How do Christians know if they have a fear of God? Paul Thompson explains that Christians who have a fear of God often have a desire to gather together with fellow Christians, to harvest truths from reading the Scriptures, and demonstrate a willingness to repent of sins. The better we know who God is, who is without sin, the better we can identify those root sins that cause hardness of heart. A fear of God will result in Christians striving to get to the “root sins” in their lives that prevent them from pursuing holiness with all of their being. Ephesians 4:22-24 (NKJV) – “Put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”

I think it would be their desire to want to know God more, their desire to want to read the Bible for the sake of knowing who God is. I think it would show up in their desire to want to gather with other believers. I think it shows up not just in a common moralistic manner, but it would show up in his life essentially as a continual perpetual repenter. It's almost as though the more I become aware of God and the more I repent of sins in my life, the more I see that there's deeper sins. These are just surface sins.

There's root sins that are at the core. They're at the very core that's producing all these other sins. So the closer I get into knowing who God is the closer I get to knowing what's the really at the root of all of the things that caused me to behave arrogant before God. Can you imagine any of us thinking in our minds when we get to know who God is that we would still have arrogance and pride in us selfishness and unbelief that crowds in And just wants to take over of our lives markers of an increasing acknowledgement of the fear of God gets us closer to the root of the problems in our lives and the sins that keep us behaving arrogantly and selfishly and unbelieving of God in our behavior toward Him. A marker in that respect is not a, I gotta keep a list of things and make sure that I've got all these things checked off and that I've repented of all of these things, But it's in this relational position that I want to get to that which keeps me from God.

I don't want to just always keep clearing off the top surface of everything and then never getting really to the core of those things that keep me from loving God, that keep me from obeying God, that keep me from passionately pursuing Him with all of my heart, with all of my soul, with all of my strength, with all of my mind. You