Faithing Down Your Fears

6 Faithing Down Your Fears In chapter 5 we looked at some of the many faces of fear.

We saw that fear may have the face of man, the face of a past experience, the face of a memory, the face of a besetting sin, the face of a demon, and even the face of God. However, when fear has the face of God, it is the face of an unbiblical God whose image has been distorted in our minds by bad parenting, bad church exposure, bad spiritual experiences, bad teaching, or bad theology. Those spiritual distortions do not result in a reverential fear but in a resentful fear. Resentful fear is the result of a distrust of God based on a distortion of who He really is. And it is spiritually and psychologically impossible to really love a God who you secretly resent because you distrust Him. No one in their right mind will commit themselves fully to a God they distrust! They will reluctantly and resentfully give to Him as little as they can.

But in spite of these many distortions of God, reverential fear is still the decisive religious motivation of the Bible. Recall that over 75 times the phrase “do not be afraid” echoes out of the pages of the Old Testament. We can summarize this motivation of the Old Testament saints as a fearful love of God. When it comes to parental authority, wise parents understand that they have to first create reverential fear in a child that will cause him or her to respect and obey their author41