He has brought us into a loving relationship with Himself, so let us give Him the reverence and honour He deserves
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There are a number of reasons why this is important to grasp. Firstly, when we enter GOD’s Throne room we should do so with reverent fear and trembling, because of the awesomeness of who He is, secondly, there’s the fact that for Him to allow us to do this is an immense honour and privilege that has only been made possible through the shed blood of Jesus. An entrance fee we could never have paid. Then thirdly, there’s a sense of oneness and fellowship between us and GOD as we seek His face to honour and glorify Him and have a conversation with Him regarding the things on our hearts.
How important is this for us to grasp? Well, let me take each of these points individually.
Firstly ‘The Reverent Fear of the LORD’. This is something that seems to be very much in short supply in the church at the moment, and we almost consider Jesus more of a mate than who He really is, ‘GOD ALMIGHTY’ our Saviour and King. I wonder how many people who have given their hearts to Jesus have ever been taught in their early years, if ever, about the ‘Fear of the LORD’. We teach them who Jesus is, what He’s done for us and that as Christians we’ll be with Him one day. We encourage them to read their bibles, to pray and explain the need for fellowship, all very important and relevant stuff, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything on the ‘Fear of the LORD’ in any of the discipleship books for new Christians.
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Secondly, The fact that Jesus left His Majesty and came to earth in human form to stand in the gap for us, to be falsely accused, be wrongly convicted, be unjustly beaten, whipped and crucified so He could take on Himself all of our sins and pay the ultimate penalty that we deserved, which enables us to enter into the most holy place, is something we should never lose sight of and should always give thanks from the bottom of our hearts for, and never forget that it’s an immense honour and privilege that we’ve been afforded by GOD.
Thirdly, I would like to consider this idea of oneness and fellowship with GOD. You see it’s easy to think that GOD is up in Heaven and we’re down here on earth. A concept that we may have because of scriptures such as Matthew 6:9-10 Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your Name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. That may suggest that there’s a separation between heaven and earth and GOD and us, after all these are the words of Jesus. But I don’t think that’s what Jesus is suggesting in this scripture or any other scriptures that may give us the same impression.
Let me explain it this way. Let us consider that there are a number of levels of heaven known as the heavens, and let’s also consider that GOD being omnipresent is in fact present in all these stages of heaven. For example, the first heaven is the atmosphere that is all around us, the second heaven is the sky, the third is space etc, etc. This would then mean that whilst GOD is indeed up in Heaven, He is also in every level of the heavens so our prayers don’t have to travel trillions of light years to reach God’s ears, He can actually hear the quietest of whispers.
Now, if we then consider the way that Jesus told us how to pray and take into account the various stages of the heavens then it could look like this: Our Father in heaven all around us hallowed be Your Name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth (this level of heaven) as it is up in the highest Heaven. Thinking of it this way means we would understand that GOD is as close to us as we are to ourselves (in our body). In other words when GOD created mankind, He formed a shell for us to walk around in and then created us in His image when He breathed our spirit into that formed body. 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:26-27
7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and (at that point) the man became a living being. Genesis2:7 (Comment in brackets added).
Note: In Genesis 2:7 LORD is spelt with all capital letter’s meaning we were created in the image of Father, Son and Holy Spirit – YAHWEH.
Therefore, when we give our lives to Jesus and become ‘Born Again’, the very moment that happens the Holy Spirit enters our body and becomes one with our human spirit and makes us like Jesus and one with Himself.
We could now pray ‘Our Father who is heaven and in us, hollowed be Your Name’. God has brought us into complete fellowship with Himself, so to treat Him without reverent fear, to not give Him the respect He deserves or completely surrender to Him, is in my opinion to not understand who GOD really is and is in part the reason the church is currently without power and ignored by the world.
How can we possibly give GOD the spiritual praise and worship only He deserves, if we don’t firstly fully understand who He really is? I believe there urgently needs to be a mind shift and a spiritual awakening in the church for this to happen, because only then will we fully trust Him with our lives and have the relationship with Him that He wants with us.
Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5. Church, He has brought us into a loving relationship with Himself, so let us give Him the reverence and honour He deserves.
There are many other things that could be said about the three points above but listen to the words of the song attached to this blog, and I pray that in all aspects of your life, your words will be those of Jesus, ‘‘Father, not my will but Yours be done’’.
Be blessed.
Author: Kevin Hunt
May God bless and enrich your life
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