“But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.” Malachi 4:2 (NIV)
Revering God is a mandate from heaven. We esteem God and revere Him by living life His way. Let’s examine a few steps to revering God.
Step 1: Express your love to God in worship privately and publicly. “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name'” (Matt. 6:9 NIV). Honor God’s Name as you commune with Him daily through your daily quiet time. Your private worship is a sacred time of expressing your love to God. Bring your private worship with you to the corporate experience of worship in your local church. Your public worship is a witness.
Step 2: Maintain character and integrity. “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (Jas. 1:27 NIV). Stay close and clean as you cling to God and His Word. Let the character of Christ be formed in you and be a person of integrity.
Step 3: Align practically with who you are positionally. “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Phil. 2:12-13 NIV). You are chosen, redeemed, forgiven, included, and sealed. Now work out what God has worked in.
Step 4: Hate what God hates and love what God loves. Read Proverbs 6:16-19 and uncover what God hates. Revere God by investing your life in hating what God hates and loving what God loves.
Pursuing God,
Stephen Trammell
Executive Pastor
Follow me on twitter at: http://twitter.com/stephentrammell