The Beginning of Everything
Let's be honest. The phrase 'fear of the Lord' can be unsettling. It conjures images of a distant, angry deity, waiting for us to make a mistake. We hear it and we might feel a knot in our stomach, the way you would if you were called into the principal's office. We live in a world that tells us to fear nothing, to be the captain of our own ship. So how do we reconcile this with the Scripture that declares, in Proverbs 1:7, that this very fear is the beginning of all knowledge? Many of us, if we're truthful, are trying to build our faith on a different foundation—on love, on grace, on fellowship. And all of those are good, solid stones. But they are not the cornerstone. The cornerstone, the very first thing that must be laid, is a right understanding of who God is in all His majesty.
This isn't the cowering fear of a slave before a cruel master. This is the breathtaking, heart-in-your-throat awe you feel standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. It's the silence that falls over a room when a king walks in. It is a soul-deep recognition of His holiness, His power, His authority, and His profound, unsearchable love. It is a reverence so complete that it reorients your entire existence. It doesn't push you away from God; it draws you in, with a profound sense of your smallness and His greatness. This is the fear that leads not to panic, but to peace. It’s the starting point where we stop trying to manage God, to fit Him into our plans, and instead, we surrender our plans to Him.
Look at the disciples in the Gospels. They walked with Jesus. They saw His miracles. They heard His teaching from His own lips. Yet, in a pivotal moment, they were powerless. A desperate father brought them his tormented son, and they could do nothing. They had proximity to Jesus, but they lacked the potent faith born from a true reverence for the power He wielded. Their familiarity had bred a type of spiritual complacency. When they asked Jesus why they failed, His answer was piercing.
Jesus didn't give them a new technique or a secret formula. He pointed to the root of the problem: their unbelief. Their faith was shallow because their reverence for God's absolute power was not yet fully formed. They saw the storm, but they hadn't yet been completely overwhelmed by the majesty of the One who could command it. The fear of the Lord, this holy awe, is what turns a mustard seed of belief into a mountain-moving force.
And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.— Matthew 17:20, KJV
Awe That Demands Action
True reverence for God is never a passive state. It's not just a feeling we get during a worship service that fades when the music stops. Awe, true biblical awe, is a catalyst. It moves us. It compels us to act in ways that would seem foolish or impossible to the world. When you truly grasp who God is, your fear of everything else begins to shrink in comparison. Your fear of failure, your fear of what people think, your fear of the future—it all gets recalibrated against the magnificent reality of your Creator.
There is perhaps no greater example of this than Joseph of Arimathea. Think of the scene. Jesus, the condemned criminal, is dead. His disciples, the ones who promised they would die for Him, have scattered in terror. To associate with Jesus now is to invite the wrath of both the Roman authorities and the Jewish leaders. It is career suicide. It is dangerous. And in this moment of darkness and fear, this honourable counsellor, a man of wealth and status, does the unthinkable. He walks into the lion's den.
He didn't just quietly mourn. He didn't send a servant. He, himself, went boldly to Pilate—the man who held the power of life and death—and asked for the body of Jesus. This was not recklessness. This was reverence in action. Joseph’s fear of the Lord was so much greater than his fear of man that it made him brave. He knew who Jesus was, and that knowledge demanded an act of honour, a final act of service, no matter the personal cost. This is what reverence for God looks like when the lights go out. It gives you a spine of steel when everyone else’s has turned to jelly. It is the quiet, powerful courage to do the right thing simply because God is worthy of it.
Joseph of Arimathea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.— Mark 15:43, KJV
The New Wine of Wisdom
So we return to that foundational verse, Proverbs 1:7: 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.' Why the beginning? Because until our posture before God is correct, everything else is built on sand. We can accumulate scripture, we can learn theological concepts, we can master the language of faith, but if it's not rooted in a profound, trembling awe of who God is, it's just noise. It's an old, brittle wineskin trying to contain the explosive, living power of the new wine of Christ. Jesus Himself warned us about this.
He said, 'no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled.' The new covenant, the life of the Spirit, the power of the resurrected Christ—this is the new wine. It cannot be contained by old religious habits, by intellectual pride, or by a faith that treats God as a predictable, manageable friend. It requires a new wineskin: a heart that has been made soft and pliable by a true fear of the Lord. This reverence for God creates an internal space that is flexible enough, and strong enough, to hold the immense power of His presence.
When this reverence is your starting point, your entire perspective shifts. You begin to see the world through His eyes. Suddenly, giving a cup of cold water to someone in need isn't just a nice gesture; it's an act of worship offered to the King of Kings, as Jesus taught in Matthew 10. Your 'knowledge' is no longer about winning arguments or appearing righteous; it's about discerning the heartbeat of the Father and moving in rhythm with it. This is the wisdom that fools despise—not because they are unintelligent, but because they refuse to bow. They refuse to begin at the beginning. They refuse the fear of the Lord, and in so doing, they forfeit the very knowledge they claim to seek.
But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.— Luke 5:38, KJV
Perhaps you've been trying to hold your life together, hiding your struggles behind a fragile smile. Maybe your faith feels dry, like an old wineskin, about to crack. The answer isn't to try harder or to find a new cliché to repeat. The invitation today is to go back to the beginning. To stand before the cross, to gaze at the empty tomb, to consider the God who spoke galaxies into existence, and to let yourself be undone by His majesty. Let that holy awe, that reverent fear, become the new, supple wineskin of your heart. For it is only there, in that place of humble surrender, that the new wine of His grace can be poured in without limit, preserving you, and making all things new.