As we pursue growth in knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, it should also mean a growth in wisdom, where wisdom means the ability to apply our knowledge in order to accomplish our God-given purposes and callings. We hope it is the case, but we find that knowledge and wisdom often do not live together in the same person.
We become obedient in our calling to spread the Good News regarding Jesus Christ our Lord, only when we in the biblical sense of the Word learn to “fear our LORD”.
In Proverbs 1: 7 we read: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.
Without the true knowledge of the one and only God fools will continue to despise the wisdom that leads to salvation and God fearing discipline. When we received the knowledge of God, our mission fields include all who deny God’s right to their hearts and lives.
What is the fear of the LORD?
The LORD is the God about whom Isaiah said:
(Is 40:14 and 18) Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding? To whom, then, will you compare God? What image will you compare him to?
Our God is awesome, almighty, holy, glorious, infinite, invisible, and completely wise.
What does it mean to "fear" this LORD? This fear means having a real relationship with God in and through Jesus Christ, based on respect for our gracious God, a worshipping attitude of praise and thanksgiving and the acknowledgement that he alone has all authority in our lives. Fear of the Lord means to serve with discipline – to obediently and faithfully walk in God's ways, because you have some understanding of who God revealed that he is.
Our testimony is a means of grace to those who live and will die without the redeeming fear of the Lord.
What is the beginning of knowledge?
It means taking what the Bible says and applying it in my relationship with the LORD, because:
I can know all about the LORD without knowing the LORD himself.
I can memorize the whole Bible, know a lot of church tradition and even some theology, and still not know the LORD personally.
Without the fear of the LORD, all that you will have is facts, but no knowledge, figures but no wisdom, details but no understanding, rules and laws but no morality as expressed through our comprehensive love for God and our love for other people.
We need to spend enough time with the Bible. We need to be fed spiritually. We need family and personal devotions and we need faithful attendance of worship services and share salvation and redemption in Christ - until we own the knowledge that will make us wise, because we fear the awesome LORD that we love!
To be discipled means to share the true knowledge of God in Christ with a world terrorized and misled by the fools who choose to live according to their own manmade ideologies and lack the discipline that faith in Christ brings to the heart of our existence and testimony.
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