FAITH CAPSULE: God is worthy to be feared.
Genesis 19
Command of God is His word. God’s command is His direction to have the fear for Him. God is worthy to be feared. Deuteronomy 6:1-3, is written for us to know “Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the LORD your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the LORD your God…” God’s command is to teach us to fear Him. To fear God is to love God. In the command of God is our teacher to know and fear God. A thoughtful student of the word of God must get the understanding to fear God according to His word. Failure to obey God is not to fear Him.
God expects us to love Him just as it is recorded in His word, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5) Sin and sinning is rooted in disobedience. Without doubt, not knowing to fear God breeds sin. Sin simply came to be under heaven when eating from one tree out of varieties of trees in the Garden of Eden. In failure, not to fear God started when Adam and Eve ate against God’s command. It is written, “…the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17) Adam and Eve engaged a blatant act of disobedience which does not have any reasonable excuse before God but consequence.
Since the time of Adam and Eve, man continues to sin. God simply wants us to love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength. Abraham loved the Lord God and obeyed as was commanded by God. It takes loving God with all heart to rise and depart to a strange land and not hold back just like Abraham. At age seventy-five, leaving behind family and comfort environment is the evidence of the fear of God and obedience to God’s command. Abraham obeyed the word (command) of God.
Disobedience to God’s command by the wife of Lot was the lack of her fear for God. Do you know to obey God’s command? Knowing God’s command is knowing to fear God? At the time of destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot and his wife were commanded not to look back on the track from destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot’s wife looked back against God’s command. Genesis 19:26 recorded Lot’s wife lack for the fear of God, “But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” Learn in God’s word and not look back as commanded in God’s command.
Prayer for today: Ask God for the grace to be clothed by His fear in your life.