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Fear Of The Lord

             The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. (Psalm 19:9)

“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” (Abraham Lincoln, and/or lots of other people.)

The Hebrew word translated fear is transliterated “yirah,” which is also translated to “awe.”  So, when the Bible talks about fear, it’s not really describing phobias or even running away screaming. It still seems a little odd that the psalmist would describe the fear of the Lord as pure. At the same time, it makes perfect sense.

Any emotion that isn’t mixed up with other emotions is pure. Any emotion that does this and leads us to do good or improves our relationship with God is pure. For that matter, emotions that support good, healthy relationships with other people are pure.

The problem comes when we are deceitful in our emotions. God isn’t fooled. And the people around us may be fooled for a while. We may even fool ourselves, but we still put on our pious “going to Church” faces and say we fear God while we do things that displease Him. We pretend to be good, faithful, holy, loving, calm, or whatever when the truth is that we’re not any of those things. And at least sometimes, we believe our own press.

Let me give a simple, non-inflammatory example. When I’m at work, I want to help my customers. I also want to help my company. I also just want to make it through the busy day. I want people (including me) to think I’m a good, valuable, competent, knowledgeable person. It’s not enough to be good, etc., I want to be seen as all those things, whether or not I live up to them. Perhaps especially if I don’t. And the wanting to be seen is the black paint or salt that makes them impure. The fear of the Lord is only pure when we fear the Lord purely He is the Lord.

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