God is present at all times, but how does God’s omnipotence impact us? Do we live in recognition or denial of this fact? Joel Beeke explains that the fear of God should provoke a feeling of terror and fear but also one of security and comfort, for God promises that all things work together for good. Unfortunately, America as a nation has lost her fear of God because we as individuals have no fear of God. Cultivating a fear of God is something that needs to begin on the individual level and only then can families and churches be impacted. Psalm 111:10 (NKJV) – “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments. His praise endures forever.”

When you really have the fear of God inside of you, you feel like God is present all the time. His eye is on you, and that provokes two things in you. It provokes a sense of fear and dread and terror in some ways because God is great, God is majestic. But if you know Jesus, it also provokes in you a sense of security and comfort because you know that everything is going to work together for good. So one of the stories I like to tell them is about this mother who gave a whole box of cookies to two little girls and said to them, now carry these to grandma but make sure you make sure you don't tell anybody along the way or take one along the way and so the girls are silently carrying the cookies to grab them down the street and one girl looks at the other one and says I'm getting kind of hungry and the other girl says well we got cookies the first girl says, we're not supposed to eat any.

And the second girl says, but no one's here. So the first girl sits down at the cookies and opens the lid and suddenly her sister says, wait, someone is here. No, where? Where? She says, she looks around and, God?

God is here. They put the lid back on and they carry the cookies to the ground and they don't dare touch one of them. And I think that's what that consciousness of the fear of God is what we've lost as a nation, what we've lost as churches, what we've lost as families all across this land because we've lost it as individuals.