The Fear of the Lord

Written By Ryan Lovett

Fresh off our ministry leadership team returning from the Pastor’s Conference at Jesus Image, we heading into this Sunday with a lot of excitement and faith in meeting God and basking in His presence. The coffee team showed up bright and early and were the first ones in to get things going. As the rest of the team arrived, the house of the Lord began to be built and prepared for service.

What was beautiful from the very beginning was the asking of prayer from one another as we set things up. We have grown to depend on each other, as we should, in prayer and strengthening of each other. Things went along well and we headed into our time of prayer at 9:15. Today Pastor Ryan and Noel led through that time and we could already sense and feel God’s presence. There was an unmistakable knowing of the peace of God we’ve felt many times before settle in that room and within our hearts. It was the perfect way to transition into welcoming people and getting ready for service to begin.

Over the next 30 minutes, people started trickling in, grabbing some hellos and smiles and coffees, and made their way to the main room for service. Children were being checked in and getting ready for class as well. You could sense genuine excitement for their upcoming class as they shouted with joy and smiles were all around.

Right before worship, we took time to just sit with God, talk with Him, and pray to lead into what we were about to encounter with Him. The set list is below and it was a holy moment as we sang out to our Creator, heart, soul, mind, all turned to Him. We saw many on their knees, engaged with the Word, praying, and seeking the Lord with all their hearts during worship. As we transitioned to other parts of service, we took time to honor and pray for volunteers who have stepped up in a big way.

Pastor Ryan led us into a study on The Fear of the Lord. What a lost heart we have for God in this way as a body of Christ! You can get the 5 day devotional below, as well as the verses we studied, but here are some highlights of the sermon…

We can’t expect to do anything significant for God until our hearts have melted in fear of Him.

A fear of the Lord must be healthy for the love of the Lord to be healthy.

The fruit of the presence of the LORD is the fear of the LORD.

You can't have a proper fear of the LORD by living off 2nd hand presence. Somebody's presence with the LORD will not draw you into the fear of the LORD.

As we ended service, we had a truly wonderful moment of repentance. Pastor Ryan made a call for those who saw the need to repent in the area of the fear of the Lord and we saw many hands raised in the room. As we prayed together, repented together, we could already feel a sense of God’s joy in that moment. When all was said and done, we encountered His glorious presence today, saw a heart of repentance take place, saw people turn and give their life to Christ, and prayed for one another all over the place as we prepared to enter into a new week ahead.

Ryan Lovett
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The Presence of the Lord