"And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear;
knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."
~1 Peter 1:17-19
Something I am super thankful for is that I serve a fair and just God. He can't be bribed nor does He play favorites. I don't have to worry that He will ignore me in favor of someone else, even if I am less deserving than others. He will always be there for me. He will always be there for you too.
However, God is a Judge and it is His right and terrible privilege to fill that role. Thankfully, He strives to save each one of us. To show that we chose Him in our hearts.
Still, as Judge, He has to show in court that we did choose Him or else He can't help us. Those who rejected God's gift of eternal life show this by how they live their lives. I'm not saying that they lived perfect or imperfect lives. We are human in a sinful world. We are going to mess up. It is what we do when we mess up, our actions, that show which side we are on. David in the Bible did all kinds of things. He killed one of his closest friends after all over a woman. Still, David ran back to God time and time again. How do you live your life? Do you run back to God when you mess up or do you try to justify/reason away your actions? Or perhaps you do what Judas did, realize you messed up and then don't turn to God.
While living on earth, if you love God then you will live your daily life as His child. People should see Him in you. While I was student teaching, I was really tired and worn out. One day while planning a lesson, I misread the textbook pretty badly. So the lesson I taught was not even close to accurate and my students were very confused. The next class period, I had figured out where I had gone wrong. I had several choices. As the teacher, I could always ignore what happened and no one would say anything about it. However I had chosen to own up to my mistake and apologize to the class. What made following through on this harder was my supervising professor decided to visit that day. I chose to, despite his presence, apologize. I thought he would dock me for my mistake and was prepared to accept it. I received bonus points for it instead and he commented on the evaluation sheet that this was the Christian attitude he was looking for in his student teachers.
So in your daily life, you do your best. When you mess up, own up to it and accept what comes from others when you do. You will experience condemnation, anger, and frustration. Just take it. It will pass. You will also experience small blessings such as I did with my supervising professor. Take it as encouragement to not give up and keep going.
Now you don't have to be afraid of God in the sense of being panicked and fearful that you are going to get betrayed or hurt in some horrible way. At the end of verse 17, the word "fear" can be translated also as "reverance," "awe," and "respect." This is a positive fear.
For example, when I was a little girl, I really looked up to my uncles. I still do. But as a child, I really, really looked up to them in that awe-inspired way. There was nothing they couldn't do. My eldest uncle was super smart and seemed to always know what was happening around the farm before anyone else did. I thought he had telepathic abilities because when someone came, he knew before anyone else. My youngest uncle could beat anyone at games. I remember dreaming of the day I was an adult and could take him on in Othello or Sorry. The third uncle is a genius at creating things. Watching him set up a potato canon one evening and shooting with perfect aim at the grain bins across the road filled me with pride that I was related to him. I admired them and couldn't imagine having more wonderful uncles than them. Yet it was a very respectful admiration. I didn't go and try to get them form mud pies with me after a rain. I respected them enough to give them a sort of space. It is the reason we don't treat God, the Bible, or the Church casually. We respect them.
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