The fear of the Lord inspires obedience. Reverential fear of God is different from the fear that binds. God said, “Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!” (Deut. 5:29). Forever is a great promise! Yet if we don’t obey and start looking at our lives with human eyes and not eyes of the spirit, we hinder that promise from God. He wants our hearts to fear Him. He wants us to keep His commands always so that it might go well with us and with our children forever!The fear of the Lord is a deep, reverential sense of our accountability to Him. He is our Comforter, and we can talk to Him as our best friend. But He is also the Creator of the universe, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. He is our Salvation, He is our Healer, He is our Provider, He is our perfect Lamb of God.

The Lord listens to our praise and worship. He listens to what we say about Him to others. Malachi 3:16 says, “Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. ‘They will be mine,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.’”

As Christians, we are children of the living God with incredible access into His throne room. But because he is a loving Father, He requires our obedience. If parents left their children outside alone without guidelines and even said, “Play on the freeway. Whatever you want to do is fine…,” we would all agree that they were not great parents.

The Lord loves us and gives us guidelines to cause events to go well with us and with our children forever. He establishes boundaries in our lives to keep us safe because of His great love. He is committed to helping us become all He created us to be. If He did not require obedience, imagine what a mess we would be in!

The Holy Spirit faithfully guides us. It’s still our choice to obey; but if we do not yield to God’s authority, we will end up going in circles around the mountain instead of onward to greater adventures. May we all fear the Lord and reverence Him. May we all receive the blessings that obedience brings into our lives.

Proverbs 3:5 declares, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” We need to learn to always trust in God and not to be led by what we see. To obey God’s Word rather than popular opinion and to trust His perfect timing is always a character-building lesson! I challenge you to pick up the banner that says “Whatever It Takes” and put it over your life in complete obedience. Surrender to the incredible heart of our Lord, because His ways are higher than our ways. Sometimes it is hard to understand, but it is reality that His ways are better than ours every single time.