It’s said God unconditionally loves the world. But it also said that we must fear the Lord. How can we love out of fear? Does God want a slave – master relationship?

God does love the world unconditionally. When we speak of “fearing God” or the Spirit’s gift of “fear of the Lord,” we don’t mean “fear” in the same way as, for example, fear of heights or fear of the dark.

The simplest way to define this “holy fear” is as reverence. It is a sort of awe before God’s greatness. God’s glory–the greatness and beauty of who he is–is like a blinding radiance or an incredible weight. His glory is very literally awe-inspiring. It makes us tremble.

But unlike other fears, which lead us to despair or panic, this holy fear fills us with wonder and joy. Why? Because even though I am like a grain of sand in a storm before the mighty and awesome and glorious God, this God loves me. He knows me by name and knows every hair on my head. That is a cause for rejoicing! Many Psalms, Christian hymns, and praise and worship songs love to speak of God’s greatness. How great thou art! What a mighty God we serve! Our God is an awesome God! The examples could go on and on.

That is why we say the fear of the Lord is reverence. God doesn’t want a master-slave relationship with us; he wants a Father-child relationship with us. Fear of God does not mean cowering and hiding from him, but rather looking at him with awe and with love: “What an amazing God!” The more we truly grasp how good God is, the more we grow in our love for him. Serving God is not something we do because we’re afraid of him, but because we recognize his love for us and desire to show him love in return. It is like the love a son has for a father whom he dearly loves, or the love of a husband for his wife–but magnified to an infinitely greater degree.