Week 4 - The Fear of the Lord
Worship
This morning as you begin your quiet time with the Lord, I encourage you to take a deep breath, listen to “Slow Down - Live” by UPPERROOM, Abbie Gamboa & Kennedy Jones and find the heart beat and hands of Jesus, who is holding you together today and always.
You can find the playlist of all the music from our daily devotional with the links to your preferred platform here.
Scripture
Isaiah 11:2-3
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord— 3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
Devotional
Jesus is the perfect example of what it looks like to fear the Lord. In fact Jesus is the perfect fulfilment of all scripture - we can look at anything that God desires of us, look at Jesus, and see it perfectly in Him. In this way, we can look at how Jesus feared the Lord (his Father), and even how His holy fear blessed us. Isaiah says about Jesus that He would have the Spirit of the fear of the Lord, and that his delight would be in the fear of the Lord. This is listed in a set of attributes Jesus would possess through the anointing of the Spirit; wisdom and understanding, council and might, knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And yet, the scripture only repeats one attribute - the fear of the Lord. Whenever the bible says something twice, it functions as an exclamation mark, so, Jesus delighted in the fear of the Lord!
We can see how Jesus embraced the fear of the Lord in many ways, however one that is so apparent is His humility, which the bible tells us, is the fear of the Lord (Prov 22:4). In Matthew 11:29 which we’ve looked at a lot in this course we find the only time in the NT where Jesus describes to us his own character. If Jesus only described his character once, we better pay attention. So what did he say?
Matthew 11:28-29
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
He said that He is gentle and humble. Wow - I love Jesus. He’s literally the most glorious, powerful, holy, and awesome being in the universe and the one time He describes his character, He says that He is gentle and humble. That’s the fear of the Lord right there.
The humility of Jesus is astounding, and worldview shattering. Take Philippians 2 for example, one of my favourite passages, in it we read:
Philippians 2:5-8
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Jesus went as low as anyone could go; although he is the King of kings, he humbled himself to become a servant to his own creation, and then humbled himself further by becoming obedient to death, the shameful and humiliating death of the cross.
Look at Jesus. This is what fearing God looks like. He did not live for his own benefit, but died for ours. He did not exalt himself, but lowered himself to death. He did not fight for his own will, but submitted it completely to the Father - even when it cost him unimaginably. Without uttering a word of complaint, and doing it with joy and holy fear. We read in John 5 that Jesus was so humble and submitted in the fear of the Lord that he only did what the Father told him to do.
John 5:19
Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
As we behold Jesus today, in all of his wonder and humility, let’s be like him. Not elevating ourselves above him, but fearing the Lord as he did, submitting our selves in humility to the purposes and glory of the Father. And if we lower ourselves we can be sure that just as the Father exalted Jesus to the highest place, so we will be exalted by Him - for the bible says:
James 4:10
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
Luke 14:11
For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Prayer
Jesus, I want to be like you. Thank You that you were humble, and feared the Lord, your humility has brought me life and salvation. Jesus I lower myself today, and fall at your feet in worship. Holy Spirit, I want to delight in the fear of the Lord like Jesus, reveal him to me, in all of his glory, beauty and wonder that I might be filled with the awe of God.