How do you know you fear God?
How do you know you fear God?
I'll tell you a true story about my own experience of having the fear of the Lord. At the age of eight I discovered I had a fear for God. How was this unveiled? Well I came in from school one afternoon and I saw three boil eggs, well boil eggs was one my favorite and one every morning was good for our health, my mother would say.
This particular afternoon my mother came to me and said, "Take one of the eggs, the other two is for your siblings." I was the first of course to arrived home and I took advantage of this. I took one egg but I was not satisfied, so i looked to see if anyone was watching me and all coast was cleared so I took a second egg and I ate.
Before I took the egg, of course I had already calculated the consequences of who would get blamed for it. I thought of the fact that it was three of us and three eggs, so if my mother ask which one of us stole the egg I would say "Not me" like the other two siblings , sure one of us is a liar but my parent wasn't God to know who would be telling the truth, so I thought... so I was ready to deliver my plan scheme because I already ate the egg and needed an excuse.
It wasn't long before my mother was asking about the missing egg, She even mentioned it to my father, I heard them speaking on the veranda. Mother called me and ask, "Did you ate two eggs when I told you to have one?" I said, "Mama, I ate only one egg." she ask me again and of course I denied it. My brother was at home by then so I could easily get away with it. So I thought.
They called me on the veranda where they were speaking but to my surprise both my parent wasn't even talking to me they were talking among each other but I was called, so what ever they were discussing about they wanted me to hear. My Mother was asking my dad if he remember this little girl who stole something from her parent and how the parent did not know it was her and they went to God for answers and was shock to see it was their own daughter, they continued on what happen to that little girl and they went on.. and on...
So my father said to my mother "Come let us pray to God he will tell us who stole that egg," and my mother said, "Yes, come on, may God have mercy on who ever stole that egg." "Lets go into our room and pray." My parent lock the door and I heard my mother said two words: "Dear God." aloud, I found my self banging on the door, I was banging the door with both hands and my feet was also assisting as i shouted: "Mama! Dada! its me, its me!
Please don't tell God on me, I am sorry its was me that ate the egg!" My parent open the door and they were just laughing, I remembered my mother laugh until tears were accompanying her laughter as she said, "we knew it was you all along."
That was the first and the last time i ever took something without asking first. I gave my parents credit for going through all that scheme,to teach me the value of honesty, to me it was just an egg but my mother knew it wasn't just an egg but an action of selfishness, dishonesty and disobedience. By any means they had to teach me a lesson. Some parent would have scolded the child, or another parent would maybe say, don't do it again and leave the issue knowing its was just a little egg but not my paren...t they came with a plan and it worked on me.
I come to know that God sees everything, even the things we do in secret and thinks no one sees you, will be judge. I was only a child but the fear of God was automatic, I didn't hear that God does anything bad to anyone so what was I so afraid of?
The manifestation of our spirit
Even our own spirit manifest God's truth to us. Sometimes even without we being taught wrong from right. Our guilt is acquainted with the wrong we do, so like wise our kindness and willingness to give is acquainted with the good we do also. I don't believe no one can be taught how to be good or bad but we can be enlighten of the consequence of our choices. I believe people are lead by their own conscience and their own choices. A bad person knows he is doing bad before you acknowledge this behavior to him, so a good person knows he is good before you even compliment him of his goodness, its part of us being human. Adam and Eve hid themselves: (Gen.3vs 8) they hid them selves because their spirit manifested guilt and they knew they had done wrong even before God ask them.
Adam recognizing his fear for God
Don 't we all acknowledge our fear for God when we done wrong? My answer is yes, we all should but not in some cases. If you had never encountered the fear of God in some point in your life then I must tell you this truth. You are spiritually blind. A blind man sees nothing but darkness. Through the fear of the Lord men avoid evil.
Lets see (Genesis 3vs9-13) Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?" So Adam said, "I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." And God said who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?" Then Adam said, "The woman you gave to me, she gave me of the tree and I ate." And God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, "The serpent deceived me and I ate."
So you have seen in those scriptures, what I meant about men knowing they are wrong before someone discover it. I Noticed Adam, even though he knew he was wrong he blamed the woman and the woman blamed the serpent.There were three sinning characters in this picture. Man, woman and the serpent. Now if God had ask the serpent he would blame God for creating him, but God did not ask him any question. After Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent God did something amazing. Read (Genesis 3 vs 14) Where you will see how God dealt with the root of the problem first, the serpent. If God had dealt with just Adam and Eve alone the problem would still be there.
Even we ourselves have over looked these scripture passages, we haven't taken the wisdom from it, and apply it to our own circumstances. We are faced with problems everyday of our lives and we never get to the root of what is causing the problems. we waste our time on the surface of a situation that keep reoccurring, while the root of the problems lingers. Most times it comes back to hunt us.The Bible said the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
1 Chronicles 16 vs 25. For the Lord is great and greatly to be praise. He is also to be feared above all Gods. For all Gods of people are idols but God made the heavens, honor and majesty are before him, strength and gladness are in his palace. For every one who reads this be bless!
Question: How do you know you fear God?
My Answer: You just know.