"If our eye is SINGLE, our whole body will be full of light!" How then can our eye become single? I believe the answer can be discovered in what the wicked DO NOT have - "There is NO fear of God before their eyes." Without the fear of God being the filter through which every matter is considered, men can only do - "what is right in their own eyes." We know that "there is a way that seems right to a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death." Thus, the deceitfulness of sin renders every man utterly incapable of knowing and doing what is right.
Since only God perfectly knows and does what is right, He Himself must provide men His own ability to see and know as He does. Thankfully, God has richly provided His own grace so that men can receive from Him the full knowledge of what is right in HIS eyes! This AMAZING GRACE is "The Fear of the Lord!" Without this grace, no man can ever know God's wisdom! The Fear of the Lord is what "generates" wisdom. Only the Fear of the Lord causes men to seek to know what God thinks and cares about every matter - Holiness can only be perfected IN THE FEAR OF THE LORD.
This is what set men like Noah and Job apart - they feared the Lord; but, the most perfect example of a man who feared the Lord was and is our Lord Jesus. The Spirit of the Lord that was upon Him was "the Spirit of the fear of the Lord". Isaiah prophesied - "And He will DELIGHT IN the Fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what He sees with His eyes, or hears with His ears, but with righteousness He will make decisions..."
It was Jesus' delight in the Fear of the Lord that enabled Him to say only what the Father said, and to do only what He saw the Father doing - NOT merely what seemed right to Him.
Jesus was PERFECT in this GRACE of the Fear of the Lord! The only way you and I can have the Fear of God continually before our eyes, and make our eye single, is to receive the fullness of this gracious Fear of the Lord from Jesus - "and of His fullness, we have all received grace for grace." The GRACE to Fear the Lord comes to us as the Holy Spirit takes this grace filled fear that Jesus delighted in and makes it known to us. Thus the promise of God's New Covenant that Jeremiah spoke of are fulfilled -"I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me."
The grace of God that brings salvation is this Fear of God filling our hearts by the Holy Spirit. This grace empowering godly fear teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. The GRACE of "fearing the Lord" becomes a "fountain of life turning men away from the snares of death." Let's rejoice in this AMAZING GRACE and boldly preach the everlasting gospel being proclaimed in heaven - "FEAR GOD and give Him glory."
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