Plan Three: Nurturing a Fear of GodSample

GOD’S HOLY TRANSMISSION

Not long ago, my wife started up our Chevy Suburban, put it in drive, and it failed to move. Nothing was wrong with the engine or the tires; the transmission had gone out and needed replacing. It did not matter how pretty the vehicle looked, how well the engine was running, or how new the tires were. Without a working transmission, the vehicle was useless since the engine’s power could not be transferred to the tires.

The Holy Spirit is our spiritual transmission that takes the power of the Word of God and transmits it into our everyday life. Without a working transmission filled with the oil of the Holy Spirit, our attempts to live a godly life or embrace the fear of the Lord will be futile. God’s Word tells us how to live, treat each other kindly, and what is sinful and honorable. Only the Holy Spirit, our spiritual transmission, enables us to live a life worthy of our calling.

Unfortunately, our spiritual transmission has an oil leak and needs to be regularly refilled. The apostle Paul says, “be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.” The Greek verb used in this passage for “be filled” implies a continual refilling; be filled again and again, and this is done through singing and making music in our hearts to the Lord.

David received a new revelation of God’s compassionate power, who had raised him from the slimy pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and placed his feet on solid ground. This embrace of the tender fear of the Lord inspired another hymn of praise that he wrote, Psalm 40. David said that God “put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in him.”

We find in Scripture that the fear of the Lord imparts a new unveiling of God’s character, which becomes the inspiration for worship. This spiraling upward progression—from the fear of the Lord to revelation, to worship, and ultimately to a greater fear of the Lord—is extremely important if we are to “worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.”