Proper Love, Fear And Respect For God.

The scriptures describe our relationship with God in many ways.   Enoch and Noah walked with God, Abraham was called a "Friend of God", David called God his Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ told us to refer to God as "Our Father" in the Lord's Prayer.  What is our relationship to God supposed to be? 

Lately the Christian church seems to have a shockingly "familiar" relationship with God.  There has definitely gotten to be a lack of what used to be referred to as "Godly fear".  I've even had a person who was a Christian at the time (not sure if she still is ) tell me that I shouldn't fear God…."He's a loving Father.  He's not someone that wants us to fear Him".  After reading scripture many times I think I can safely say that is wrong.  God does want us to fear Him.  He is the King, Creator, God of all the known and unknown universe.  A place far too big for us to even comprehend.  Scripture tells us that "fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom".  When I first read the Bible through I had two thoughts that were upper most in my mind.  1) How totally complete scripture is.  It is written by dozens of people in different languages, in vastly different places, over thousands of years and yet perfect.  2) That you can't fully understand and worship God without having deep, loving, fear and respect for Him.

We tend these days to make God more of a cuddly Father figure…even to the point of having pastors and leaders in the church call him "Daddy".  (Yes, I'm well aware of the translation of Abba)  He is referred to as our Mother, a bit of heretical blasphemy that makes my skin crawl.  But those that do this don't concern me, as much as the slow creeping in of over familiarity that is slowly making its way into the last bastion of real Christianity left standing…the church that follows only the scripture and teaches that we live by it.  It doesn't have a denominational name…but if you attend one and you're a Christian, you know if you're there.

The reason that churches that teach totally heretical blasphemy don't concern me as much is, I'm not surprised by it any more.  It is what I've come to expect from the liberal branch of mainstream Christianity.  I once attended a service in which a female lay reader was doing a children's sermon, stood up holding two stuffed dogs, and proceeded with glee to tell the children that God spelled backwards was dog.  I recently attended two funerals at churches belonging to the same denomination.  Not one prayer during either was offered in Jesus name, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.  The spiritual conditions at these churches are out of my hands and in God's.  But there is one thing I can do, and that is try to make sure that the church I attend is respectful of God and has the proper love, and yes fear, of Him.