How to Stop Being Dumb | Crosstraining 11.5.14

Proverbs 19:10 “That game was awesome.” “These tacos are awesome.” “That girl is awesome.” “I thought the show was awesome.” These are all ways we abuse the word awesome. The actual definition of awesome is “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.” While doritos locos tacos might be delicious, they probably aren’t something worthy of reverential respect or even fear…unless you count what they might do to your stomach afterwards! Because we use it so much on the mundane, we’ve lost a little bit of what the word awesome really means. So, when we talk about how we have an awesome God, we often miss the point. Throughout its pages, the Bible talks about how we should fear God. This can sometimes be confusing for us because we’ve always know God as a loving and merciful God. When the Bible talks about fearing God, it’s talking about truly believing that God is awesome. It’s having “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.” To fear God means to come to the place where you see how big, powerful, and great God is to the point where you are truly in awe of the one who created you and could squash you like a bug if He wanted to. It’s not a fear like walking through a haunted house or being startled at a strange noise in the middle of the night, it’s coming to the point of being so in awe of God that you choose to base your life and the decisions you make on what He would want for you. True wisdom starts with having a healthy fear and awe of God. It comes from looking to Him with every choice you make. Do you fear God?]]>