Good morning people who don’t water down the truth of God’s nature.

Proverbs 1:7 MEV The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

This small verse perfectly sums up the reality of the times that we live in. We are seeing a rise in foolish living by many, and it is always traced back to a lack of fear of the Lord.

It is true that the word fear here means reverence, but it also means to fear, dreadful.

Our problem is that we want part of God but not His whole. We gravitate towards the words that sound nice and make us feel good, while often trying to change or at least reduce the confronting words describing God and His kingdom ways.

As I type this, I’m drawn towards an illustration of a natural king. Let’s imagine that he is all-loving as well as all-powerful. People gravitate towards him and they love him. But they also know that this king is firm on enforcing the law when it is broken. People fear him – yes, they honour him because of his kindness, but they also fear him because of his stance on “sin”.

Our God is the same. We can’t claim one without the other. We can’t reduce the fear of the Lord down to reverence only.

Now note that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. People can’t even start to know the knowledge, wisdom and understanding of the Lord if they don’t fear Him. It’s not possible. And yet many claim to do exactly that (we’ll talk more about this tomorrow).

If you want to grow in knowledge, fear the Lord.