Paul Washer answers the question, what keeps us from the fear of God? There is no secret. We simply need to saturate our lives in the scripture, to pray, and to be involved in a community of faith where the Word of God is proclaimed and a vision of God is central.  Paul Washer says that in his personal life, "The ancients," the reformers, and Puritans have been a great help in gaining a more exalted vision of God.

Okay, you know, what are the things that I see in others that keep them from growing in the fear of the Lord? In order to answer that question, I just have to look in the mirror. I know they're probably doing the same things that I'm doing. Listen, in sanctification, in growing in conformity to Christ, in gaining all these excellent virtues that we all desire to have, it's not really a mystery. What do we need to do?

We need to literally saturate our lives in the scriptures. We need to pray. We need to be in a community of faith where people are like minded with the same pursuit of God and the same pursuit of God through scripture and prayer. We need to be in a place where the word of God is being proclaimed with intensity and where the preacher is constantly drawing us back to this. You must know more about God.

You must know Him in a greater way. You must seek Him. It is simply seeking the Lord. It's cultivating a biblical mindset through the saturation of scripture. You know, People are always asking me for some kind of, I don't know, a secret somewhere to growing in the fear of the Lord or being conformed to Christ.

It's just not there. It is simply studying the scriptures and being with Christians of the same mind, listening to sermons of men who intensely love God and realize that the people of God need God. Another thing that I could heartily recommend is this. I have over the last many, many years, I have spent a great deal of my time studying those whom I call the ancients, everything from some of the early church fathers, but mostly the reformers and the Puritans and the wealth of intimate knowledge that they had of God, the wealth of what they wrote on scripture, what they brought out, the great truths that are there has helped me greatly to have a different picture of God than my own generation seeks to portray.