Revering God is a mandate from heaven. We esteem God and revere Him by
living life His way. Let’s examine a few steps to revering God.Express your love to God in worship privately and publicly. “This, then,
is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name’”
(Matt. 6:9 NIV). Honor God’s Name as you commune with Him daily through
your daily quiet time. Your private worship is a sacred time of
expressing your love to God. Bring your private worship with you to the
corporate experience of worship in your local church. Your public
worship is a witness.
Proverbs 22:4
Humility and the fear of the LORD bring wealth and honor and life.(NIV)
Wherein religion does very much consist—in humility and the fear of the Lord;
that is, walking humbly with God. We must so reverence God’s majesty
and authority as to submit with all humility to the commands of his word
and the disposals of his providence. We must have such low thoughts of
ourselves as to behave humbly towards God and man. Where the fear of God
is there will be humility. What is to be gotten by it—riches, and honor, and comfort, and long life, in this world, as far as God sees good, at least spiritual riches and honor in the favor of God, and the promises and privileges of the covenant of grace, and eternal life at last.
Proverbs 10:27 The fear of the LORD prolongs life, But the years of the wicked will be shortened.
Religion lengthens men’s lives and crowns their hopes. What man is he that loves life? Let him fear God,
and that will secure him from many things that would prejudice his
life, and secure to him life enough in this world and eternal life in
the other; the fear of the Lord will add days more than was expected, will add them endlessly, will prolong them to the days of eternity. What man is he that would see good days? Let him be religious, and then his days shall not only be many, but happy, very happy as well as very many, for the hope of the righteous shall be gladness;
they shall have what they hope for, to their unspeakable satisfaction.
It is something future and unseen that they place their happiness in (Rom. 8:24, Rom. 8:25
), not what they have in hand, but what they have in hope, and their
hope will shortly be swallowed up in fruition, and it will be their
everlasting gladness. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. 2. Wickedness shortens men’s lives, and frustrates their hopes: The years of the wicked, that are spent in the pleasures of sin and the drudgery of the world, shall be shortened.
Cut down the trees that cumber the ground. And whatever comfort or
happiness a wicked man promises himself, in this world or the other, he
will be frustrated; for the expectation of the wicked shall perish; his hope shall be turned into endless despair.
Proverbs 14:26-27; In the fear of the LORD there is strong confidence, And his children will have refuge.
v27. The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, That one may avoid the snares of death.
In these two verses we are invited and encouraged to live in
the fear of God by the advantages which attend a religious life. The fear of the Lord
is here put for all gracious principles, producing gracious practices.
1. Where this reigns it produces a holy security and serenity of mind.
There is in it a strong confidence; it enables a man still to
hold fast both his purity and his peace, whatever happens, and gives him
boldness before God and the world. I know that I shall be justified—None of these things move me;
such is the language of this confidence. 2. It entails a blessing upon
posterity. The children of those that by faith make God their confidence
shall be encouraged by the promise that God will be a God to believers
and to their seed to flee to him as their refuge, and they shall find
shelter in him. The children of religious parents often do the better
for their parents’ instructions and example and fare the better for
their faith and prayers. "Our fathers trusted in thee, therefore we will.’’ 3. It is an over-flowing ever-flowing spring of comfort and joy; it is a fountain of life,
yielding constant pleasure and satisfaction to the soul, joys that are
pure and fresh, are life to the soul, and quench its thirst, and can
never be drawn dry; it is a well of living water, that is
springing up to, and is the earnest of, eternal life. 4. It is a
sovereign antidote against sin and temptation. Those that have a true
relish of the pleasures of serious godliness will not be allured by the
baits of sin to swallow its hook; they know where to obtain better
things than any it can pretend to offer, and therefore it is easy to
them to depart from the snares of death and to keep their foot from being taken in them.
Psalm 103:13 Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.
Observe, (1.) Whom he pities—those that fear him,
that is, all good people, who in this world may become objects of pity
on account of the grievances to which they are not only born, but born
again. Or it may be understood of those who have not yet received the spirit of adoption, but are yet trembling at his word; those he pities, Jer. 31:18, Jer. 31:20 . (2.) How he pities—as a father pities his children,
and does them good as there is occasion. God is a Father to those that
fear him and owns them for his children, and he is tender of them as a
father. The father pities his children that are weak in knowledge and
instructs them, pities them when they are froward and bears with them,
pities them when they are sick and comforts them (Isa. 66:13
), pities them when they have fallen and helps them up again, pities
them when they have offended, and, upon their submission, forgives them,
pities them when they are wronged and gives them redress; thus the Lord pities those that fear him. (3.) Why he pities—for he knows our frame. He has reason to know our frame, for he framed us; and, having himself made man of the dust, he remembers that he is dust, not only by constitution, but by sentence. Dust thou art.
He considers the frailty of our bodies and the folly of our souls, how
little we can do, and expects accordingly from us, how little we can
bear, and lays accordingly upon us, in all which appears the tenderness
of his compassion.
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