We should continually stand in awe of God – whereas we daily fail to do so.
The book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, is one which describes the declining days of what was the kingdom blessed by God. In among the predictions of judgement, humiliation, and rejection by God there is a note of hope and an indication of what honours God.
In Malachi 2 God says that his covenant with Levi will stand because “he stood in awe of me”. It sounds so simple, and yet it is something that we simply fail to do! If God really is the Creator of the universe, the sustainer of all that was, is and will be; if God really is our Redeemer and the one who offers a personal, forgiven relationship with himself, then to do anything else but stand in awe of him is sin. Israel sought other things and relegated God to someone who was irrelevant to their daily lives. That was a great and grievous sin, and one that rightly drew God’s judgement.
To stand in awe of God we need to know him, to know him we need to seek him. When we do know him we cannot but stand in awe. Whatever we are doing in our day to day, our Sundays, the busy times and the quiet times our awareness of and awe of God should be a constant. As Brother Lawrence taught we should practise the presence of God and as we maintain our consciousness of God we should live in awe of a God who not only made the universe, but made, redeemed, called and saved us for his pleasure and glory. Standing in awe of God is simply living out God’s plan and place for us in his creation.
In light of the fact that this year is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s courageous nailing of his beliefs to the door of the church in Wittenberg I’ve got into my head the idea of posting some pithy theses for today’s living. I’m not arguing against anything or raising these theses for dispute as Luther did, but it seemed an appropriate title to cover some succinct concepts to re-establish our mindsets and to keep in mind during the 9-5 which is our day by day life.
