“So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria has peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.” (Acts 9:31)
As John Newton wrote in his timeless hymn, “’twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” At the foundation of the Christian life is a composite awareness of two realities. The first is that God is great and terrible and holy, that He is more fearful than anyone or anything else. His present goodness and His present power should make us tremble to do anything that displeases Him or is against His character. The second reality is that God in His great love has redeemed us and rescued us from all ungodliness, not first by transforming our character, but by changing our identity from “sinner” to “set apart” through the finished work of Jesus. We’ve become members of His family. We are unconditionally loved by Him. All this is made real to us by the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit helps us to trust. The Spirit calms our fears. The Spirit makes the bed on which the believer rests securely.
The fear of God, without the cross of Christ, would certainly crush our spirits and make us miserable. But in light of the cross, what we know of God’s dangerous goodness, awesome dignity, and unmatched power inspires us to deeper love and worship, because we understand what an act of grace it is for God to redeem us, and because we can trust that whenever He appears to come against us in our sin, He is simply breaking down our pride so that we’ll be humble enough to receive His goodness and power in our hearts so that we can grow in His likeness. Without the fear of God, the comfort of the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean much. But without the comfort of the Holy Spirit, the fear of God can’t do accomplish anything good in our hearts. “‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.”
Andrew Micah 