What is it like to live out the Fear of the Lord, post-repentance?

Let’s recap:

The first thing after the first encounter with God’s presence where the fear (felt as clarity of knowledge, freedom and strength to behave anyway that’s wanted, having the right to choose) approached in a way that convinced your waking mind of God’s existence, that next moment, so long as you stick around to be spoken to, is receiving the sound of being loved more than any other created being.

This love fills in the fear. This begin to build an identify as belonging to God. 

This means, for the future of entering the fear of the Lord, this space becomes a place of belonging. And the fear on the approach is more like the word “reverence.” And that’s feeling joyful awe and feeling honored and feeling privileged. But in addition to those big feelings is your identity in God, which solidifies your place before/within God as his child. This means God’s home is your home. So, this fear is big with awe, but joyous in anticipation, and thankful for who it is you’re worshiping is also where you belong in the most thorough sort of way. Belonging is restful. And the trembling of feeling honored by the King of Kings, if you abide in it, will become replaced by confidence. Confidence is joyful. So, fear becomes associated with joy the more you live in God’s sanctuary. And it doesn’t require your presence at a particular place, but you’ll take it with you as your possession as a shield, to increase your rest and thankfulness and trust and joy. 

Re-entering the presence of the Lord with repentance after a time of waywardly seeking for good things apart of God for a lack of trust in his enduring love and faithfulness there a couple keys God might require of you; your keys will destroy lies implanted as supposed ways of God or the ways of man as we react to God.

One key is identity; even before you feel better, you have the right to choose God by identifying as a Child of God. That makes your only ancestor Jesus of Nazareth and your rights the height of God’s goodness.

Another key is confidence; call on the Fear of the Lord with confidence. Let your confidence radiate like a light. Confidence in relationship is a natural result of trust. Godly confidence is humble vulnerability while fully armored by the belief that no weapon formed against you will prevail (that’s a Bible reference and a promise of God, go seek it out.)

The fear will be the kind of fear felt when you’re talking with the person you love the most because by loving that person so much you need them. But God won’t uphold any fear of losing him. He’ll weed that out of your soil, first thing.

The Fear of the Lord is facing God.

The benefit is learning that God is good, learning God loves you with more love than you knew could exist, and learning that God is powerful to help.

It is written, “Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked.” – Malachi 3:18.

This is the washing of from your soul of all anxieties, lies, schemes of the enemy, unprofitable words from faithless lips, and lack of knowledge that leads to all varieties of insecurities. Then, you’ll know God’s reality and truth.

When you know Good Fear, all fears from lies are revealed as lies, which quickly evaporate as dew in the morning sun. Do you see how this place is the best place to begin a new life, which will have with it in life, all true wisdom of grace, the reality of God’s power and your identity as being his beloved child? This is the place where all needs are met. This place is good as God is good.

And then the Fear of the Lord is your home. You belong in the throne room of God as much, as confidently, as you belong in the living room of a home you own.

God cannot be separated from the fear that is the reality of who he is and the authority that he has over the created world. But his fear washes with truth like living water that gives life and heals unto wholeness as joy within being loved. The benefit of knowing his fear is that your mind is convinced of his reality. This is what causes the greatest rest for your soul. And this is what causes your soul to grow in him. 

WHAT IS THE ‘POSTURE’ OF REPENTANCE?

Choosing that you don’t want to live life independent from God’s help, favor, blessing, gifts, and love is wanting God.

Repentance comes from wanting God. So, wanting God is the proper emotional posture.

But also, God is insistence on your confidence. This means he’s going to enforce your thoughts to be confident. This might feel unnerving if your mind mocks and belittles you as an attempt to enforce an idea of humility as a way of building your worth by staying lowly. Confidence occurs from being elevated, respected, and honored. God is interested in your being confident as a person, a human being created by him, a personality loved by him already, a child of God worthy of receiving the rights deserving of a son or daughter who served him, continually.

What is happening is suddenness; the moment you repent and want to speak to God he treats you correctly, goodly, rightly. His treatment of you will immediately cause self-esteem to have happened.

Having confidence then noticing that confidence is happening, you will have another choice. Will you receive the confidence, leaning not on your own understanding but trusting the one who gives you confidence? Or, will you reject the confidence with mistrust of the giver’s wisdom to give a good gift, assuming you know what good fruit will feel like to eat and thinking that the past experiences of being in pain when attempting to do good works is the good fruit you’re seeking?

Confidence will happen by Holy Spirit power.

To choose to accept the confidence will require a change in thoughts regarding your past, present, and future. Confidence will immediately wash off regret and guilt, casting shame far from you. These painful emotions resulting from self-condemnation will be suddenly, faster than a breath, cast away from you at a distance of forgotten until, if you accept confidence as good food, they’ll be cast at a distance of words without meaning; gibberish as a foreign language: cut as a cord to become words without context as a custom from a culture, unfamiliar.

God will ask if you want him.

Even if enticement surges inside for seeking things apart from God, either by known addiction or unknown curiosity, you can choose God while feeling enticed. I encourage you to acknowledge the sensation, couple it will your grown wisdom that if you follow enticement pain will occur, eventually. Without casting enticement away as an idea of conquering evil within you, I encourage you to inform God that you’d like to be removed from enticement so you can go with him, forever. God will talk with you; you are not in a test, just answer as honestly as you can and remember to try to speak about your wants without being distracted by fear of, possibly, being trapped in sin.

You choose God by declaring that you are ready to make an eternal decision.

The proper mental posture for repenting to God is confident decision after a season of assessing wants and measuring the worth of the available options.

This decision is made with great clarity of mind in choosing what suits as the most beneficial choice.

Even his recuse is performed with joy and rest. And he leads the returned to greater joy. He takes the parable of the Prodigal Son very seriously. Not only is God glad to be wanted, celebrating as loudly as won’t overwhelm his tired child, but he’s already planned on your return and preparations for to celebrate you are underway, back at his house.

He rescues immediately because he can’t be at a distance from you, that’s part of his nature as a spirit and the only spirit who is all-present: God. 

In addition to speed, he rescues as a Father who has been longing to help, but respecting his child’s season of independence while his child explorers to discover all he or she is capable of all by themselves. 

God is not dwelling on the fact that his kids try to trust in everything other than him, first. His compassion is so much that he doesn’t think that way at all, to harm himself. He just rejoices at being wanted. And he rejoices because he knows how able and helpful and worthy he is to be served. Serving God is more like being served because the able serve the unable. But serving evil idols is service that takes and takes from his children. So, we hate the word service when we’ve known robbery from idols. But it’s right to think about serving God more like, just asking him what he wants for you. Asking him is elevating him over every other opinion. Submission to the author of life is to a trustworthy source who wants your life to be easy, healthy, sustained, feeling good, and feeling loved.

If this sounds like fun, you’ll like God. 

WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO REPENT?

It feels like your Dad asking if you’re ready to leave the park after all your friends have gone home and the sun has dipped near the horizon; it’s a wise time to leave and there’s nothing in the park that’s worth remaining in any longer. It’s an appropriate time to desire to go home.

You hear your Father’s voice, calmly inquire, “Are you ready?”

Repentance feels like saying, decidedly, “I’m ready.”

Or, the way a child says when finished with a meal, “I’m done.” And that child asks to be lifted from the high chair so he or she can go play with his or her Father in another place.

Confidence leads to decision. Declaration is confident decision, voiced.

Repentance is a desire. The accomplishment of this desire is through power. Power is power. True power comes by God. Declaration is power because God responds to your voiced decision. You are repenting from seeking good things apart from God to seeking good things by God. Everything good will come to you, not by cause and effect but by conversation and request, which builds a relationship with God.

Repentance in an eternal state not only desires good things with protection and no effort to procure good things, but has wisdom about good things to want the most want-able thing before receiving any fringe benefits; relationship with the only perfect person, God the Living King, the Lord Our Righteousness, Jesus of Nazareth.

I argue, we only need one perfect friend. We only need one perfect parent. After that, everybody can be flawed without fault.

THEN WHAT HAPPENS?

I think, the answer to that question will depend on how you’re feeling.

If you’re tired, feel free to ask him to pick you up; that will feel like immediate rest and movement happening around you by being brought into great joy.

If you’re scared, he might offer to pick you up. And accepting that offer will feel like immediate comfort. He’ll either breathe into you confidence until you feel joyful or he’ll sing over you until you giggle and feel like celebrating.

But if you’re strong and you trust him, already, then he’s probably going to ask you to walk with him. This is because you have your shoes on and you still have all the energy you need for the journey of walking a short distance to the place of rest that is your home with him. And you know your place as his child is forever.

But, he’ll ask you to walk with him when you’re physically ready and mentally prepared with the knowledge of his enteral standing as your Father, forever, without waiting for your emotional health to be anxiety-free before asking you to walk with him at the distance of walking with your own two feet. This is because your emotions can follow quickly after knowledge is already deep in your being, they’ll catch up quickly to understanding that when God asks you to follow him out of the park on your own two feet, even though before he’s picked you up in his arms and carried you, it’s not that he’s going to walk too quickly that you’ll get lost or that he’s mad and trying to leave you in the park like it’s your home instead of his home, but that you get to walk beside him just because your growing. And the good thing about being asked to walk beside him is that he’s enforcing your position as his child in safety. Because when you know that you’re his, forever, then you can enjoy the freedom of walking with your own feet beside him with joy that will increase how safe you feel: belonging. You don’t need to become safe because you are safe; he’s right there with you.

You just need to feel safe by believing he’s never going to leave you, even if you’re walking.

EXPECT GOD TO BE FORWARD THINKING

After you tell God that you’re ready to leave the park and go home, again (to the place he’s made your home with him, which is a place in your heart) then expect him to make it feel like this was all part of his plan for your life, so that you feel like you were obedient the whole time. Expect to feel like you were right on time for a scheduled departure. And you are immediately safe in spite of any visible storm, even the kind that kills without divine protection.

His sovereignty feels like safety.

When God’s bigness in power and authority shines in your face it feels like he removes heavy responsibility from your shoulder and places it on his own shoulder while testifying of how able he is and how trustworthy he is, telling you what it means that he is your Father, not the other way around.

It is written, “I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” – Malachi 3:17

This is the same attitude of salvation prepared for the prodigal son in Jesus’s story.

And I’m telling you, God really treats the repentant child this goodly. It’s not just that he’s sweeping any sins under the rug; I assure you he is powerfully mending the consequences of your sins by miraculous power of removing them. And in the gap, he fills up wounds with his righteousness to the point that he will bless others as though you had been serving him the entire time. You are so safe in God’s hands. You are not only welcome to return to God and have him as your Father, you are not only invited, not only called, not only chosen, not only sought after and found, but cleaned and healed and celebrated and honored through the point of humility to the point of rejoicing as a child with the right to keep his or her place within his heart and kingdom.

God is so Good.