If you don’t know, now you know

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” Proverbs 1:7

We don’t really know anything until we know it in light of the smothering reality of God’s existence. It’s only notions, or foggy conceptions, before the fear of God enters in and sits upon the throne of thought. Apart from him we can know nothing. We can be aware of things, but we can’t have any real conception of their meaning. Not without him who gives meaning to all.

Knowledge is more than storing facts in your brain. True knowledge is experience, the experience of truth. And no truth—not the smallest bit of genuine learning—can be tasted or seen without the fear of God. The fear of God is the pool into which we must immerse everything in order to make real, living knowledge.

Does God terrify you? Are you scared to be his enemy? This is the beginning. After we find safety in the finished work of God’s Son, we become scared to run away from him. I trust the God I fear, says the Christian, and I fear the God I trust. My Heavenly Father is the living God, and the living God is my Heavenly Father. This is the beginning, middle, and end of all knowing and doing, and it is hidden for us in Christ.