person of the opposite sex? Are your eyes scanning certain body parts? Do you act flirtatiously? Ladies, do you dress in a way as to submit men to sexual temptation? Maybe you ask what’s wrong with these things. Can you imagine Jesus flirting with women or undressing them with His eyes?

This is what it means to fear the Lord. How often do we do little things that make us impure before the Lord and do not repent from it, but continue with it because we enjoy it and think we are okay if we accepted Jesus as our saviour. If the Lord said in the Word that sexually immoral people will not inherit the Kingdom and we continue to be sexually immoral by just looking at the opposite sex lustfully (Matthew 5:28), will we inherit the Kingdom even if we accepted Jesus as our saviour? I don’t think so. We do, however, live in the time of grace, which, by the way, does not mean that the Lord will accept sin with an attitude of “I understand, it’s okay, I'll forgive their wilful, continuous sinning”.

The fear of the Lord means that we need to fear what the Lord will do. If we do not repent (stop sinning and turn away from it), we will not inherit the Kingdom of God. This is something to fear. The Lord, however, does not want this, but wants us to be blameless and pure. Therefore He disciplines us until we repent. This is another area in which to fear the Lord, for discipline is not nice and can be costly. He disciplines in areas that hurt the most and to many, it's in the area of finances. His grace means He will discipline us until we repent, even if it takes our entire life, and this discipline is painful and costly. While we’re under discipline, He cannot use us as He’d like to, another thing to fear, for then we cannot bear the fruit set out for us to bear and will not receive the related reward. To be continued.

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