There is such a great difference between the holiness of God and the un-holiness of men. Yet it seems like today we relate to God as something a little higher than ourselves, someone we share our smallness with . . . He's no longer revered as the infinite, Almighty, Holy God that created us. He is no longer to be feared; no longer given reverence. When we acknowledge the majesty of God, the Holy Spirit does a work in us so we are more able to serve and worship Him with a greater reverence. . . it completely changes our relationship with Him.
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of His glory. Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King the Lord Almighty."Isaiah 6:3,5
TheScriptures are powerful and revealing about the magnitude of all that He is. In Hebrews 5: 7 it say: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.”Pastor Francis Chan recently commented on this scripture in his blog, "It struck me as odd that Jesus was 'heard because of his reverence.' It has caused me to raise the level of reverence in my prayers."
John Calvin wrote, "Reverence is that dread and amazement with which holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence ofGod...Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God."Wow, think of that . . . today we see man's ego exploding! Some times I think man rarely contrast himself with anything because our vision is obstructed by our obsession with ourselves and this world.
Last year I reviewed church web sites, church newsletters,bulletins, and Christian papers to see if they proclaimed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior on their home page / front page. Many had links to their profession of faith . . . and Jesus was tucked away in the articles, but that's just not good enough. The name of Jesus shouldn't be buried in links or in theprint, I don't want readers to bump into it. I want Christians to proclaim it! A lot of home pages are pictures of nice buildings, people, social gatherings, creative images and lavish web designs, etc. Nothing wrong with that except, HE SHOULD BE THE PRIORITY. . . And often in the absence of His name and recognition on the front page (or home page) they had pictures of thepastor. Even the pastor gets more recognition than our Lord! I find myself concerned with the glorification of preachers and the minimization of our Lord. In one particular Christian Newspaper that was 32 pages long, it wasn't until page 30 that I found His name buried in a brief statement. The priority was all about the 'social activities' of the local churches, parties, gatherings, even sports.
I wrote the sites and ask them to consider proclaiming the name of Jesus as the priority of their home page. We must stand up, stand out and always stand for Him. Reverence comes when we begin to see God as He truly is and with boldness proclaim it. . . In doing so, we show reverence to God!
‘Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godlyfear: for our God is a consuming fire.’Hebrews 12: 28-29
It's interesting what people will stand up for today.They show reverence for the military, historical days, and the dead. Everyone should search the scriptures on how to show reverence to Him. Plan on spending times in the Word, because it is in a lot of scriptures! Personally I can't think of anything that I kneel for but Him. That makes kneeling so special to me. I'm not saying it's right for everyone, but I find when I kneel it's all about Him. The clutter and distractions of life are gone. There are different ways to show reverence and different means. . . But the important thing is when we show reverence, we acknowledges in our hearts the glory of God as presented in the Scriptures, and by doing so, we then yield to God His rightful place in our lives
