Meet Luke Friesen

This chunk of Romans 3 is pretty bleak—every human being is totally depraved by nature. This doesn’t mean that everyone is as bad as they possibly could be, but rather that sin has affected every part of us, so there’s no hope for healing our brokenness apart from God. There’s some good news coming a bit later, but we’re not there yet.

Our total depravity affects, among other things, our speech and actions. Our words will be bitter and venomous (verses 13-14), and our actions will lead to ruin (verse 16). Verse 18 sums it up: “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

What exactly is "the fear of the Lord"? As I write this devo, we’re starting week 1 of Watermark's fall Summit men’s Bible study of Proverbs. The topic for our first week is the fear of the Lord. A great definition for this is, "an affectionate reverence for God that results in humble obedience to His will." It’s a deep realization, as our pastor Todd Wagner says, that God’s wrath is awful and that God’s way is awesome. God is a compassionate and gracious Father who is abounding in love (Psalm 103:8), and He’s also a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29). A healthy fear of the Lord acknowledges and responds to both truths.

So, how do we fear God? One aspect of this comes from Proverbs 8:13, which says that to fear the Lord is to hate evil. Examples of evil from this verse include pride, arrogance, evil behavior, and perverse speech. Sound like today’s passage?

There was a time when I didn’t fear God, and it peaked in my early 20s. I was trusting in my “Christian resume” and pretended to have it all together while secretly struggling with anger and pornography. You can read more about that in this Porch blog post if you like. I’m grateful that God rescued me from those dark days. His tools were confession, repentance, and community, which are freely available to anyone and result in refreshment, restoration, and encouragement (Acts 3:19-20; Hebrews 3:13). Will you use them?