Hallelujah, hallelujah! In the house of the Lord, we’re excited! I feel the spirit of excitement in this place for what God is going to do. Today we’re gonna hear from the Lord. He has so much for us this day, and I know that you guys are expecting it as much as I am, so praise God. I wanna open up today and I wanna talk a little bit about my dad. For some of you, you may not really know it, but he was actually quite the quiet type when we were growing up. He was what you would consider maybe a silent guy; but even if he didn’t have a lot to say, his presence was known. I remember being in fifth grade I was getting ready for the Barnegat rec center dance, had my platform sneakers on my wide legged jeans. I was ready to go, but the only problem was my dad was gonna be a chaperone! So, I’m there with my friends, were having a good time, but I knew somewhere my dad was in there watching my every move. I really remember being there and I couldn’t physically see him in the room. And I don’t know if it was the dim lights, the strobe lights, or the smoke machine, I’m not sure what it was, but I knew somewhere my dad was watching me and I couldn’t even see him! Needless to say, you could imagine I was on my best behavior.

Growing up really nothing changed, my dad was still quiet, and just when you thought you were getting away with something, there behind me you’d hear a quick and pretty harsh, “Hey!” At that time, I knew I didn’t have to talk, I didn’t have to conversate, I didn’t have to fight with my dad. I knew his simple, “Hey!”, and what that meant. It meant cut it out, you better knock it off, change what you’re talking about. So, I just hung my head low, knowing that my plans had been foiled, right? The fathers discipline! If you haven’t figured it out today, just as my mom was speaking (she doesn’t know the topic) but it really is about the fear of the Lord in the house of God this day.

It is so much like the discipline in a home with a child. The child really understands that they must fear, respect, have awe, have understanding for their parents and the rules that go on in the house. This is not new. When you have it instilled in you at an early age, it is easier to then go and have that for the Lord, have that respect for Him, that awe, that you’re not gonna go your own way. You’re not gonna do your own thing. But I have good news for you. Today if you are fatherless, today if you haven’t received that discipline, God is willing to do that for all of the children in the house of God this day. He will be the Lord, and He will be able to guide you all of the days of your life.

Now discipline is the way that a parent will show love to a child. My son knows that he cannot do whatever he wants. He cannot get away with taking something out, or leaving the house, or going and doing whatever. He has to ask, and if he doesn’t there are going to be consequences. It is the same for us as Christians; We must receive obedience from the Father. We must ask Him the way that we are going to go. We must ask Him for the decisions that we’re gonna make each and every day. May the fear of God come back into the house of the Lord, that many sons, many daughters, many children of the Lord would rise up this day! The world really tries to impose its ways in the house of God. Don’t get me wrong, people of the world can live any way they want to. They don’t have to ask God-they can go anywhere, they can do anything, they can do as they please. But I believe that there are some in this room this day that are tired of going their own way. They have seen the consequences. They have seen what it has reaped them. It is the Father’s watchful eye that the house is in desire for this day. We want the discipline of the Lord to come and show us the right way to live. That we may no longer be bogged down by sin, but that we may live in freedom and righteousness before the Lord our God, who has loved us and who has called him to Himself.

People are entitled to live anyway they want, but it’s when they try to bring it into the house of God that it becomes a problem, because the Father is gonna not allow it in His home. The pride, the arrogance, the disobedience, the greed, the selfishness, all of these things have no part in the house of the Lord. We are learning every single day through the power of the Holy Spirit to become sons of God. It is the process of sanctification where you are deciding with God to be changed, to be renewed, to judge your actions, to judge your thoughts in the sight of your Father. We’ve been talking so much recently about what true sons are, and the Lord is calling His sons to Himself. He will discipline those He loves. Speaking from experience, I know that He is going to win. If you are truly a child of God, chosen of the Lord, it is going to be that Jonah experience. Nineveh or Nineveh. We don’t have a chance or choice in the matter. It is the hard way or go the easy way, but you are going. Amen, hallelujah! The Father will get His way in the house.

Our heavenly Father is really able to tell us a stern no if you are listening. If your ear is just cocked over to the Lord to hear His voice, the Holy Spirit will give you that “no”; not because He wants to hurt you, not because He wants to make your life impossible, but because He loves you. Because He wants to bring you into obedience. To come and take you into the fear of God, and bring you into the confidence of the one who has loved you, hallelujah! So today, we are going to be talking about that fear of the Lord, and the blessings that it brings for the Christian.

So we open up our Bible to our first verse - Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse 13. My husband, if you remember, had this verse in his sermon last week. We all love the book of Ecclesiastes because it is so blunt, it is to the point, “Everything is meaningless”, if you know what I mean! The verse is - “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter…”, so when all is said and done, what have we gotta do as Christians, “fear God and keep His commands, this is the duty of all mankind.” There’s not really anything convoluted or confusing in the word here - fear God. Fear the Lord this day. The church has to come back to the tenants of Christianity. We must know what God is calling for the church this day, and not allow the world to define our faith any longer. Search intently into the scriptures and see what God is calling for you and your house this day! To fear the Lord! It is not about being afraid, it is not having a fear of the Lord where you can’t run to Him, but it is having respect and awe, and allowing the fear of God to change and impact all of our decisions on a daily basis. Amen, that is the definition of fear.

You must carry it with you everywhere you go. The fear of the Lord guides you, just as my father‘s eyes were on me, and I knew that I couldn’t act up-I couldn’t go my own way, I couldn’t do my own thing, I couldn’t say things that I wanted to say, because my father was in the house. The Father‘s eyes search intently, even in this place today. To see those who would fear Him, who would honor His name, and who would say, “That’s my heavenly Father, and my life is a reflection of that.” The church has missed it in so many ways. Instead of fearing God, what have we chosen to fear? We have chosen to fear the world. Threats to conform, to be like everybody else, not wanting to be separate, not wanting to be sanctified. This is what Pastor Janet was talking about during worship today. She’s calling it, “Not compromising.” It’s the same thing. We have feared following the ways of the Lord.

Even in our own house we have not been able to maintain a standard, because we have had fear of what the threats of this world were telling you were gonna happen - even with your children. We have not been able to speak the standard of the word of God in our homes because we had fear about relationships. Somewhere in that way, the world or Satan told you that that relationship was gonna die, but what has been the result of fearing the world and the threats of Satan? More disunity. More fighting. More corruption in the home. The standard has been lost. We must not fear the threats of the enemy, but we must fear God - and fear God alone!

When we fear the world, we’re fearing everything that God is putting inside of our heart, and it makes us sin even against our own consciousness of right and wrong. Every single person in this room has a sense of right and wrong, but if you choose to come out of the world this day, and choose to fear God, you will choose the path of eternal life, hallelujah! Let the church no longer think about what others think of you. It doesn’t matter what your friends are doing. It doesn’t matter the way that your coworkers are living their life. Don’t look to the right, don’t look to the left. Look to your heavenly father, who will show you the way!

“How much does fear of the world dictate your Christian walk?”

How much does fear of the world dictate your Christian walk? How much does it keep you back, and hold you back from the promises and the walk that God has for you? This day, what would your walk look like if you lose the fear of the world and come into the fear of God? For His word- The fear of the Lord- empowers you, it uplifts you, it enables you to do the works that were impossible for you to do otherwise! You’re not being held back by peoples’ eyes, or their opinion of you anymore. It doesn’t matter what they think! It’s actually the fear of the world that is crushing, debilitating, holding us down. It's restrictive and confining upon the Christian, and it holds us back from walking in our destiny. You see, the fear of the Lord is the guardrail that we all need in our life. It is the safeguard of Jesus; that He comes in and puts you on a path of eternal life this day! The path that we all need.

We know what those guardrails are there for on the road; They protect you from going off. At any time - In the night if you slipped off the road in your car - you want them to be there. Today, we say that the fear of the Lord is not something to run away from, church. It is something to embrace upon your life. It is the guardrail to your life - that you would remain on the path to eternity. The path of righteousness. Receive the fear of God today. See it in your life - your great need for His law and for His fear. Now, we just finished the 10 days of awe; It's a holiday that the Jews believe in, but I want to tell you that they call it the days of fear. And in those days, they take the time to repent for all the things that they had done in the past year, and it would prepare them for Yom Kippur - the day of judgment. But I tell you that we are in preparation for the final day of judgment, when God will separate those who feared Him versus those who only feared the world! Those who have chosen to fear God will be with Him for all of eternity, and nothing will separate us from the Lord!

So we look today about what the blessings are from God, and we first see that one of them is wisdom from God. We open up our Bibles to Proverbs 9:10 - and it’s on the board if you just wanna follow with me. It says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” This is one of the most popular verses in the Bible, but so many times it is misconstrued and misunderstood. Christianity 101 - fear the Lord, your God. I want to tell you, you don’t know anything in this world - you know nothing - unless you know the first thing in life, that God is to be feared! It doesn’t matter the degrees, the college, the instruction that you have received. If you don’t know this, then you do not know the most basic fundamental truth of life. Your whole life is built upon this foundation. Fear God. Fear the Lord, for He is worthy to be feared. We understand that He is the creator, and you are the creation. We say it together, let’s go ahead and say it, “God is the creator, and I am the creation.”

This is really what we need to understand today. What does that mean to us? What are we understanding from that truth? That you are subject to the Lord. That He is in charge. Even as you sit in these seats this day, the Lord is orchestrating His plan for the whole world. God is always moving. He’s always churning. He’s always doing something. We know that God is in control. God is in charge of our lives, and I gladly put my life into His hands, because God will do a much better job with my life than whatever I could ever do or imagine. That’s wisdom. That’s being smart. That’s intelligence. So let us throw out what we have thought that we have known. Every false building block that we have built our life with, we throw it away, and you start with the very first one - fear God. For this is the beginning of all wisdom.

We mistakenly think - we walk around sometimes forgetting that God knows our thoughts. We think that He does not know the true motives of our heart. Even as we sit here today, sometimes we think we’re getting away with something in front of God. Why do people think that? They think that because they don’t get struck by lightning, and so we think, “Oh, God isn’t doing anything. I’m never gonna get caught.” But the reality is people are mistaken. When they mistake the Lord’s kindness and forbearance for weakness.

Romans 2:4 says, “Or do you show contempt for the riches of kindness, forbearance, and patience, not realizing that God‘s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” He’s waiting for you to turn to Him, that you would not receive the ultimate judgment from God. Every man will stand before the Lord and give an account for the things that they have done and for the things that they have thought - that they hadn’t even spoken out loud! God knows what is done in secret. He knows what is done in the hidden places of our heart. He will judge everyone for what has been done in those places. He has been kind to us, and His forbearance to not have judgment against the world has been for your goodness. Do not test the Lord your God this day! Do not test Him by remaining in sin, but this day choose to revere the Lord and fear Him with all of your might. This is the command of God this day - fear the Lord! Walk in obedience to Him! Obey His commands! Write them on the doorposts of your house! Write them on your forehead, carry them on your wrist - everywhere that you go!

There’s gotta be a lifestyle change, and that change may be difficult, and at first you may feel like you’re going through the motions of something you may not quite understand. But before long, God will pick you up and meet you. He will meet you where you are at and He will see how you’re choosing to honor Him. He will come and He will help you to maintain. He will help you to keep from sin. Sin is not going to remain in the house of God - It will not be tolerated for the sons of God. In the same way that it was not acceptable for me to have irreverence and disobedience in my own house, neither will it be tolerated in the house of God. I knew that I could not continue in my own ways. I knew it. I knew that I would have to get a hotel room and leave because it wasn’t going to be acceptable. And that was me as a child! Let us get this first bit of wisdom this day; It is unacceptable in the house of God - and this is wisdom for the church this day. The wisdom of the Lord is the internal compass that shows you the way that you should go. To the right or to the left, God will never allow you to go astray. It helps you to make the decisions of life, to avoid the pitfalls that are set up for you - the traps. God will show you where they are and He will make sure that you do not fall into sin, but that you are made in righteousness, so that you can stay close with God.

“Nothing will teach you how to gain righteousness, except the fear of the Lord”

The fear of the Lord makes us sober minded. I want to talk about this because this is opposite of the world. They do things and they think about the consequences later. They do their running themselves - by impulse and emotions. They buy the car now, and then think about whether or not they have enough money to pay for it later. They engage in a relationship with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, thinking, “this is what I wanna do” but think about later whether or not that was actually the good thing for them to do. What I say to you this day is that the fear of the Lord makes us sober minded about the consequences of our actions. We are able to see them all the way through to the end. We think about our lives in terms of eternity. That is what God has for us this day. School does not teach you that kind of intelligence. College does not teach you how to weigh the motives of your heart. Nothing will teach you how to gain righteousness, except the fear of the Lord.

Wisdom is better. Wisdom of the Lord is better. When we choose our own wisdom, we know that we are limited by our flesh. When we use our eyes, you cannot see what is done in darkness. When you use your own ears, you cannot hear the plot against your life and those things that are done in secret. When you use your intelligence you are limited by what you don’t know. But this day I ask you to take on the fear of the Lord - that you would receive the wisdom that comes from God. That you would know all things, that you would know righteousness, and that God would deliver you this day. God is a spirit. This world is full of spirits. It is full of unclean spirits; The spirit of disobedience, the spirit of anger, the spirit of unforgiveness, the spirit of addiction. All of those spirits all over the world. This day I say to you, take the one true spirit! The Spirit of God - He is one and He is wisdom for you this day!

He will be that judge of character for you and lead you in the right direction. He will shine light on the way that you should go. 1 Corinthians 2:15 says, “The spiritual man makes judgments about all things.” And this day we know that we have decisions to make all the time. I read a magazine article once and it talked about decision-fatigue. I think I have decision-fatigue! Just constantly trying to make decisions about all things; What are you gonna spend your money on? Where are you gonna go to school? Where are you gonna invest your time? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna say? All day, we have decisions to make - Who here requires the wisdom of the Lord to lead you in the way that you should go? Do whatever you can to gain wisdom. For she is far greater than rubies - nothing compares to her worth this day! And I tell you, the man who fears God receives the spirit of God, and that spirit is the spirit of wisdom this day, hallelujah! We will not be limited by the weaknesses of our flesh but we will have the insight that only God can give, amen.

So, we see that the fear of the Lord brings wisdom, but it also brings protection. This verse is Psalm 33:16-19. My husband opened up this morning with Psalm 33, and he didn’t know this. We can see that God is speaking the same message over for us. He’s really wanting us to receive. So, “No king is the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.” Now the writer of the story is David, and we remember his story because he spent years on the run. Running from people who wanted to attack him and take his life from him. We remember King Saul came after him with an army of thousands. Saul did not fear God; He did not respect the fact that the Lord had chosen David to be the sovereign ruler over Israel. He came at him with guns blazing. He came at him with all of his effort, his army, his chariot, his riches, his power, and his influence. But I have news for you this day - That with all of that effort, it could not remove the hand of protection on David. It was nothing compared to the protection that God was giving him. The horses, the chariots, the guns, whatever may come, The water may rise, the fires may come, and you will not be plucked from the Lord's hand! For He will send His angels concerning you, and you will not strike your foot against the stone!

David, we know, had an opportunity to even strike Saul down. In that moment he thought about it, he was being encouraged by his other mighty men - “Do it! This is your opportunity! Go ahead and kill him!” But David said, “I will not touch God‘s anointed.” Because he feared God more than he feared Saul! So the Lord delivered him. He blessed him and blessed his generations. To David’s reign there would be no end, hallelujah. We want the Lord to be our defender this day.

Verse 18 says, “But the eyes of the Lord on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love.” What does that mean? It means nothing escapes God‘s vision in your life. Everything that you go through - even the things that are to come - God already sees them. There is nothing about your life that God is not aware of. He gives a hedge of protection around you, before you, behind you, all around you. When you fear God, He will be there awake in the night keeping vigil over you to keep you safe from Satan’s arrows. This day we do not trust in horses and chariots, in worldly institutions, our 401(k) , our savings accounts, our degrees, the things that we know - We do not trust in those things. Ask those who went through the hurricanes if the 401(k) or the savings account was that which they called upon when the winds and the waters came. It is the Lord that we call upon and our day of trouble!

The fear of the Lord brings their help in these impossible situations, from the turmoil of this world and from the pitfalls that Satan lays out for you. Satan is tricky where he tries to catch us in our sins based on our past and based on our history. He knows what we used to do all of the time, our same patterns of where we used to follow away from the Lord. He digs these pitfalls for you to fall in. For those who fear the Lord, the Lord will reveal to you every trick, every pitfall, every hole, every trap that Satan has tried to get you to fall in and you will remain in the righteousness of God - Free from sin! Free from the chains of the bondages that come from the things that once held us down in our past, To be able to shake your foot out of the trap that Satan thought he was gonna catch you in again. No more! No more will we fall for those same traps because God is on our side. Seek the Lord this day while He may be found, and when the trouble comes He will answer you when you call Him, hallelujah! Think of the wise builder this day. The Bible says the rains descended upon the house, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon the house - but it did not fall, for it was founded upon the rock. And I ask you this day, when the waters and the wind come, will your house remain? Will your faith remain? Will your family be able to cling onto the Lord - Him who is our only hope this day?

Fear the Lord and center your life around Him so that when the day of calamity comes you will be safe, amen. Now the Lord warns the church about the end times - when the times are growing darker. Satan will try to come and be released from his bondage. He will come after the saints of God. He will come with his fiery arrows, and he will bring lies, and he will speak against the Saints. But they will defeat him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, hallelujah. God turns back every arrow and sends them back where they came from. Every lie said against you, Every false word that is spoken against you - Every plot on your life has no place to land when you choose to fear the Lord, every single lie will be turned back, and every fiery arrow will be extinguished, hallelujah!

So we seek His wisdom - we seek His protection - because He will deliver us from death and protect us when the famine comes. We will be protected by the Lord. So we see today that the fear of God brings wisdom, it brings protection, and finally, it brings blessing to the Christian. I gotta be honest with you, I got caught up with this last point throughout the whole week because I couldn’t narrow it down to just choose a few. I really, really struggled, “God, which of the blessings of the fear of the Lord should I share with the church?” Because there are so many! I’ll share a few with you this day, but I want to tell you that was my biggest trouble this week! I couldn’t stop writing it down, and the pages were getting too long. But the blessings of the Lord come to those who were willing to put Him ahead of themselves. No compromise, No compromise, No compromise! Hallelujah, no compromise.

So we turn to our final verse; Psalm 34, verses 9-11, “Fear the Lord, you His holy people, for those who fear Him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Come, my children, listen to me; and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” Hallelujah. We see this as we read it, it is a promise to the Christian - to those who choose to fear God. It is a promise not necessarily for material possessions, but about a wholeness that comes from that relationship with God alone. Just as a child walks in confidence that their parents will provide for their needs - social, emotional, physical needs that we have - we also walk in the confidence of our heavenly Father to provide everything that you need. He gives us complete provision. Whatever you lack, He will fulfill you. This is the blessing of the Lord, because we lack so much in our flesh we are not complete without the Lord. I’m here to tell you - you are created by God. He knows what your weaknesses are, He knows what your strengths are, and where you are weak He wants to fulfill you. He wants to become one with you this day. When you can’t control your anger, and where you don’t know enough. Or where you feel too weak, or incapable of doing something, God will fulfill it in you for those who fear the Lord lack no good thing! In this verse, we see that He uses the description of lions because we know in nature, they’re pretty self-sufficient. But He’s saying that even in their strength, even in their size - they too hunger, they tire, they grow weak. But for the Lord this day - He’s saying to you - that when you’re on E - when you’re running on empty - God will sustain you to run the path of life and not grow weary. You will be able to do all that God has said that you would do, and accomplish the things that He has called and ordained for your life for the beginning of time, hallelujah! It is through His mighty strength and empowerment that you will overcome all things. All things! Because God is the provision to your life. He will do it in you, and He does not allow those who fear Him to lack.

Those who fear the Lord do not lack in spirit. The word says, “Rivers of living water will flow from within them”. I want to tell you this is good news for us because there is a spiritual hose - When you decide today to fear the Lord, I’m gonna tell you what’s gonna happen. There’s gonna be a spiritual hose - or umbilical cord, If you will - that will connect to you, and it will connect to the heavenly waters. From the throne room of heaven, He will fill you with His spirit and waters of life will come and they will overflow from within you, effervescently bubbling up and over. Enough for you - to fill you. Enough to fill your family, enough to fill those that you come in contact with. We will overflow with the spirit of God this day!

George Whitfield was a preacher of the First Great Awakening. I have been reading a lot about him, sharing a little bit with my son Joshua, and this guy was amazing - He came from England and then he felt the calling to go and preach to the colonies that were very, very unchristianized at the time. And this guy, as you know during the colonial times there were no roads - there were no paved roads - and this man would get on the horse and he would ride through the colonies - which today are the states. He would have no food, no provision, no rest, and he would preach to crowds upwards of 80,000 people. There was no climate control, there was no air conditioning, there was no heating in the dead of winter - and he would stand on a crate, or a box, or whatever he could find and his voice would go out to give the Gospel to the multitude of people. It was documented that even the last one in line could still hear his voice. He did not rest, he toiled for the Lord. Even when he was done giving the gospel, he would go home and he would get finally in his nightgown, finally ready to rest - there’d be a “knock, knock” at the door. Somebody who had come to ask him a question about the sermon. And he would get up in his nightgown, go downstairs, and do the whole thing over again. He would get up the next day and give the gospel, and ride to the next state and to the next town because he was so eager to give the gospel of God, for he did not fear for his body! He did not fear his knees! He did not fear what he would eat. He did not fear what he was gonna wear. He did not fear where his next rest was gonna come from. He didn’t fear the cold that he had. All he knew is that the spirit of God would fill him, and it would make him jump up out of bed, even from sicknesses and colds that he would have, and he’d be filled with the spirit of God to go on again. And the Lord would anoint him to preach that word in power and in might - and he did it. That is the church. That is the spirit. That is the rivers of living water that flows from within you to give the gospel and the word of the Lord.

He did not fear, so we know that his spirit did not run dry. Allow the spirit to flow through you. Those who fear God do not lack provision, and I am not just talking about bread or food, I am talking about the word of God. You will not lack bread. In the Bible bread is symbolic of the words of life, and I wanna tell you this day there is a famine that’s going on - in our communities, in “rich Barnegat”, in “rich Manahawkin”. Where people have boats, cars, jobs and all this - they may not even know it - but there is a great famine. And that famine is for the Rhema word of God - The spoken, applied word of the Lord. And if you don’t know what that is, I wanna tell you; As you sit in those chairs even now, or if you’re here and you’ve heard Pastor Janet or my husband Kris speaking and you’ve said, “That message is for me. I’m receiving the words of life. I’m being washed even now as you're speaking. I wanna jump out of my chair because that word is mine. I’m claiming it this day from myself,” That is the Rhema word of God. It's not about black and white letters on the page, but it is about those whose hunger and thirst and are fed in the house of God with those who do not laugh in bread. We are not lacking in this house this day. It is the word of the Lord.

In the feeding of the 5,000 when Jesus was getting ready to do a miracle, the disciples started to get really nervous, didn’t they? They saw the crowds that were there, and they’re like, “Jesus, send them away. Send them back to the town so that they can get something to eat,” and the Lord turns around and He says, “you feed them.” At that time, they couldn’t do it. They didn’t yet have the Holy Spirit. Jesus hadn’t yet died, and His body became a spirit to enter into man. But he was really foretelling something for the church this day. “You feed them.” Those who fear the Lord do not lack provision. We will have food enough for the nations. Certainly for you, certainly for your household, and for certainly for those who you touch this day. The Rhema spoken word of life that gives life to those who need it.

“…those who fear the Lord do not lack in life. We have died with Christ, but we also resurrect with Him”

I finish off with this: those who fear the Lord do not lack in life. We have died with Christ, but we also resurrect with Him. We are not the religious, we are not the dead, we are not the unrelatable. And if that’s you this day, come to the fear of the Lord. For we must be like our heavenly Father. He watches over you and disciplines you so that you can come into the house and have the same power. There’s nothing special up here. There’s nothing special about me - It is the spirit of God who enters into a man or a woman who is willing to receive that fear. No longer you getting in the way, no longer your own thoughts of what you can and what you can’t do getting in the way. But just saying, “I will fear you, God, and put you first,” hallelujah. People will go - and you will go to Walmart, you’ll go to ShopRite, you go and get your nails done, and people will look intently into your eyes and they’ll say, “what is it about you? What’s so special about you? What is that light that I see in your eyes?” and you’re gonna answer them and you’re gonna tell them, “It is the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. For He has given me a new life. I once was dead, and now I am alive!” He has given us new life! For once we were dead in our transgressions without hope. Lost in the world, unable to stop sinning - lost in our thoughts. But God this day has made a provision; that Jesus Christ would be your righteousness. He is our perfection. He is the one who took our price, and paid the price on the cross so that we would not have to die, but that we would be with Him forever. 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus is perfectly sinless. He was pleasing to God and obedient to every law. He went to death on a cross, receiving the capital punishment that we deserve, so that we would not have to take it. So this day I say to you “Walk in the fear of the Lord,” Hallelujah.