Fearful because of love – 1 Peter 1:17-19

1 Peter 1 says, “¹⁷Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. ¹⁸For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, ¹⁹but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”

Fear is one of those weird aspects of the bible that people often struggle with. It doesn’t make a whole bunch of sense that we should fear those we love. As a matter of fact, it’s considered martial abuse when a wife fears her husband because abuse is assumed at that point. But what Peter is talking about is completely different. I took a passage from the trusted Bible Knowledge Commentary: Obedient children know the holy nature and just character of this One who judges . . . impartially. Their right to call God Father leads to their obeying Him in reverent fear. So they are to live according to His absolute standards, as strangers (cf. “aliens” in 2:11) to the world’s shifting, situational ethics. “Reverent fear” is evidenced by a tender conscience, a watchfulness against temptation, and avoiding things that would displease God.

Let me try to explain this fear another way. We all love our cars. They get us where we need to be, sometimes they look really cool, they make work possible, they get our kids to school, cars are great! But we all have a healthy fear we teach our kids concerning cars. We tell them to look both ways before crossing the street because the car can kill you! But we don’t live our daily lives absolutely fearing cars. We fear them because we respect them. With God it’s sort of like that. We love God, we respect God because we know his power, so we should fear him too. He deserves to be feared!

How do I apply this to my life? I think today I apply it by knowing not to abuse his love and grace! I need God to help me to not abuse his love and grace, but instead do right because he deserves my love and fear.