Are You a God-Fearing Woman? {1 Peter 1}

finished Esther

If you completed the book of Esther with us- Congrats!
That’s one book down and 65 left to go!
Be sure to mark it off on your “GMG Reading Through the Bible” Plan!

Here is this week’s reading plan:

reading plan for the week

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When we see the Lord Almighty as He is - we will not be able to keep away from the Word. We will run to Him in the morning.  #GoodMorningGirls #1Peter #WomensBibleStudy #OnlineBiblestudy

Today we begin the book of 1 Peter.  If you are new here – we are simply reading one chapter a day.

As we dig into 1 Peter, I marvel at the author of this book.  Peter  intimately knew our beloved Jesus!  He walked on the water and was there the night the soldiers came to take Jesus away.  Peter denied Christ 3 times BUT he also boldly preached Christ name to thousands in Acts and ultimately died a martyrs death, crucified upside down.

I wish we could discuss every part of this book because there  is SO much meat – simply just in the first chapter.  Immediately we see deep doctrines mentioned such as election, foreknowledge, the trinity (verse 2), sanctification, grace, peace, mercy, faith, joy, the gospel, angels and holiness.

But today I’ve chosen to focus specifically on 1 Peter 1:17-21.  It says:

17 Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. (niv)

It is because of the blood of the lamb that we have faith and hope in God.  All penalties for our sins were paid for at the cross but God has called us to holiness.  1 Peter 1:16 says “Be holy because I am holy”.

Sometimes we are tempted to return to our old way of life but as verse 18 identifies, our old way was –the empty way.

But what is the new way?

The new way is…

holiness and living in reverent fear of our Almighty God.

Are you a God-Fearing Woman?

I’ve been told by many women over the years, the reason they miss their quiet times is because they are simply “too busy”...

I believe it goes a bit deeper than that.  May I suggest that perhaps we don’t comprehend how HUGE our Majestic God truly is?  Perhaps we need to fear God a bit more in a culture where fear is frowned upon.  “No Fear” is a mantra we hear so often that maybe…just maybe…we need someone to pause and say to us…

Oh yes – we must have a healthy fear of God.

Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.~ Ecclesiastes 12:13

 Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever! ~ Deuteronomy 5:29

Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments! ~ Psalm 112:1

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. ~ Proverbs 1:7

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ~ Matthew 10:28

In today’s video, I explore the fear of God a bit deeper and explain how I believe it will transform your daily time in God’s Word.

(if you can’t see this video – click here to play it)

John saw God in Revelation 1:12-19 and here is how he described Him:

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. 19 Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.

When we see the Lord Almighty as He is – we will not be able to keep away from the word – we will run to Him in the morning!

Are you a God-Fearing woman?

This fear should not cause anxiety but rather security.  You are a child of the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, therefore rejoice and pursue holiness today!

Walk with the King,

Courtney

**Chime In:  Who do you think wants us to not fear God?  Why do you think we focus more today in our churches, on the love of God rather than the fear of God?  How can you live out the fear of God in your life this week?

What else did you learn from your quiet time in 1 Peter today?

And in case you missed the Big News! Good Morning Girls has a new Facebook page! I will begin posting verses that correlate with our “Reading Through the Bible” plans Wednesday morning! Come join us!

34 Comments

  1. I think there are some churches where the fear of God is preached in the wrong way. It is preached as God is out to get everyone and He is displeased with everything you do. Then there are some churches where too much grace is taught without the fear of God, to the point where behaviors that aren’t biblical are accepted. So, I think the healthy perspective is to fear God – meaning you acknowledge and respect that He is Creator of all things and holds all power and authority over everything, but is loving enough to extend grace to His sinful children, and compassionate enough to make us righteous and clean through Jesus.
    Interesting discussion!! Thanks again!
    Cooking Up Faith
    http://www.cookingupfaith.org

  2. Satan doesn’t want us to have a healthy fear of God. Churches today prefer to discuss the love of God because sadly we the church has become “numbers” driven. In my quiet time, the Holy Spirit drew me to v13. God desires that I prepare my mind more to respond to His call on my life. That means being a better steward of my time and resources. He desires that we take our faith journey seriously.

  3. Our taught on the fear of God a while back and he explained the fear of God as a ‘cautious reps left for God and his ways. ‘ I think when we respect God and his ways it causes us to live a holy life, doing what’s right because it’s rights do doing it right. We should want to live a honorable and holy life, not seeing how close to sin we can get but living far from it and being a example to others.

  4. I think the enemy and the world (who are under his power!) do not want us to reverently fear God. Sadly, a lot of churches today are not teaching sound doctrine, or leaving out important ones. They focus on the love of God because that’s what people want to hear and they are trying to please man and not God (not all churches, but a lot these days).

    When you asked how we can live out the fear of God this week, the Lord immediately brought to mind some things I watch on TV that are not pleasing to Him; shows that glorify sinful lifestyles and we call it entertainment. Yes, I’m guilty and will be mindful of what I allow into my mind this week as I seek to live in the fear of the Lord and please Him.

    1. Yes! Thank you for the reminder, Christine! Entertainment is a big one for me too. I spoke to my husband about this over vacation and we were in disagreement because of this lack of fear for our God. He feels that while one show/movie may have a small bit of unholy conduct portrayed the whole show/movie is not worth not watching for that little bit. I say, “Yes, it is worth not watching. We would not watch it if God and Jesus were physically here with us so why should we watch it just because we can’t see him in the room?” My husband is not there with me yet. Anyone else experience this challenge w/their spouse/significant other regarding entertainment?

      1. I can relate to what you said JoLynn. My husband and I disagree not so much on content but how much time the tv is on. I’ve been hearing over and over in my mind lately “do you love me more than these?” and “if you love me, why aren’t you more excited to do things that please me?” I just get too caught up in the attitude that earth is eternal. I really need more discipline with reading my Bible and praying.

  5. When I hear about the fear of God…I can’t help thinking of these words from author Annie Dillard:
    Annie Dillard
    “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. ”

    ― Annie Dillard

  6. What I have learned is that while Jesus makes us righteous (2 Cor. 5:21), it is our responsibility to be holy. It is something we have to make an effort to live out each day. My pastor recently preached about this and said something simple that really impacted me. He said when it comes to holiness, in everything you do just ask yourself one simple question, “Does this exalt God?” (Ps. 99:9). Asking myself this question has stopped me from saying and doing some things I would have later regretted (nothing major but just little things I look back on and am so glad I stopped to ask myself would that action exalt God or not.) I think this goes hand in hand with having a healthy fear of God. I love what 2 Corinthians 7:1 says, “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”

  7. I think a lot of people may not understand what it means to have a healthy fear of the Lord. I know I was one of those people until very recently. Then this spring our Ladies Group at church began a new study on the character of the Proverbs 31 woman. What made her so worthy of praise was that she feared the Lord. I learned fear the Lord = living (each day) with a reverential submission to God. This definition has helped me understand so many Scriptures that I previously didn’t.

  8. As I SOAPed through this chapter today, I too was drawn to verse 17. However, it was the not the portion on fear that caught my attention. It was the part on how God judges each man’s work impartially.

    This is a freeing statement to me. That I do not need to compare my works to anyone else. So often I look at another woman/wife/mom and think I’m not doing enough. Not enough scripture memorized. Not enough pouring into my kids. Not enough time spent in prayer. I shouldn’t worry about how I might pale in comparison to someone else. This verse says that God judges each man’s work impartially. He takes all the factors into consideration and is fair. He knows my life circumstances and would never judge me according to what someone else has done. So why do I? Why do I feel like I’m in competition with other believers? The goal is simply to pursue holiness by living in a way that pleases the Lord. We each have our own purpose in the big God story. Our own journey toward sanctification.

    1. I too was drawn to that aspect of 1 Peter 1:17, Jodi. For me it’s the other end. I find myself upset w/the conduct others that are close to me. As if I am any better! I need to pray hard for god to give me a pure heart (1 Peter 1:22) and to love as He calls me to love. Even our perception of what it is to love someone is off most times. If I say I love this person but am judging them, am I really loving them? No.

  9. Satan certainly doesn’t want us to fear God. Also, a good percentage of ministers have watered down the gospel, it’s now become rather a trend to speak about God’s love instead of God’s Judgment of Sin, and how they’ve been trained as to not offend. Some ministers don’t even like to mention hell anymore either.

    In our church culture today, the emphasis of the gospel is so often ‘Jesus loves you!’ and ‘Come just as you are’ type of thing. Yes He loves us, He died on a cross for us, so we can have forgiveness of sins; but He doesn’t save us by His love, He saves us by His Grace – and He wants us to be changed into His Righteousness (not our own self-righteousness) to be like Him!

    The modern gospel way so often uses a model “sinners prayer” at the end of the service – people convicted of sinful lifestyles by the minister’s sermon are called on to repeat verbatim sentences on the lines of:

    “Jesus thank you for loving me. I am sorry for all of my sins. Thank you for dying for me. Come into my life today. Thank you for making me a Christian. Amen”

    IMO, this ‘altar call’ confession is too inadequate because it is just a global covering for all one’s sins, and is not specific – so the person may remain mostly unchanged (but believing they are totally changed and in right standing with God), and continues committing many of their former individual sins.

    All of this modern teaching can give a false message that a carnal ‘so-called’ christian can continue in certain areas of sin, and think it’s ok because the minister says “Hey, Jesus loves you, and He died for all your sins!” We must ask what does Jesus think of our lifestyles as professing christians – are we pleasing Him or upsetting Him; He is a person and has feelings. “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid” (Romans 6 vs 1-2).

    The bible says for us to be truly Born Again, we need – (1) To confess ALL of our sins to God, and then TOTALLY repent (turn) from them; (2) We then believe on The Lord Jesus Christ; (3) We are baptized in water, making a public declaration of our new Christian faith; and (4) We ask God to fill us with His Holy Spirit.

    We must also understand and be obedient to the fact that we must carry out daily (1) repentance and (4) being filled with the Holy Spirit. This is the only way we can be empowered to live effective christian lives. If we try to turn from sin in our own strength, we will fail every time because we are born with a sinful nature; only God’s Holy Spirit working through us can empower us to make the needed change to live a righteous life.

    So there are two natures at work in a christian – the sinful nature, and God’s righteous nature through His Holy Spirit (Romans 7).

    He is Holy, and when we think of how Good and Holy, and Righteous He is in the light of us thinking we’re good, we realize just how bad we really must be in His sight.

    God never lowers His standards for us when we come to Him, but He allows us to be Regenerated by His Holy Spirit, so that we can reach up and meet His Holy Standards.

    We must Fear God in every aspect of our lives. It’s wonderful how God can transform our lives here while on this earth so we can be ready and fit for the next life in heaven – where we will be totally perfect and free from sin. Amen!

    1. I LOVE this:

      God never lowers His standards for us when we come to Him, but He allows us to be Regenerated by His Holy Spirit, so that we can reach up and meet His Holy Standards.

      What a perfect way to put this thought, Emma, thank you! : )

  10. Most churches today are “ear ticklers”… Speaking of the fear of The Lord is not comfortable for non believers and they want people to be comfortable so they will show up in great numbers!

    I was drawn to verse 1 and 17 for different reasons… “…strangers in the world…” And “… Live your lives a strangers here…”

    I often do feel foreign.. This reminded me to keep being a stranger out of reverent fear for God so that glory may be brought to Him and my lost friends will be drawn to me. As humans We find outsiders baffling and interesting and we are drawn to them because they’re different than us. I need to embrace my foreign identity more and let them baffle at me, so that maybe one day their (probably judgmental interest lol) will turn into a true desire to know God.

  11. Oh Courtney…I love listening to you talk about God! I’m not sure if this is the same video you did on this topic that I saw before, but your passion and love are just so contagious! You make me want to experience God the way you are. Thank you so much for all that you do…it is a blessing to know you and learn from you.

  12. Week 2! Yay 🙂

    I think people who are going through trials and are not working on their relationship with Christ want us to not fear God. Misery loves company, right? It’s easier to turn a blind eye than it is to deal with reality most times. I think most people want to take the easy route and some just plain don’t believe in God.

    Weakness. That is why I think churches focus more on the love of God than the fear of God. To fear something or someone means you are showing a weakness/vulnerability. Somewhere along the line in human history weakness or vulnerability has obtained a negative perception. Even the church(es) seem to have fallen prey and victim to this perception in thinking they can catch more “flies with honey” than salt per se.

    I think that I need to speak about the Lord more this week in situations where I feel it would not be received well. My older brother was recently let go from his job and has had many life struggles that have caused him to turn away from the Lord. I long to be able to speak to him and give him encouragement from God’s word and my life testimony but am always afraid of angering my brother…not afraid of angering God. Huh. Seems I’m even victim to the easy way out. Lord, help me to be strong and not fear man but to fear your perception of me more than any other.

    I also gleaned a lot about how to deal with other relationships in my life where I am experiencing a distancing due to differences (acknowledged or not) in our belief in God and our conduct in daily life reflecting that belief. I’ve asked God to help me learn to love these people as he calls me but not act in compliance with the desires of my former ignorance (1 Peter 1:14). To be holy in every aspect of my conduct (1 Peter 1:15). To also remember that God is my and their judge…not me. It’s so hard. I’ve been leaning more on the side of acting in compliance with the desires of my former ignorance by not speaking up more often, bringing God into the conversation, not associating myself with unholy conduct (whether by “liking” posts on facebook or accompanying someone in an environment I am not comfortable in, etc.) and I want desperately to have the bravery and lack of concern for other’s perception of me to turn from this and do what I know is the truth and the light.

    Loving this study. God Bless all GMG!

  13. Being married to a non-believer, this message is especially difficult for me for two reasons:
    1) I’m more concerned with upsetting my husband, or making him uncomfortable, than I am with upsetting God; and
    2) I’m afraid for what will happen to him if he ever became seriously ill, or injured, or when he dies. I don’t want to force Christianity down his throat, because when we met (and up until recently) my lifestyle wasn’t aligned with Christ…and while I’m working on changing that, he’s staying the same.

    I know our God is a merciful, graceful Father. I’m learning to pray more on setting a good example, a true Christian example, for my husband and children. Maybe, just maybe, i can help turn my hubby towards Christ (and to Him be all the glory!!!)

    1. April, that is so hard! I also struggle with “obeying God through submitting to my husband”. Your post reminded me of this part in 1 Pet. 3:1-2
      “In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives
      as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.”

      I pray that my behavior is an encouragement to love God and seek Him more. It’s been really bad lately; I get resentful and disappointed and then speak harshly and with sarcasm to him. Whether or not it’s what is deserved, I know I shouldn’t be doing that and pray for the mercy and kindness of God to pour through my responses. He is faithful!

    2. April trust God. The verse Jess shared is spot-on. It is true. You can trust it. I’m praying for you now. 🙂 If you’d like message me on Facebook, feel free. I don’t want to get into anything long and drawn out here, but feel free if you want to get in touch privately.

      Blessings to you.

  14. I don’t know about everyone else, but this book makes me reread a whole lot more than the chapters in Esther! There are so many different things to digest.

    One thing that intrigued me was the word, “sober” as used in verse 13. In the Greek, it could be used to mean two different things: “to be calm and collected in spirit” or “to be temperate, dispassionate, circumspect”

    Either way, we’re getting the encouragement and instruction to not get over emotional when we’re in trials or going through difficulties. How? We’re women, right? By hoping in the grace that comes through the revelation of Jesus Christ.

    Through fear of Him, I’m reminded that Jesus is triumphant and has provided everything so that we can have peace.

    Love this book and love that we are studying His Word!

  15. Courtney, I love your video…I share your excitement about getting into the Word of God! “When we see the Lord Almighty as He is – we will not be able to keep away from the word – we will run to Him in the morning!” – Amen!

    Thank you so much for this uplifting and inspiring post!

    Walking in His Grace,

    Laurie
    Grace-Filled-Moments.blogspot.com

  16. Im so amazed at how 25 verses can speak to so many women from different lives. How awesome is our God to provide us His living word! There are so many hidden treasures in 1st Peter 1 the first that stands out to me is Peter himself he was an apostle of Christ yet he denied Him three times and Peter went back to his old life as a fishermen. Thats where the resurrected Christ found and restored Peter, which shows his understanding of struggling in various trials and what its like to fall into old habits. Verse 17 touched my heart today, God has no favorites and does not compare me to anyone else. When God judges what I have done in this body as a Christian it will be for my reward, that I get to lay at the feet of my savior. Healthy fear of God is important. God is Justice and Rightness, He is also Grace and Mercy. If we only look at justice /rightness we are only focus on a part of God same is true if our attention is to grace/mercy only. The full picture of God is Justice/Rightness + Grace/Mercy = LOVE as shown in the likeness of Jesus Christ

  17. I think religion in itself doesn’t necessarily want us to NOT fear God, but has forgotten to fear God. I had a discussion with my brother about last Christmas. He said God doesn’t want us to fear him. But it’s a different kind of fear, as you stated. Just like we fear our parents as kids….it’s a form of respect, and not wanting to dis-please Him.

    God bless!

  18. Amen! What a word. I thank you for the encouragement this has also allowed me to challenge those back sliding thoughts. Thank you woman of God

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