Knowing The Fear of The Lord

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.
2 Corinthians 5:11 (ESV)

As I was reading scripture this morning, many thoughts about what is being said in this chapter of 2 Corinthians were flying through my mind. However, not many came to rest. This is probably an indication of how distracted my mind is over my abysmal failure at fixing my video editing computer. As a side comment, I find it amazing how something that really isn't that important, a computer that I have done without for several months which still isn't working, can so easily distract me. I don't think it should be that way.

However, as I said, this sentence did come to settle, thanks be to God. Paul had just finished speaking of the new heavenly body that believers will receive, and the implication from that, that believers should strive to please God now in our moral bodies. The ground for that was that there is a judgment coming where people will receive what is due for what they have done in the body.

It is immediately following this that we find this sentence. "Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others."

What struck me is that an implication of this statement is that if one is not seeking to persuade others, if one is not active in spreading the good news of Jesus Christ, if one is not, if one is not functioning in what is later in this chapter called the ministry of reconciliation, that would mean they very likely do not know the fear of the Lord as they should. They do not really know what it is to hold God in reverence and awe. To fear him as he should be feared as the Holy God. Nor, probably in many cases, do they fear him in the sense of realizing that outside of the way he has provided for people to be saved, a person is doomed to punishment for the evil they have done in the body.

It would also seem to imply that if we are lacks in seeking to persuade others, we should pray that God will fill us with that holy fear that will move us to do so. That we will come to know what we need to know, not just cognitively but experientially, and so be moved to greater activity in being about the great commission Christ has given us.

I am sure this needs to be expanded on, but at the moment my brain is tired.