There was a time when I feared that my soul was headed for eternal damnation. I felt God was so angry with me that I wouldn’t just die when my time was up, but that my soul would be eternally tormented after my death. I was afraid of this to the point of physical sickness.
This fear ultimately drove me to Jesus Christ because I realized that I could not bear the weight of my own sins. I felt like I would die because of them and that the pain of death would never end.
This is the fear of God before salvation, when He first reveals His omnipotence to us. We suddenly sense the gravity of His wrath and punishment because we realize how out of step we are with His law.
Yet through His incredible mercy, He shows us His Christ and calls us to Him for repentance, for remissions of sins, and ultimately for salvation. He frees us from the burden of transgression and builds our faith that he will heal us and love us and preserve us for eternity.
We no longer fear God’s wrath upon us, but we fear Him as a loving Father that we don’t want to disappoint.
Children of God don’t live in fear of being struck down at any moment and sent to hell, because we have the assurance of God’s promises and the peace that Jesus Christ is Lord over us. We fear God in the sense that we revere Him.
Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.
Psalm 103:13
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