One of the reasons believers shy away from the demands of consecration is that they think they are being caged.
“The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, To turn one away from the snares of death.”
Proverbs 14:27 (NKJV)
Many children who grew up in Nigeria had annual school excursions. It is a day set apart from academics to let loose and have fun. For many schools, excursions included a trip to a swimming pool. Before the children were let near the pool, the instructors and teachers would gather them and communicate rules and boundaries, because the instructor understood drowning.
Most children, having anticipated this day for the whole school year, felt boxed in by those boundaries. They could not grasp that the boundaries are for their safety. This is only a small-scale picture of what it means for God to set boundaries.
So often, believers feel hemmed in by the demands of fearing God. But if the instructor's finite knowledge, paired with his love for the children in his care, is reason enough to set boundaries that must be obeyed, how much more so for an omniscient and timeless God who is perfect in love.
Many believers agree that God sees all, but fearing the Lord demands more than intellectual agreement with His omniscience; your entire life should be shaped by this awareness; you must live a life of consecration.
The first step is to believe that a life of consecration is not too much to ask. It is attainable. Scripture is replete with examples of men who lived consecrated lives because the fear of God stood guard over them.
Joseph had an opportunity to sin with Potiphar's wife, but he said, "...How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" (Genesis 39:9, NKJV). No one was watching, but a man who fears the Lord knows that God sees all. “This does not please the Lord” must be enough to restrain you.
The Hebrew midwives were commanded by Pharaoh to kill every Hebrew son at birth. Obeying him would have cost them nothing; disobeying him could cost them everything. Yet "...the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive.” (Exodus 1:17, NKJV). This is the equivalent of choosing reverence for God over the safety of compliance with a president of a world power country.
Nehemiah 5:15
New King James Version
15 But the former governors who were before me laid burdens on the people, and took from them bread and wine, besides forty shekels of silver. Yes, even their servants bore rule over the people, but I did not do so, because of the fear of God.
Nehemiah had legal permission to exploit the poor as former governors had done, but he didn’t because of the fear of God!
In all these cases, the fear of God commanded action and inaction. It was sufficient reason for them to deny worldly pleasure.
One of the reasons believers shy away from the demands of consecration is that they think they are being caged. But that mindset reveals a belief that something better is achievable outside of God. You must be okay knowing that if you live a life of consecration, certain doors will simply stay closed.
Proverbs 19:23
New King James Version
23 The fear of the LORD leads to life, And he who has it will abide in satisfaction; He will not be visited with evil.
The person who fears God stops fearing anything else, because the one thing he reveres has already been settled as a safety mechanism. Living a life that contradicts the fear of God means there is something else you fear.
For some, it is the fear of people. Such people live at the mercy of opinions that are ever shifting, bending to whatever whims they are trying to satisfy because "the fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe.” (Proverbs 29:25, NKJV).
For others, it is the fear of failure, and they find themselves expending energy trying to avoid things beyond their control. The man who fears the Lord is free from all of these, because reverence for God leaves no room to revere anything else above Him.
You do not have to look far to see what happens in a society when this fear is absent. So many of the arguments raging in secular spaces over justice, gender, sex, violence and murder would be radically diminished if more people lived in the fear of God.
The fear of God teaches a person that another human being is not an object for exploitation, that life is not theirs to casually destroy, that their body and another person's body are not playgrounds for unrestrained desire, and that power does not permit them to violate another person.
These are larger, more visible battles, but they are proof, on a bigger stage, of what happens whenever human beings step away from a lifestyle of reverence for God.
The things believers chase outside the will of God are never truly satisfying. They only cause a yearning for more. Drug addicts often progress to another and then another, always wanting more. Pornographic habits often spiral into other forms of sexual imbalance.
For some others, they are unable to surrender certain ways of life because the lifestyle promises some form of reward or some degree of satisfaction. But "...In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." (Psalm 16:11, NKJV). You must fear the Lord more than you love this world. God who made an avenue for pleasure to exist in this world. He built a universe of abundance and then asked you to find the fullness of that abundance in Him. Real pleasure is not found anywhere outside of God.
The fear of God is a well of safety and a doorway into the pleasure you have been chasing everywhere else.
Prayer
Father, let the fear of the Lord stand guard over every decision I make and every door I consider opening outside of Your will. Free me from the fear of man, the fear of failure, and the pull of counterfeit pleasures. In Jesus' name, Amen.
