Journey to Eternity Podcast

The Transformative Power of Fearing God: Wisdom, Humility, and Spiritual Resilience

• Luisa and Mike Sirignano • Episode 49

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Understanding the fear of God is pivotal in living a righteous and fulfilling life. In this episode, we explore the difference between a healthy fear of God as a deep reverence and respect, versus the paralyzing fear of man. We discuss scripture that emphasizes the foundation of wisdom found in fearing the Lord, and how it leads to beautiful outcomes like obedience, strength in facing trials, and community support. 

• Definition and significance of the fear of God 
• Exploration of scripture relating to wisdom and divine reverence 
• Personal stories illustrating the transformative power of fearing God 
• Characteristics of a person who fears God 
• Practical applications in daily life and decision-making 
• Promises that accompany a life lived in fear of the Lord

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Mike:

Brothers and sisters, god did not send his son to die on a cross so we could wander aimlessly through life. He had a purpose for us to do his work, submit to his will and glorify his name. Join us on this journey... a Journey to Eternity!

Luisa:

So welcome to the show. I'm Luisa.

Mike:

And I'm Mike, and this is episode 49 of the Journey to Eternity podcast.

Luisa:

In every episode we help Christians use God's word to navigate everyday life in a sinful, fallen world.

Mike:

So hey babe.

Luisa:

So hey, babe

Mike:

So hey, babe, it's good to be back. It's good to be back behind the microphone for another episode and, as you may have noticed, the music is back to introduce us. Yay, and if you're new to the show, we had music at the beginning and end of all our episodes, for about the first 40 of them.

Luisa:

And I have been asking Mike for it to come back for the last few months.

Mike:

Yes, she has. And, babe, I just want to thank you for being patient with me while I deal with all the technical aspects of this podcast.

Luisa:

I want to thank you for making it happen hon.

Mike:

Amen, you're welcome. So, as you may recall, a few weeks ago we put out an episode talking about the fear of man and we got a lot of great feedback from people who suffer from that sin. It's something that was a way of life for me before God saved me.

Luisa:

And if you missed that episode, we highly recommend that you go back and listen to it. Please go to our website at jtepodcastorg and click on the archives button. Look for episode 48.

Mike:

And in that episode we learned that many people suffer from this sin, but God, in his mercy, gives us a remedy for the fear of man, and that's the fear of God. And here we are today to tackle that subject. But before we get started, let's pray.

Luisa:

Heavenly Father, as we once again record another podcast, we give you all the praise and honor for allowing us to teach from your word. Oh Lord, have your way, holy Spirit, speak to us both so our gracious Father can be exalted to the highest. Please stir the hearts of our listeners to understand and apply what is needed in their lives. In Jesus's name we pray.

Mike:

Amen. So let's get right into it by defining what the fear of God means. In the Bible, fear of God refers to a deep reverence, respect and awe for God's power and authority.

Luisa:

And that's to acknowledge God's majesty and holiness.

Mike:

Amen. Now it leads to obedience and a desire to live according to His will, rather than being simply afraid of Him. Now, this episode is going to have a ton of scripture, and we're going to try and touch on each one of them in a way that makes a difference. So let's start in the book of Proverbs.

Luisa:

The fear of God is often described as the foundation for true wisdom. Proverbs 1 and verse 7 is the key verse. It says Amen.

Mike:

And, just for good measure, that same message is repeated in Proverbs 9.10, proverbs 15.33, job 28.28, and Psalm 111.10. Now here's a twist concerning sin.

Luisa:

Proverbs 14.27 states the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning people away from the snares of death.

Mike:

The snares of death. So in our last episode we talked about the fear of man and we used the word snare. The fear of man is a snare or a trap, and sometimes it stops you from trusting in God, sometimes it stops you from understanding how forgiving he is.

Luisa:

There's a lot of things how loving he is. Yes.

Mike:

And when we get caught in these snares it always results in sin All the time. So Proverbs 29 and verse 25 addresses this problem directly.

Luisa:

Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.

Mike:

Amen Proverbs 19 and verse 23.

Luisa:

The fear of the Lord leads to life, and he who has it will abide in satisfaction. He will not be visited with evil, amen.

Mike:

And it just keeps on going. In fact, this phrase the fear of the Lord is repeated 14 times in Proverbs and is the motto of the book, reminding readers of the preeminent condition forgetting wisdom. And on top of that, some form of that phrase can be found over 300 times throughout the Bible.

Luisa:

So let's look again at Proverbs 1, 7. It says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Mike:

Right, this is the most essential component and it leads to godly wisdom. Yeah, so if you don't fear God, you do not have wisdom.

Luisa:

At all period. That much I could tell you. Yes.

Mike:

Now, fearing him doesn't mean running away whenever you hear his name.

Luisa:

I think it's running towards him.

Mike:

Yes, that's really good.

Luisa:

I didn't even think of that, running towards him instead of running away, and I think a lot of people run away.

Mike:

So to fear God is to know him as he is and respond accordingly Amen. So in order to be wise, we must fear God.

Luisa:

And in order to fear God, we must know him.

Mike:

And how do we know?

Luisa:

him by reading and studying his word and establishing a relationship with the Lord.

Mike:

Right. In order to know him, we must be brought into proper relationship with him through the Lord Jesus Christ, amen. And then, when we are saved, when we come to understand God's holiness and grace in salvation, the proper way to respond is with awe, reverence and worship. This is what it means to fear God. If you have come to know God rightly and worship him as your Savior, you have already stepped into the path of wisdom.

Luisa:

Unbelievers are so afraid of God.

Luisa:

I know that I had a conversation with an unbeliever the other day and she called me and she was under so much distress, like there was so much going on in her life and just listening to her I heard the distress and because she doesn't have God in her life, she's in her flesh and her emotions are all over the place and the fear was real for her. It was like wow, and I just felt so bad. I felt so bad and I go into prayer mode you know what I mean and I just asked her if I can pray for her. And she wanted to pray and I just started praying for her and I just started talking to her about Jesus Christ being her savior, because with him, that's the only place she's gonna get peace.

Mike:

And it's that Prince of Peace and it's him alone, amen. And I know that it's tough for unbelievers, but for Christians, our fear of God is a profound respect and understanding of God's power and potential for judgment and it's the main basis for wisdom. And I have my own story, because the other day I had somebody come up to me and said you know, I don't want wealth, I don't want riches, I don't want success, I really want wisdom.

Luisa:

And I kind of looked at him and was like Is he a believer or an unbeliever?

Mike:

No, he was an unbeliever. I think he's kind of seeking. I think he has some stuff in him.

Luisa:

Great opportunity, babe. He's curious and it was.

Mike:

So what did I do? I started spitting out the scripture that we had before, Proverbs 1, 7, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. And I really sat down and I had my Bible there and I started talking to him about it and I really just wanted him to understand that without God we have no wisdom Right, and that every bit of knowledge and good thinking comes from him. So the Bible often associates fear of the Lord with the beginning of wisdom.

Luisa:

And recognizing God's authority leads to wise decision making.

Mike:

Amen, that's how we learn how to handle situations and that was one of the things that I was explaining to him. So when it comes time to make a decision, if I try to think of it on my own and I try to say, all right, I'm going to do things this way and see what happens, and I think that we all have to establish a habit of, in every situation, as a believer, just taking it to the Lord Exactly Like.

Luisa:

You know me, you hear me sometimes. God, is this from you, Right? Should I walk through this door? God, did you send this person in my life? It's very subtle, but it's always keeping God in the mix of any decision that we have to make.

Mike:

Right when I need to do something, I say God, how do you want me to handle this?

Luisa:

Right.

Mike:

God, which way do you want me to go?

Luisa:

And it leads to obedience, babe.

Mike:

Amen. You know so fearing God motivates a person to live righteously and obey his commands, and if we reverence God's power and understanding that he will judge the wicked, we will make better decisions that lead to obedience.

Luisa:

Right.

Mike:

So when we use the word reverence I just want to go back to that the word reverence can be a confusing word. Reverence is not fear. Reverence to me is respect.

Luisa:

Respect and love.

Mike:

So it's about respecting God, it's not about fearing from him and, like you said before, it's not about running from him. So what does the fear of God look like? Here are a few natural implications.

Luisa:

First, someone who fears God will respect his word. Psalms 138.2 says God has exalted his word as high as his own name.

Mike:

Amen. You can't respect God without respecting his word. That's right. Respecting his word means knowing it, loving it and obeying it.

Luisa:

And it is through scripture that we learn what God himself is like. Without it, we could not fear him properly.

Mike:

Amen. So it's really about reading and studying your Bible.

Luisa:

Right, it's establishing a relationship and knowing who God is.

Mike:

I know we harp on this. I know in pretty much every episode we tell you you have to read and study your Bible. But there's no way that you're going to know who God is, there's no way you're going to know what his will is, what his attributes are. There's no way you're going to have a relationship with him unless you're reading and studying your Bible.

Luisa:

And by studying scripture we learn of God's power, hatred of sin and right to judge.

Mike:

Hatred of sin. I love that God hates sin and we don't hate sin enough.

Luisa:

Right, and we also learn of his abundant love, mercy and tenderness.

Mike:

Right. So you can see how God is balanced like that. Yes, he hates sin and he's going to judge those who sin, but he also has an abundance of love and mercy and tenderness.

Luisa:

Right and Scripture is what allows us to know and worship God as he actually is.

Mike:

Amen. So the second thing is someone who fears God will hate sin.

Luisa:

Right. Show me a holy person and I'll show you a person who hates sin and fears God.

Mike:

Amen, and show me a person who tolerates sin and I'll show you a person who doesn't have respect for God. Now, one of the things I want to say about that is we are all sinners Right, and our default is always sinful. And if you honor God sincerely, it's going to help you guard against the temptations of sin, because you will hate the idea of disrespecting him. And I want to say that sin is always a choice. When I'm about to sin and I know I'm about to sin, because there's a lot of times we sin even though we know we shouldn't- sin, and that's why we have the gift of conscience.

Mike:

Right.

Luisa:

Because the conscience is what pricks us to say should I or shouldn't I?

Mike:

Should.

Luisa:

I pop off on this woman right here, or should I keep my mouth closed and honor the Lord Right?

Mike:

We always know the temptation is there and we want to say, okay, I'm going to do it my way, I'm not going to do it God's way. But we really have to use that as a way to honor him, as a way to fear him and hold him with respect by saying okay, god, I know I was about to sin, but I know this is going to dishonor you and displease you, so I'm not going to do it.

Luisa:

Amen, amen. And third, if you fear God, you will also be at peace with your circumstances.

Mike:

So fearing God involves knowing and trusting his complete sovereignty over everything in the universe Amen. So I want to take us back, babe, five, six years ago. We both had cancer and we got it one year right after the other. First it was me and then it was you, and by understanding God's sovereignty, we knew that there was a purpose in us getting cancer.

Luisa:

Back then I really didn't understand that, and that's my honest truth. I just knew that I had to make a choice in that moment to say I choose fear, and this is going to consume me and this is going to be a difficult season, or I just trust God and choose God. That's what was going on for me at that time.

Mike:

So when you have that perspective, you can be confident in knowing that all things are controlled by him for his good purposes, which removes all reasons for anxiety and I still had anxiety.

Luisa:

We know that the anxiety doesn't go away completely. We don't want to sit here and act like you know what. We went through this and we weren't in our flesh at times and anxiety didn't set in, but it's always the remembrance of who God is in our lives, Amen.

Mike:

I know that there's always like a little spot in the back of your head that says okay, I got cancer right. This could not be good. So, well, it wasn't good, but you know, God was gracious and he really brought us through it and he really gave us a peace around it, knowing that he did have a purpose in the trial that he was putting us through.

Luisa:

And that's why I said to you let's put scripture around the house, because that really helped me. Yep, okay, when I felt fear setting in, I just looked at some scripture around our house and. I'm telling you that scripture got me through.

Mike:

I believe that and.

Mike:

I'm really grateful for that. So that scripture got me through. I believe that and I'm really grateful for that. So a person who fears God also has a wonderful mix of many characteristics. We have a list of them here and we're going to kind of run through them and see if these are not some things that you have going on in your life or maybe you need to have going on in your life. So the first one is reverence, and reverence, like I said before, it's a humble respect for God's majesty, glory and authority.

Luisa:

God is King of kings and Lord of lords.

Mike:

Amen.

Luisa:

Okay, we have to remember that. And the second one is awe.

Mike:

Right Awe is a feeling of being in God's presence and recognizing his power and holiness.

Luisa:

You know, I talk about being in God's presence all the time. It's so important that we have to remember that being in God's presence and being quiet. We have to learn how to be quiet. Okay, we have so much going on and we don't understand that once we walk into God's presence, that's the time for us to sit and let God speak to our hearts and whatever it is that he needs to be speaking to us about.

Mike:

I know you do that a lot and I know you go sit in the prayer room I have to. There's a lot of times where you just are quiet.

Luisa:

I just sit there and I just quiet my mind, I quiet my heart, I quiet my soul. I just want to shut everything down because now I'm in the presence of the Lord and there's an irreverence for that.

Mike:

Right, you know. So another one is worship.

Luisa:

Praising God with both words and action.

Mike:

It's really an action that you're doing something towards and for God, and we see a contrast here, praising God with both words and action. So James 1, verse 22 says be a doer of the word and not just a hearer. Amen. So he doesn't want you just to say, hey, I adore you God. He wants you to show that you adore him by your actions.

Luisa:

And humility. Humility A deep confidence in God, but also a distrust in oneself.

Mike:

So being humble is showing that we're not able to do this on our own, without the power.

Luisa:

So that means dying to self.

Mike:

Exactly.

Luisa:

And have total dependence on God.

Mike:

Amen, vigilance. Vigilance is being aware of the need to avoid hastiness in speech conduct and resolve Yikes. So we want to be intentional. So James 1, verse 19,. God tells us to be slow to speak and we don't want to shoot from the hip. I have our pastor. He's wonderful. He goes don't shoot from the hip, mike, which means don't be too quick to speak, because you'll shoot yourself in the foot or you'll shoot somebody else. So I thank him for that and we really have to be understanding that. We have to think before we speak.

Luisa:

And the word is very clear about that. The word is don't be quick to speak, and I think a lot of people do that and that's not.

Mike:

Doesn't work out well.

Luisa:

It doesn't work out well. And the next one is desire to obey, okay, a strong desire to please God and avoid disappointing him. I'm big on that one, you know that.

Mike:

Right, well, I'm big on it because I disappoint him all the time.

Luisa:

Right. Every day we disappoint him when we sin. Every minute of every day there's a disappointment there, but God is gracious to us.

Mike:

And the last one, this is a really good one.

Luisa:

This is consciousness of accountability, that's an awareness that one will have to give an account to God. Listen, we shall all stand before him, every single one of us.

Mike:

It talks a lot about being an unbeliever who's going to be judged, and that this is where God is going to tell you all your sins. Well, even a Christian who's going to go to heaven will still have to stand before God and give an account, because that's what God's word says.

Mike:

And our conduct as Christians is going to be called into account. So it doesn't mean we lose our salvation, but it does mean that God's going to stand there and say, hey, why'd you do that, why'd you handle it that way, and why didn't you honor me? In that you honored yourself. So we have to be really aware that one day we all, as Christians, are going to stand before him. So the fear of God is more than just respect for God and it's often misunderstood in the Bible.

Luisa:

Right, because it's a healthy part of submissive faith and it can promote spiritual growth.

Mike:

So to summarize this, here are five characteristics of those who fear God. Number one they draw near to God and enjoy intimacy with him.

Luisa:

Amen. Number two they never speak disrespectfully about God, no matter what happens.

Mike:

Number three they honor the word of God.

Luisa:

Number four they live a holy lifestyle.

Mike:

And number five they do whatever God says, no matter what it is.

Luisa:

Whatever God says, okay.

Mike:

We don't get to choose, no, we don't. Whatever God says okay, we don't get to choose, no, we don't. So we told you before that the phrase fear of God appears over 300 times in Scripture in one form or another. So in order to drive that point home, we're going to list a few of them and see how they relate to us.

Luisa:

So let's look at the motivation to fear God and how Scripture backs it up.

Mike:

Right. What motives cause us to fear the Lord and walk in the fear of God? Number one is God's holiness causes us to fear him. Revelation 15.4 says who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name, For you alone are holy.

Luisa:

Hmm, number two God's command causes us to fear him, deuteronomy 10, 12. And now Israel. What does the Lord, your God, ask of you? But to fear the Lord, your God.

Mike:

Amen.

Mike:

God expects us to follow his commands, babe, all the time it says God's command causes us to fear him because he tells us fear me. It's not really an option in his eyes. Number three God's goodness causes us to fear him. 1 Samuel 12, verse 24 says be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. Consider what great things he has done for you. Now it's not only what he has done for you, but we also have to consider what he hasn't done to us, which was zap us every time we sinned. So that can really be part of God's goodness.

Luisa:

And number four God's forgiveness causes us to fear him. Psalms 134,. But with you there is forgiveness so that we can, with reverence, serve you. Thank God, he's a forgiving God.

Mike:

Amen. Number five God's wondrous works causes us to fear him. In Joshua, chapter 4, verses 23 and 24, this is the story about when Israel crossed the Jordan. It says For the Lord, your God, dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord, your God, did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord, your God.

Mike:

The Bible is full of miracles, so this is one of the miracles that we have here, and God's wondrous works should cause us to fear him. If I look at the Bible, I look at some of these things in there, and to the average person they might not be believable, but since I'm a Christian, I know that this really did happen and I can look chapter after chapter after chapter in the Bible. There's always a miracle there. There's always something that just shows how awesome God's works are, and I'm in awe of that.

Luisa:

Right, and that's that. Digging deep, dig deeper and deeper and deeper, you can see it. So number six God's coming judgment causes us to fear him. Revelation 14, 7,. He said in a loud voice fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water. Listen, judgment is real, folks.

Mike:

And the hour is here Right, and he's a God of wrath. Okay, you should be afraid. Now let's look at the necessity of fearing God.

Luisa:

The fear of the Lord is necessary for growth in God's presence and favor.

Mike:

Amen. So number one the fear of the Lord is necessary for worship. Psalm 89, verse 7, says God is greatly feared in the counsel of the holy ones, more awe-inspiring than all who surround him.

Luisa:

Number two the fear of the Lord is necessary for service. Psalms 211,. Serve the Lord in fear and rejoice when trembling.

Mike:

Amen.

Luisa:

Listen. I know that when I do anything for the Lord, when I speak, when, I do anything like that. It's so nerve wracking for me. It's like the sweats come, the thinking comes and you just get in this space of humility because you know that without God and the Holy Spirit none of us can do God's work.

Mike:

All of our service should be nerve wracking. Yeah, no matter what it is, even like the smallest thing you do for him, it should never be done flippantly no, and I think that if you're trembling, whatever you're doing, that's showing a healthy fear of the Lord.

Mike:

Number three the fear of the Lord is necessary to keep us from sin. Exodus, chapter 20, verse 20,. It says fear not, for God has come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your face, that you not sin. God always has to be front and center, always, always, and that's the only way that you're going to curb your sin, because whenever you're about to sin, like we spoke about before, you have to have God right there and say oh Lord, get me out of this, okay.

Luisa:

And the only way I think you have God is if you're in communion with God all day long okay. That's when you keep him in your presence. And then if you're in a situation where you have a choice to sin or not and you have God in your presence, then maybe you won't.

Mike:

Yeah, it's really hard when you're only calling on him for the first time Exactly Like when you're about to sin, chances are you're going to miss that.

Luisa:

But if you start out your day by praying and getting yourself walking with God all day, then there's a good chance that he'll be able to help you, and that's why starting your day before anything with God is key. Okay, it's so important Before you open up your emails, before you open up social media, before you make a cup of coffee, connect with him immediately, because once you open up your eyes, that's it.

Mike:

Right, you start sinning real fast in the day. Really fast, I mean, you can sin with your thoughts, you can sin with looking at your emails from work and start saying oh, all these emails you know what happens to me, yep.

Luisa:

I mean, I get so many emails that sometimes I'm like I need to connect with the Lord before I open up this 830. At 831,. I have to be so full with the Lord in order to help me with my sin. And number four the fear of the Lord is necessary for good government. 2 Samuel 23.3,. He that rules over men must be just ruling in the fear of God. Let's look at where we are now in the world and the government today, babe, well, good government.

Mike:

That sounds like an oxymoron, yeah, so I don't really want to get too much into that.

Luisa:

No, we won't.

Mike:

But what you can really think about is that the people in charge generally are not God-fearing people, unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately. So Christians kind of get locked out of politics and government positions, and I think that that's done for a purpose, on purpose, well, yeah, so that they can keep on sinning. But nevertheless, I think good government will come when the politicians and people that are in charge have a healthy fear of the Lord, because, again, it'll teach them to make wise decisions, it'll keep them from sin and temptation and corruption and all the things that tend to drag the country down. And number five the fear of the Lord is necessary for the perfecting of holiness in our Christian lives. 2 Corinthians 7, verse 1 says Therefore, having these promises beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Luisa:

Listen, we need to get better and we need to let the Holy Spirit lead us daily.

Mike:

Right, because we can't get better on our own. So having that reverence for God, having that fear, is the only way that our sanctification is going to move along. It's going to be a lifelong battle. It takes a long time to get to eternity. In the meantime, every day we have to get a little bit better. Every day we have to have God helping us, just to sin a little less.

Luisa:

And this is why you have to sit with yourself and search your heart. You only know when you're getting better when you sit with yourself and be honest.

Mike:

We all know the truth about ourselves, right.

Luisa:

And finally, we can look at God's promises. Thank God for his promises.

Mike:

Amen. The fear of the Lord comes with his promises to the individual believer and the church who walks in the fear of the Lord.

Luisa:

So number one, the fear of the Lord brings pleasure to the Lord.

Mike:

Psalm 147 and verse 11 says the Lord takes pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy. God sure does love us when we fear him. I think that's where he gets the most pleasure is when we hold him in reverence, we hold him in awe and we're obedient.

Luisa:

Okay, number two the fear of the Lord causes the Lord's pity to increase upon the child of God.

Mike:

Psalm 103 and verse 13,. Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear him. God really hurts when we sin Absolutely, but he pities us. That's an interesting word to use, but to have pity on someone is to really feel bad for them.

Luisa:

Because he knows that we're just broken sinful people. Okay, he knows that.

Mike:

Yeah.

Luisa:

So number three is the fear of Lord brings God's mercy.

Mike:

Psalm 103, verse 17, says but the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him.

Luisa:

Hallelujah.

Mike:

We all need mercy.

Luisa:

Every single day, every minute of every day, and God gives it to us and I think that we just take that for granted and we don't recognize the mercy that he gives us Right.

Mike:

So that's why, every morning, when you wake up, thank him for the mercy that he gave you yesterday and thank him in advance for the mercy that you're going to need today.

Luisa:

Amen. Number four the fear of the Lord brings blessings.

Mike:

Psalm 112, verse 1, says blessed is the man that fears the Lord.

Luisa:

And again, god is constantly blessing us, okay, and we can ask God for blessings as well.

Mike:

And we better count them. Yes, so important.

Luisa:

Okay, let's go to number five. The fear of the Lord brings confidence. I love that baby.

Mike:

Right Proverbs, chapter 14, verse 26 says by the fear of the Lord is strong confidence. Part of having confidence in him is trusting in him when we surrender all of our trials, when we look to him for making decisions. You have to have confidence in God to ask him hey God, how should I handle this? And then actually go forward with it.

Luisa:

And I think it's the Holy Spirit in us that helps us do that, because it's not us in our flesh. No, definitely not so we always have to remember that. And number six is the fear of the Lord brings separation for evil.

Mike:

Again in Proverbs 16, verse 6 says by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. So we talked about this a lot about sin, evil. So we talked about this a lot about sin. And he helps us with temptation. So when we're tempted, every minute of every day, there's always stuff going on in this world where we're tempted to sin, but he gives us an opportunity Always.

Mike:

There's always a way out. There's always a way out, and that's how he helps us. So today, if you look at the world today, there's no fear of the Lord, and what is the result of that? An abundance of evil.

Luisa:

And number seven is the fear of the Lord brings Christian fellowship.

Mike:

Malachi, chapter 3, verse 16, says At that time, those who feared the Lord spoke to one another. The Lord took notice and listened.

Luisa:

That's why fellowship is so important.

Mike:

It is.

Luisa:

Because you could get together with your brothers and sisters in a time of fellowship and you could pray for each other, you can encourage each other, you can speak the truth, you could talk about your sin. You can ask for forgiveness. That's why fellowship is important.

Mike:

God hears all that.

Luisa:

Yes, and number eight is the fear of the Lord brings answer to prayer. And yes, I know that is true for me.

Mike:

Well, psalm 145 and verse 19 says he fulfills the desires of those who fear him. He hears their cries and saves them.

Luisa:

Oh amen, and thank you Jesus.

Mike:

That's why we got to go to the prayer meeting, because we got to pray and we got to get together with the saints. Those seven and eight tie together. So we want to be in fellowship, we want to pray together, pray for one another, and that's how God hears us, and that's how he answers us, and he is faithful and he does answer.

Luisa:

And number nine the fear of the Lord brings long life.

Mike:

Proverbs, chapter 10, verse 27 says the fear of the Lord prolongs days. Now people might look at that and think that's an odd verse, but I look at it in our church and you know I'm always referencing the over 75 crowd. So we have old saints in our church Praise the Lord for that. That are thriving, they're serving, their minds are right, they're coming to church. They in our church Praise the Lord for that that are thriving, they're serving, their minds are right, they're coming to church. They come to church.

Luisa:

They encourage people.

Mike:

We got people who are 90 years old who are just they're just thriving and I really believe that God takes care of his people. And I just look at them. They're such an inspiration. We're going to be there, babe.

Luisa:

I mean we're going to, you know we're not 60.

Mike:

We're not in the over 75 crowd yet it's coming.

Luisa:

It's coming, though, but I mean I look at the seniors in our church and they encourage me to get better. Okay, I just love talking to them because they love the Lord. They have the fear of the Lord in them.

Mike:

And it oozes out of them and wisdom, yes, that wisdom that we all need. So, to summarize, the fear of God is interpreted as a deep reverence and awe for God's power and holiness, signifying a profound respect that leads to obedience and a desire to live righteously. It essentially acts as a deterrent against sin and promotes a closer relationship with God. It's not about being terrified, but rather recognizing God's ultimate authority and sovereignty over all things.

Luisa:

Amen. So the person who fears God in the biblical sense is maintaining a humble reverence for His glory, majesty, dominion and authority.

Mike:

The person who fears God recognizes that he is not only the giver of all good things, but also the Lord of the universe and the judge of sinners.

Luisa:

Psalms 86 11. Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness. Give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.

Mike:

Amen. Let us pray that God will teach us to fear him. Heavenly Father, it is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that we are able to fear you. Help us, lord, not to be afraid of you, but to have a reverent respect for who you are and what you have done for us, and we pray for this in Jesus' name.

Luisa:

Amen. So that wraps up episode 49, babe.

Mike:

Babe.

Luisa:

We thank you for listening and we invite you to leave us a comment or a question by going to our website at jtepodcastorg.

Mike:

That's jtepodcastorg.

Luisa:

Click on the Contact Us page and we will respond within 24 hours. If you don't personally know us, introduce yourselves. We would love to get to know you from across the states or around the world.

Mike:

And while you're there, you can subscribe to the podcast and receive an email the minute a new episode is published. You can also find all of our previous episodes, and we invite you to find one that resonates with you.

Luisa:

And, as always, please support us by sharing this podcast with a friend or on your social media pages.

Mike:

Till the next time, we wish you a. Merry Christmas as you navigate everyday life in a sinful, fallen world.

Luisa:

May the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

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Luisa and Mike Sirignano

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