This is Part 1 of a 5-part series on understanding the fear of the Lord.
Read Part 2 | Read Part 3 | Read Part 4 | Read Part 5
You open your Bible and read “fear the Lord” again. Your stomach tightens. You picture an angry judge waiting for you to mess up. That mental image keeps you at arm’s length from the relationship Jesus died to give you.
This understanding is completely wrong.
The “fear of the Lord” throughout Scripture isn’t about cowering in terror. It’s something entirely different. Something that draws you closer to God instead of pushing you away. This truth reshapes everything about how you relate to God moment by moment.
Where Real Wisdom Begins
Proverbs lays out a foundational truth:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. (Proverbs 9:10)
Look at that word “beginning.” This isn’t your destination. It’s your starting point. Without grasping what it truly means to fear God, you build your relationship with Him on unstable ground.
Many believers skip past verses like this. They create discomfort. The question arises: why would God want you afraid of Him if He’s your loving Father? The question itself reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what Scripture means by “fear.”
Two Fears That Change Everything
Christians throughout history understood this concept in ways that transform how you approach God. Believers like Thomas Aquinas identified two completely different types of fear in Scripture.
These are called servile fear and filial fear.
This distinction changes everything about how you relate to God daily.
Servile fear is terror. It’s what a slave feels toward a brutal master. You obey because you’re scared of punishment. You do what you’re told because the alternative is pain. No love exists here. No relationship. Just raw survival instinct.
Filial fear comes from the Latin word for “son” or “daughter.” This is reverent respect a child has for a parent they deeply love and admire. You don’t want to disappoint them, not because consequences scare you, but because you value the relationship too much to damage it.
Picture a young child who cleans his room only because Dad threatened to take away video games. That’s servile fear.
Now picture a teenager who works hard in school because she knows her parents sacrificed everything to give her opportunities. She wants to honor that sacrifice. Same obedience.
Completely different motivation. One flows from terror of punishment. The other from love and respect.
Why This Matters Right Now
Many believers operate their relationship with God on servile fear. They read the Bible because guilt surfaces when they don’t. They pray because worry builds that God will be angry if they skip it. They try obeying His commands because consequences terrify them.
This produces exhaustion. Resentment. Distance. (And it’s called living under the law which is the opposite of the Grace that Jesus bought for us on the Cross.)
You do all the “right” Christian things. Your heart isn’t in it. You feel like you constantly walk on eggshells, trying not to anger God. Prayer feels like reporting to a demanding boss. Bible reading becomes a checklist item instead of conversation with someone you love.
That’s what servile fear produces. You might look good externally, going through all the motions. Inside, you’re dying. You’re not growing closer to Jesus. You’re just trying not to get zapped.
Filial fear operates differently. When you grasp that God isn’t a cosmic tyrant waiting to punish you, but a perfect Father who already dealt with your sin through Jesus, everything shifts. You start wanting to please Him because His love overwhelms you, not because His power paralyzes you.
The Foundation Matters
Your understanding of “fear God” shapes your entire spiritual life. Get it wrong, and you end up with a cold, distant, performance-based relationship with the Creator of the universe. Get it right, and you discover the intimacy and power available through the New Covenant.
Most struggles in walking with Christ trace back to operating from the wrong kind of fear. When servile fear motivates you, anxiety rules. Did you pray enough? Did you witness to that person? Are you doing enough to earn God’s approval? It’s exhausting. It completely misses the point of grace.
When you walk in filial fear, everything changes. You want to spend time in God’s Word because you’re getting to know Him better. You want to pray because you’re talking to someone who cares about every detail of your life. You want to obey His commands because you trust He knows what’s best for you, not because punishment scares you.
How Servile Fear Takes Root
Servile fear is tricky because it masquerades as genuine faith. You can attend church every week, serve on committees, memorize Scripture, and still operate primarily from terror instead of love.
Servile fear often grows from wrong teaching about God’s character. Maybe you heard more about hell than heaven growing up. Maybe every sermon focused on what you needed to stop doing instead of who God is. Maybe the Christians around you seemed more concerned with rules than relationship.
Or you projected earthly father issues onto your Heavenly Father. If your dad was harsh, distant, or impossible to please, you easily assume God is the same way, only bigger and scarier.
Scripture reveals something different through Jesus. Yes, God is holy. Yes, He’s just. Yes, He hates sin.
But He’s also the Father who runs toward the prodigal son while he’s still far off. He’s the shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to find the one that’s lost. He’s the God who loved you so much He became human and died in your place.
Questions Worth Wrestling With
When you obey God, what really motivates you? When you feel convicted about sin, is it the Holy Spirit drawing you back to relationship, or just guilt and fear of consequences? When you think about standing before God someday, do you picture a reunion with someone you love, or a courtroom where you’re on trial?
These questions aren’t easy. They require brutal honesty about what’s actually happening in your heart. But they’re essential if you want to move from servile fear to filial fear, from religious obligation to genuine relationship.
God meets you wherever you are. If you’re stuck in servile fear right now, He’s not condemning you. He wants to walk you into something better. He wants you to experience the kind of fear that draws you close instead of pushing you away.
What This Means for Your Walk
Your entire relationship with God can shift from duty to delight. “Fearing God” can mean something that makes you run toward Him instead of away from Him. The very concept that’s been keeping you at a distance might actually be the key to the intimacy you’ve been craving.
This truth changes everything about how you pray, how you read Scripture, how you experience God’s presence in daily life. It transforms moment-by-moment relationship with Jesus Christ from theoretical concept to living reality.
In Part 2, this series will explore what servile fear actually looks like in daily life. How it shows up in your thoughts, your prayers, your Bible reading, your relationships. You can’t fight what you can’t identify, and servile fear is sneaky.
Until then, sit with this question: What would change in your walk with Christ if you understood that holy fear is meant to draw you into intimacy, not drive you into hiding? What if the very thing you’ve been running from is actually the doorway to the living, active relationship with Jesus that God designed you to experience?
Walking through that doorway transforms how you access the power and presence God has already provided through the New Covenant. This isn’t just theological information. It’s living truth that changes how you experience God right now, in this moment.