You are not in charge. You realize that you have not discovered God; he has discovered you. He knows you inside and out. You now know, not just intellectually but deep in your heart, that you are a sinner in the presence of the holy God.

Anyone who has trouble with the “God of the Old Testament” will have the same difficulty with Jesus—even though he is the Lamb who was slain, he is also the returning king who will destroy his enemies.

The slightest brush with God’s majesty fills us with dread, and this is the beginning of all wisdom.

reversed. The real world is the one in which the triune God is the central character in nature and history, and the illusion is that we’re in charge. It’s autonomy that is the myth—and the sooner we raise our eyes to heaven, the sooner our sanity will be restored.

Americans are known for the rugged individualism that built a great nation. Yet the dark side of that individualism is a tendency for each of us to become a little Nebuchadnezzar.

for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”

No matter how things appear, the reality is that from God’s vantage point we are all ants scurrying here and there, sometimes leading but mostly following, imagining that our brief life is about us.

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom because it gives us the sanity to see the reality of our condition and our need for Christ.

Using God, even the fear of God, for our own ends is nothing new, of course. In older days the fear of God was also used to manipulate people.