Worship Forever: A 5-Day Devotional by Michael W. SmithSample

AWESOME GOD

“Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him!” Psalm 33:8

In our information age there is no shortage of words. We experience a constant stream of captions, comments, articles, and opinions. In all of this typing and talking we can begin to water down the meaning of words. “Awesome” has been one of the casualties of our casual language. We use it as a catch-all adjective for something cool or impressive like, “That’s an awesome car!” or we use it as a generic response to just about anything. “Awesome!”

We are all guilty of this to some degree, so it helps to come back to the original meaning of words and try to protect their integrity.

The definition of awesome is someone or something that inspires awe. And the definition of awe is this: “reverential fear”.

In all our talk of the amazing grace of God we can forget why that grace is amazing to begin with.

It is amazing because God Himself is amazing. His glory and power are unimaginable.

Proverbs tells us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The “fear of the Lord” is not being afraid that God would hurt us, but it is being afraid of ever hurting Him. It is a loving fear that is accompanied by deep peace. It is a knowledge that God is holy and mighty and is worthy of our utmost respect and honor. This is such a great reminder for us in this day and age. We can kid ourselves into thinking that we are greater than we really are, and that God is less than He really is.

I would pray two things for us today. One, that our awe of God would be restored. That we would not take His presence for granted and our lives would be marked by a great reverence for Him.

And finally, that we would take heart, for this awesome God is on our side! He loves us, and He will make all things right in the end!