What is the Fear of the Lord?

There are several bible verses that refers to the fear of the Lord. One of these examples is Psalm 112:1; “Praise the Lord! How joyful are those who fear the Lord and delight in obeying his commands” or a verse such as Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy one is understanding”. For a long time I did not understand this concept of fearing the Lord, we are told and we believe that the Lord is our Father in heaven, so why would we need to fear him. Fear in the sense that we know it in our everyday use of the word, which is scared, afraid and more negative connotations. Why would I need to fear my Father in heaven when He is a loving Father? And how can it be joyful to live in fear?

Needless to say, that I misunderstood this verse for a long time, and I thought to myself, that I don’t fear Him, I love Him, like 1 John 4:18 that says “Love drives out fear”. So how must I fear Him, if I love Him and I even saw this as a bit contradicting.

So what is the Fear of the Lord that the bible refers to? In simple terms, it means that we are scared / afraid to be away from the Lord. Think about it, how amazing is it to be in the presence of the Lord, now imagine how it feels when the Lord is not there.

Fear of the Lord means, you love what God loves and you hate what God hates. God is the holiest of holies.
He can only be close to you if you are close to Him, to become closer to Him, you need to live a life of constant repentance of your sins, and through repenting you will also become closer to Him.

When we repent of our sins and turn away from unrighteousness, we are taking an action that aligns our hearts more closely with God’s heart. God desires for us to be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:16). When we repent, we are removing the barriers of sin that separate us from the fullness of God’s presence.