Why 'fear' God?

[visionary]

how come loving the Lord isn't the beginning of the wisdom?

Love is a state of contentment. Fear causes the mind to race, to understand, to make sense of it.

 

[slymattb]

I think the reason to fear God is because the word of God said to. Jesus said to fear God I believe. Their are many reason to fear and to love and respect. The reason to fear is that because God can put death to your soul. You can no longer live because of God. When in preaching I have said this many times to people (Life after death is a big gamable) and where you want to spend that time is Judge by your sins.

Ezekiel 18 v 4
for every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son-both alike belong to me. THE SOUL WHO SINS IS THE ONE WHO WILL DIE.

 

[mpok1519]

Love is a state of contentment. Fear causes the mind to race, to understand, to make sense of it.

how is love content? Love constantly changes, and races, challenges one to understand. I don't see how love is a state of static contention...

Fear does not help you understand something. People who have a deep-seated fear of spiders would rather have nothing to do with them, including learning and understanding them. I don't see to many arachnid enthusiasts who also have arachnophobia.

I just don't see how its possible to live in both love and fear of something; fear restricts one from opening their mind to understanding. Fear mkes one afraid, they hide. One can confront their fears, understand their fears, and in essence get over their fears, and perhaps come to love what they feared, but I do not believe one can both love and fear God.
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God doesn't damn your soul to hell; we do.
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instead, we should fear what we can do to ourselves.

 

[mpok1519]

Love is a state of contentment. Fear causes the mind to race, to understand, to make sense of it.

how is love content? Love constantly changes, and races, challenges one to understand. I don't see how love is a state of static contention...

Fear does not help you understand something. People who have a deep-seated fear of spiders would rather have nothing to do with them, including learning and understanding them. I don't see to many arachnid enthusiasts who also have arachniphobia.

I just don't see how its possible to live in both love and fear of something; fear restricts one from opening their mind to understanding. Fear mkes one afraid, they hide. One can confront their fears, understand their fears, and in essence get over their fears, and perhaps come to love what they feared, but I do not believe one can both love and fear God.
----

God doesn't damn your soul to hell; we do.
----

instead, we should fear what we can do to ourselves.

 

[visionary]

Nothing static about love... contentment comes from the heart and the steadfastness on the object of love that does not change, in that there is a peace that passes all understanding, and thus contentment.

 

[hlaltimus]

Why should a believer or non-believer 'fear' God? I could never get my head around this.

HI, We all are either created beings or coincidences of nature, and common sense and simple mathematics rule out the second explanation as being opposite to all we know of random chance...We simply had to have been made. If we were made by a Being or Beings, then surely He who constructed our being framed the world in which we live and if He could create such an immense universe in which we have been placed, then you had best fear or at least gravely respect such a Being of inifinite power, knowledge and presence.

The sheer power of this mighty Creator demands it.

 

[HypnoToad]

To the Christians who are replying here: please make sure your posts respond to the OP or their follow-up posts ONLY. Do not debate each others' answers.
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[mpok1519]

I think 'fear' means 'reverance' and 'respect', not neccessarily being 'afraid' of God.

 

[Outofthebox42]

I don't think God has since become compassionate. God does not change. I think He's just shown more subtle ways of letting us know He doesn't like how we're handling things down here. [i.e. more natural disasters, wars, etc.]

But frankly we should fear God because at any moment He could strike us down for being the lowly sinful people we are. But He is also loving, and created a way for us to come back to Him. He deserves our respect and our awe.

 

[NavyGuy7]

I think 'fear' means 'reverance' and 'respect', not neccessarily being 'afraid' of God.

You're absolutely correct. God doesn't want us to be afraid of him, but to love him. And do not be alarmed when you hear of wars and rumors of wars. These things must pass if God's plan is to be fulfilled.

 

[Faith In God]

It doesn't mean "be afraid of", it means more like "reverent awe & respect". Today, we mostly only use "fear" in just the one sense, so many people are unaware that the term has more than definition.

I disagree. And I challenge all of you who spread falsities like this to reexamine the bases for your theology.

Paul says "Therefore, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men."
The word for "terror" is "Phobos", ie "exceeding fear."

Do you have any phobias? I do: one of static electricity.
Needless to say, I am petrified when I'm outdoors without anything over my head and there's lightning hitting the ground.

I believe that's what the fear of God is like. You need to understand that fear before you can understand His love, because you don't know how much He loves you until you know how much your sin makes you hateful to Him.

But for the Christian, the terror of God is knowing that the lightning storm is raging, but this storm is on your side.

Why should a believer or non-believer 'fear' God? I could never get my head around this.

See above.