Daily Devotional Details

Date

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. Proverbs 9:10

What is your first reaction to the fear of the Lord? Maybe you will say, “I don’t want anything to do with fear.” Doesn’t the Bible say, “fear has to do with punishment” and “perfect love casts out fear”? (1 John 4:18).

If you endured a childhood religion based on fear, you may say, “I had enough of that when I was young. I don’t want anything to do with it now.” If that is how you feel, please suspend your judgment for a moment in order to look at the good that is promised here. Perhaps you may discover something wonderfully new.

Here we are told that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is the beginning of following Christ. All the blessings of wisdom—life, health, trust, and peace—have their beginning in the fear of the Lord.

“By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil” (Prov. 16:6). Remember that, in Proverbs, God is speaking to His own children. If you are a child of God, you will have a desire in your heart to turn away from evil. When you see a sin in your life, you will say, “How can I get rid of this?”

You know that time won’t do it. Your experience tells you that your own effort won’t do it. But here we are being told that the fear of the Lord will make it possible for you to overcome the power of particular sins and temptations in your life.

Moses said to the people of God, “The fear of the Lord will be with you to keep you from sinning” (Ex. 20:20, NIV). That would be a great verse to memorize this year!

Have you made any wise decisions this week? Or perhaps there has been an unwise decision that you’ve made, because of a lack of godly fear?