How do we get there? 1 John tells us – Perfect love drives out all fear, and “this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and gave us his son to be a propitiation for us..”

What does that mean? He took God’s anger for us. He feared God for us.

If you know the bible story, then you know who Jesus is. He is God himself, in human flesh. He came to live our life for us, and he came to die the death we deserve. He knew he came to die, for he often told his disciples that he was going to Jerusalem where he would be handed over and killed.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the cross. The night he was arrested, Jesus went out into the garden to pray, and he begged God not to make him do it. He pled with God until he had blood coming out of his pores. He cried and prayed and wept. So great was his fear that he fell on his face.

What was he doing? He was facing God as a sinner. He was not praying as the perfect and holy son. He was facing God with the sins of the world upon him. He faced God as the worst pervert, the worst child abuser, and he faced the coming justice. He faced God not as a loving father, but God with the sword of justice drawn. God ready to pour out his wrath in a holocaust of hatred for sin.

He feared God for us. He feared God the way we should, but we can’t. He feared God so we would never have to fear again. He feared God so we could enjoy him.

Now we run to God not away from him. We run to God knowing his face is smiling and his arms are open.

Should fear of God ever be part of the life of a Christian?

Yes, but only if we choose it. If you choose to reject his love, then you will have to face his anger. If you choose to reject his light, then you will walk in the darkness. If you choose to reject his life, then you will experience death.

Hebrews 10: 26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.