“Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly” (1 Kings 18:3)
How would you like that on your tombstone, or for those in the modern techno-age as your Facebook ‘Status’?
Obadiah’s status for all eternity is that he “feared the Lord greatly”.
Sure, the context shows that he was not immune from fear of man, but the point is that the dominant note of his life was that he feared the Lord.
This fear of course is not a dread or terror. Wilhelmus A’Brakel says, ‘Such fear is a holy inclination of the heart, generated by God in the hearts of His children, whereby they, out of reverence for God, take careful pains not to displease God, and earnestly endeavour to please Him in all things.’
This fear is a reverence that dreads to offend God and that longs to please God. It is reverence grounded in faith, love and hope. It is reverence that is born on the wings of thankfulness.
It is what David expresses in Psalm 5:7 “I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy; in fear of You I will worship toward Your holy temple.”
This is how we are to worship God; this is how we are to serve God. It gives confidence without diminishing humility; it gives joy without diminishing reverence.
It was this fear of the Lord that enabled Obadiah to remain faithful in a time of widespread apostasy, and to be enterprising in supporting the Lord’s Word and work in a time when the public policy was to kill the prophets of God.
Neither difficulty nor danger made him swerve from his faith in the Lord, and this was the key: he feared the Lord greatly.
A right view of God’s majesty and a thankfulness of His goodness is what we need to be faithful to the Lord and energetic for the Lord in our everyday life, regardless of the circumstances we may find ourselves in. Here is both the motivation and anchor for Christian living.
May God grant us fresh views of His glorious majesty that demolish our self-confidences and transcend our daily fears and inadequacies, while also reminding us of the abundance of His goodness as summed up in the title He has given us to call Him, “our Father who art in heaven”.