Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Prov. 9:10  Fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.  Knowledge of the Holy One results in understanding.

To fear the Lord means we respect who He is, we revere Him, we regard Him, and we have a revulsion for sin.   I don’t believe there is as much respect for God as there should be in our lives.  We have sanitized God and put Him in a neat little box in our lives.  We give little thought to God as beng holy and demanding of our holiness.  We limit Him in our thinking to fit into our comfort zone about Him.  We want Him to be all love and not a judge of sin.

Can we really say that we revere the Lord?  Are we in awe of Him?  Do we humble ourselves in His presence?  Do we adore Him?  Are we overwhelmed by His majesty and glory?  Does His power impress you?  Wise are those who can see God for who He is and bow in amazement before Him. 

For many of us, we don’t regard God as much as we should.  We reserve a certain part of our lives for Him and do not engage Him in the rest.  We go about our business with little thought of how the Lord should influence what we do.  We focus on Him mainly on the Lord’s Day, and then mainly for just an hour or two.  Wise are those who are willing to let the Lord into every area of their lives. 

Wise are those who do not like sin and strive to keep it out of their lives.  They see sin as repulsive.  They understand the nature of sin and how it impacts our lives.  Rather than cozying up to it, they strive to stay away from it.  When we fear God we are sickened by sin and find it to be revolting. 

When we fear the Lord like we should, we gain an understanding of what we need to be like in order to enter into His presence.  We understand what we need to do in order to have the Lord be with us in life.  We take seriously our relationship with God and pursue holiness in living .  When we fear the Lord we can then begin to understand just how wondrous and precious our relationship really is.  We also discover just how awful and foreboding life is without Him. 

If we don’t fear God, we won’t fear hell.  And if we don’t fear hell, we will not see sin as being something to avoid.  We will treat sin, and thus God’s grace, lightly.