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The New Testament Church lived in the fear of the Lord.  What a model for the church today.  Should we not be living in the fear of the Lord also?

Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.

-Acts 9:31 NIV

Understanding the fear of the Lord is not a matter of the intellect.  You must receive it by faith. Revelation of the fear of the Lord will come to you when you open your heart to the Lord.  Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you the fear of the Lord in faith and He will.  Too often we claim to know the Lord by how much we know about the Bible or how many scriptures we have memorized.  There is a major difference in knowing the Bible and knowing the Lord of the Bible.  True knowledge of God begins with the having the fear of the Lord.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,

-Proverbs 1:7 NKJV

The word for knowledge here is not about what you know in your head rather it is an ability to recognize the Lord.  Are you able to recognize the Lord in your life?

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said…The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

-Luke 19:41-44 NIV

Would you recognize the Lord if He came to you in a different way than you were expecting?  Are you looking for God in the spectacular or do you see him daily in the common places of your life?  The shepherds feared the Lord on the day of Christ’s birth.  They came to Bethlehem to see what the angels had told them.  Fear of the Lord prompts obedience in spite of how illogical something may seem.  Fear of the Lord is being aware of the Lord at all times.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.

-John 1:10-11 NKJV

The greatest minds of Jesus’ day did not receive Him because they were not aware of who He was.  In spite of all their so-called knowledge of God they did not recognize God when He was in their midst. He was treated by them as a common criminal.

For those who dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they did not know Him, nor even the voices of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath, have fulfilled them in condemning Him.  And though they found no cause for death in Him, they asked Pilate that He should be put to death.

-Acts 13:27-29 NKJV

The fear of the Lord is a matter of the heart.  It is not something you can train for or learn through teaching.  You learn it by doing it.  The Holy Spirit must teach you in the inward part of your heart.  You must experience the fear of the Lord throughout your lifetime.

My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, And find the knowledge of God.

-Proverbs 2:1-5 NKJV

This verse explains that the fear of the Lord comes when you chase after the Lord.  This must be a diligent search on your part, one that requires an open heart and willingness to cry out for God.  If you knew silver was hiding somewhere in the earth of your backyard would you be willing to find it?  Would you stay up at night to find it? Would you pay the price to find it?  The fear of the Lord is like silver for it is a precious treasure.  The doorway to wisdom is the fear of the Lord.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.

-Ps. 111:10 NIV

Once you decide to totally surrender and give up your ways and seek the Lord’s ways you come into knowing the fear of the Lord.  The beginning of wisdom is its foundation.  It is the choicest part.  It is what will enable you to increase more and more in wisdom.

Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

-Ps 34:11-14 NIV

To fear the Lord is to never forget that the Lord is watching you.  He sees you.  He hears what you say.  He is keeping an account of the words you are speaking.  God brings you into judgment by the words you speak behind closed doors or with intimate friends.  If you fear Him you will take your words very seriously.

But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment. For by thy words thou shall be justified, and by thy words thou shall be condemned.

-Matt 12:36-37 KJV

The Greek word for idle is argos meaning “without work” in other words careless or unfruitful.  Idle words accomplish nothing.  Every word you speak should have a purpose and should be the truth. Empty talk condemns you. If you talk too much you are in danger of speaking idly.

For in many dreams and in many words there is emptiness. Rather, fear God.

-Eccl. 5:7 NAS

Little white lies are idle words.  Flippant responses or passing remarks that are void of sincerity are idle words. Idle words include flattery that is for selfish gain and insults to a person with the words “I was only kidding” attached.  The worship songs we sing that have no true meaning for us… the prayers we pray that are void of passion and love…these too are useless chatter.  The remarks you make about yourself that are opposite to what the word says about you are idle.  What words do you speak that have no true purpose or intent?  The fear of the Lord is a gift.  Such fear will cause you to evaluate your words and be slow to speak because you know every time you speak the Lord is listening.  Start listening to yourself and then ask yourself if you are living in the fear of the Lord.

How you treat people indicates how much you fear the Lord.  Do not forget that the Lord is always with you.  You may want to give a person “a piece of your mind” but you restrain yourself out of fear for the Lord.  People are often unloving, unkind and insensitive.  The Lord requires of you to treat people how you would want to be treated not how you are treated.

‘You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another.  And you shall not swear by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. ‘You shall not cheat your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning.  You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God: I am the LORD.

-Lev 19:11-14 NKJV

Treat people well and do it whether they realize it or not.  This is the fear of the Lord.  This is possible with the power of the Holy Spirit enabling you.

Dream

Two kittens have been placed on my bosom…They start nursing (on me)…I am not alarmed…I am pleased.  As the kittens grow they come back to nurse for nourishment.  To me this is REALLY strange…and my soul wants to feel like it is perverted for kittens to be nursing on ME. Yet I know that I am a child of God, and there is NO perversion in the Spirit.

Interpretation

I believe this dream is a picture of what the Lord desires for you… that you will nourish those who will come to you… these will be immature believers who need to be taught the milk of the word…this will be a pleasant experience for you.

The Holy Spirit is our best friend on earth.  He is also our Mentor.  He teaches us perfectly and when we turn to Him for instruction he willing obliges us.  He is the Leader.  He is always leading us into truth.  His face is turned to the truth and He will not come into agreement with a lie.  Often He is unable to lead you and I because we relentlessly follow after the lie.  If we attach to a lie of any kind, either inward or   outward, the Holy Spirit will withdraw.  He will never come into agreement with a lie.

In this world, we come into contact with many lies.  Satan, the god of this world, is the father of all lies.  He deceives and accuses people both believers and unbelievers alike.  The lie is always operating in the earth realm.  The Spirit of Truth opposes the spirit of error.  This is why conflict arises inside believers who want to grow and know Christ in an ever increasing way.  When a person comes to faith in Christ it is error to believe that everything will naturally fall into place.  Jesus explicitly taught that we must continue in His word to know the truth.  In reality, receiving Christ and being formed into the image of Christ are two different things.  When Christ reveals to us who God really is and we open our hearts and receive Him conversion begins. Conversion is an exchanging of the old man for the new man who is Christ.  As the exchange process occurs, opposition arises within you for your soul is unwilling to give up its ways of doing things.  The soul of man moves in certain ways and patterns that are not God’s ways.  Conversion happens when you put on the new man who is Christ and put off the old man who moves in the spirit of error.  Conversion involves a tug of war between the old man alive through your soul and your born-again spirit alive to Christ.  Maturity is the spirit-being taking rule over the desires of your soul that are destructive in nature.  Over time your soul will become submissive to the life of God within you and will begin to habituate itself to the thoughts and ways of Christ.

Jesus Christ reveals to you who the Father is.  He is the only way to know God as your Father. You cannot know Him through self-effort and only the Holy Spirit can baptize you into the Body of Christ.    God is a Father to anyone who is born again of His Spirit.  An understanding that being born again is about you as a spirit-being not a soul-ish being is fundamental to your growth in Christ. Once you become a Christian you must continue on to perfection.  The question is will you go the distance?  The majority of Christians never go the distance.  They fall short of becoming who they are meant to be on earth.  Jesus taught His disciples to consider the cost of disciple-ship because many sacrifices will be necessary for you to move in the Holy Spirit and bear fruit on earth.  To bear fruit on earth is what brings glory to the Father.  To be fruitful is to multiply the goodness of God and His provision on the earth.  God uses human vessels who house His Spirit to accomplish this.

Immersion with the Holy Spirit is key to going the distance and making the necessary sacrifices required of your flesh to become like the Son of God upon the earth. The baptism with the Holy Spirit is also accompanied with the spirit of burning.  Many people have heard of the baptism with the spirit but few speak of the baptism with fire. The fire comes to burn up the many errors we walk in and continue to believe long after receiving Christ. John the Baptist spoke of the baptism with fire that burns chaff once the wheat is separated from it.  The chaff consists of habits, thoughts, and ways of looking at life that prior to receiving Christ held a place in our lives but have no value once a person is a new creation. The chaff of our lives has no God -glory attached to it. Habits and thought-patterns that are rooted in vanity and perversion serve to hold people back from knowing God in a deeper and more satisfying way. As these are removed by the work of the Holy Spirit, they are consumed in the fire of his God’s love.  Trials and pressures that come to bear in believers’ lives serve as vehicles to purge believers from unnecessary fears and other sins that so easily beset them. Seasons of sufferings come to show us the word of God is true and God is our rock and deliverer in every circumstance.  As we grow in God we continue to separate ourselves from things that steal our joy and kill our character.  This is a process but necessary for every believer to grow.  As we grow we bear fruit that is necessary for others to know God and be strengthened by Him.  We are able to eat of the fruit of our lives that comes through the union of our spirit and the Holy Spirit. Eating of the love, joy and peace of the Holy Spirit is crucial in continuing in the faith. Others in the field of our influence are able to eat of our fruit which strengthens and points the way to Christ.

Every Christian should bear fruit but it is not necessarily a given that they will.  Jesus explicitly said that if you continue in the word you would know the truth and the truth could set you free.  In Hebrews, chapters 5 and 6, point to the fact that believers can stall in their spiritual growth and must decide to move on into perfection.  Apostle Paul strongly expressed the need for Christians who wish to mature to press in and move forward in their faith without looking back but looking forward to reach the pinnacle of the prize of our calling in Christ Jesus.  We are saved by grace but grace is not an excuse for non-cooperation and laziness.  Wisdom tells us that it is the hand of the diligent that rules.  We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.  This means what God has worked in us we must be worked out of us so people can see God’s glory upon us.  This is a major strategy of God for people to come to know Him.  Are you willing to do the internal work of knowing Christ and being a yielded and sanctified vessel prepared for His highest purposes?  If so, your reward will be eternal.  Jesus requires that you forsake all to be his disciple. Most Christian today are not Christ’s disciples.  They serve him in terms of their own convenience.  No wonder the glory of God is rarely seen in the local church today.

Divine order is a truth of which much can be written.  The subject itself is like a tree with many branches.  Where do we begin and in what area do we search the depths? In every sphere of your life there is promise of divine order.  You must discover it, to understand it, so that you can fully integrate your life within its flow.

The benefits of divine order are immeasurable.  One such benefit is completion which brings rest.  On the seventh day of creation God saw what He made and said it was good and He rested.   I am reminded of Martin Luther’s wisdom, “God created the world out of nothing; so as long as we are nothing, he can make something out of us”. So in the very first book of the Bible we see the blueprint for divine order.  God moves in order.  God moves by putting first things first and then he builds on the foundations of things to bring completion.  Without proper foundations even the righteous fail

We have a promise inspired by Holy Spirit and written by Apostle Paul.  God tells us to be confident that the good work He starts in us He will perfect until the day of Jesus Christ. We can assure ourselves and expect God to do what is necessary to bring us into maturity and complete us.  He leaves nothing unfinished.  Our part is to cooperate in this work by staying in His divine flow.  We have to trust God and learn to obey even when the results of obedience may be painful or inconvenient.

We understand the mechanical term “out of order”.  When you approach a toilet stall with a sign with those words written on it you go no further.  You know, to do so, would have messy consequences.  We have little difficulty understanding how things are in the natural environment but when our spiritual environment warns us we often lack the proper response. The messes we make in our own lives are directly due to us getting out of God’s divine order.  If we would only begin to listen more and ask the Lord in what ways we are out of His divine flow we could quickly repent and avoid untold mess-ups!

The written word gives us guidelines on many areas which must become first in our lives.  When we put first things first we flow unhindered and we are able to build properly.  We get momentum and we head toward maturity and completion.  So many believers never mature.  In the spiritual realm they are pathetic instead of powerful. The following scriptures will help you change little things in your life which will make big differences in your life. As you put the following into practice you will begin seeing more and more of the things in your life that are out of order.  As you listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit you will flow more easily in divine order and you will be overcome with blessings.

“O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee.”

-Psalms 63:1 Darby

Of primary consideration is the womb of the morning.  Your day is birthed out of how you begin your morning. As your body awakes you must also awake your soul to the presence of Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit is given to you so you will not be comfortless or without counsel.  You profit when you seek God early in your day for instruction and help.  Ask Him to order your steps. When you put Him first, as you awake, you will attune yourself to His voice throughout the day.

“Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever. The first thing they did was to tell Jesus about her.”

-Mark 1:30 GW

When you meet with difficulties you must immediately consult the Lord.  Before you speak or move out with a decision tell Jesus about it and He will work through you in the situation.  Sickness in body is a real hindrance and often we get off track here by making foolish decisions.  We readily turn to man or to our past experiences for answers.  We must first consult with the Lord before we move out.  Whatever the problem is, the Father has sent you the Holy Spirit to give you help. This is important because sometimes we make mountains out of molehills and worst still molehills out of mountains.

“The first thing is wisdom–get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding.”

-Proverbs 4:7 YLT

Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do! Begin to focus on acquiring wisdom.  Wisdom is knowing how to apply knowledge.  When you operate in wisdom you size up situations as they really are and not as they appear to be.  You will then base your decisions on truth that will propel you in this life.  The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God.  The fear of the Lord is an awareness of God’s presence in your life.  You are naked before him and nothing can be hidden from him.  Live out your life this way.

“Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”

-Matt 7:5  NLT

Our opinions are worthless.  We should be very wary of making judgments without the witness of truth in our lives.  Don’t hold judgment over people.  You are not able to judge people’s character until you judge yourself first.  Once you judge yourself you will rarely judge others because you are too busy seeking God’s help in your own life.  The only reason for judgment is to bring correction and restoration.  Most people never judge another to bring true repentance and restoration.