People are oftentimes confused by talk that has to do with fearing God. On the one hand, the Scriptures admonishes us to fear the Lord, but at the same time, we are told that God has not given us a spirit of fear. So how are we to understand this phrase?
Fearing God does not mean always looking over your shoulder in anxiety to see what He will do next. The fear of the Lord is something positive and healthy that is clearly defined in several different scriptures. A particularly helpful one is Proverbs 8:13, where we are told that "the fear of the Lord is to hate evil."
Many people are bothered by the thought of hating anything. Yet God says we are to hate evil because He Himself hates it in all of its forms. He abhors it because He clearly sees its corrupting and destructive influence. We often fail to see any corruption at all. In fact, we sometimes look at evil and think that it's not really too bad.
Satan's job is to camouflage wickedness until it appears quite innocent or even attractive. The Enemy is so successful in his deception that we often fall into his snares with out any compunction. That is why we must learn to view things as the Lord sees them. We need to develop such a holy hatred for iniquity that we shun and refuse it at every turn. When we get God's view of transgression, the Devil will be stymied in his efforts to seduce us. Although it may not be a popular stance, we can choose to love the Lord and to hate evil.
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Charles Frazier Stanley was born September 25, 1932, in the small town of Dry Fork, Virginia. The only child of Charley and Rebecca Stanley, Charles came into the world during a time when the entire nation felt the grip of the Great Depression. To make matters worse, just nine months later, his father Charley died at the young age of 29.
However, Charles refused to let the Great Depression or the difficulties of his life define him. Instead, like his father and grandfather before him, he clung to God’s Word and took up the mantle to preach the gospel to whoever would listen.
Dr. Stanley’s motivation is best represented by the truth found in Acts 20:24, “Life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about God's mighty kindness and love.” This is because, as he says, “It is the Word of God and the work of God that changes people’s lives.”
Dr. Stanley’s teachings can be heard weekly at First Baptist Church Atlanta, daily on “In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley” radio and television broadcasts on more than 2,800 stations around the world, on the Internet at intouch.org, through the In Touch Messenger, and in the monthly, award-winning In Touch magazine.