Having A Love Afair With The Father Series

There are several significant blessing that are promised to those who live lives of loving obedience toward God. The first is…

a) You Learn To Fear The Lord.

Now I will admit right up front that this doesn’t sound like much of a blessing – be afraid? It really sounds more like a problem or even a curse. But in the Bible we learn that it is a very good thing to have a healthy fear of the Lord. The word “fear” means to honor or to reverence God. Basically it means to respect God. And the measure of our respect for God is our obedience to God.

But this leads me to a chicken-or-the-egg kind of question. Do we respect God because we obey Him? Or do we obey God because we respect Him? My first thought would be that we respect God and therefore we obey Him. However, if you look closely at verse 2 you will see that the fear of the Lord comes as a result of obedience to God’s commands and instructions.

But I still think that if you have no fear of the Lord you won’t obey him in the first place. Here is what I have come to conclude about this. It is not an either or answer. It is not a matter of fearing God and then obeying or of obeying and then fearing. While the fear of the Lord is about respecting God it also includes the obvious concept of fright. In other words, God is big and powerful and we are, frankly, scared of what He might do to us if we disobeyed him. It is as Hebrews 10:31 says, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” So at least initially we may find ourselves obeying out of simple fear and yet as we obey something happens. We begin to recognize the wisdom of God and that the commands are really beneficial and helpful and protective of us. We begin to realize how much God loves us and cares for us and that this is the real motive behind all of the commands. And so, as we realize this, our fear of the Lord is transformed into respect and admiration and honor and loyalty and, yes, love for the Lord.

b) Your Life Will Be Prolonged.

The obvious objection to this would be: “What about all the faithful Christians who die young?” And I guess my response would be: Think how much younger they might have died had they not been Christians. The same could be said about those who are not Christians and yet live to a good, old age. Just think how much longer they might have lived had they been Christians and been living under the blessing of Almighty God.

Proverbs 10:27, “The fear of the Lord adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.”

God has established the laws of the universe – both the physical laws and the spiritual laws – and the two are far more connected than we sometimes realize. A person who lives a life of habitual obedience to God will experience far less guilt and pressure and tension – far less remorse and shame and apprehension. These are the very things that modern science tells us are eating away at our lives. They are causing not only emotional problems, but also all kinds of physical problems as well – problems such as ulcers and hypertension leading to heart disease. These things not only reduce the quality of one’s life, but they also reduce the length of one’s life as well.