In Isaiah 11:1-3 (NIV) we read this wonderful prophetic statement regarding Jesus:
1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him —
3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.”
What has stood out to me recently in these words is that last phrase, “and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.”
It seems to me the command to fear the Lord has fallen on hard times. Perhaps it is because believers want to emphasize that God is love and is to be loved, not feared. Then the Apostle John is quoted where he wrote, “there is no fear in love.”
However, the Scriptures are not going to command us to relate to God in ways that are mutually exclusive. There is a sense in which fear has no place in love, if we define fear as “being frightened”. So with that as our definition, we certainly are not called to be scared of God.
Hence the word fear, when referring to the “fear of the Lord” must mean something different.
One way to look at it is in the context of what God wants to accomplish. In that case, to “fear” him would be to never want to interfere with anything he wants to do. For that matter, it would be manifested in our lives by an eagerness to see God get his way or better yet to actively work with him to see to it that he gets his way.
With that in mind, let’s ask, what then would it be to delight in the fear of the Lord? It would be to have a relentless enthusiasm to work with God in everything he is doing as he seeks to freely flood every human heart with all that will bring endless delight. That truly defines the life of Jesus, doesn’t it?
