When we speak of God as being transcendent, we saying that He is exalted infinitely far beyond everything in the created universe. So far in fact that we could not imagine it. When we say far above, we're not talking about a physical distance from the earth but that God in all of his attributes is infinitely greater than all we could ever imagine or comprehend. God is infinite so the concept of distance and magnitude mean very little to Him. However for us, we use these ideas to understand illustrations and analogies that the Bible uses when speaking to our limited understanding. Our limited minds can only understand abstract ideas when they are identified in some way with material things.

It is spirit that gives value to anything and apart from spirit, nothing has any lasting value. If a group of sight seers were gathered on a mountain admiring the beautiful view of God's creative power and suddenly one of them realises their 2 year old girl is missing, the mindset of the sightseers is totally changed. One moment they are awe struck by the beauty of God's creation before them and the next their minds are intent only on finding the lost child. The group spreads out over the mountain calling her name, searching every secluded and hidden spot for this girl.

Why the sudden change of mind? The beauty of God's creation is still there but they've forgotten it in order to focus on the search for the girl. As small and young as she may be, she is worth far more to the friends and family in the group than all of the vast beauty that they had been previously admiring. The majority of the world would agree that human life will always take precedence. Mankind was created in God's image, can love, pray and so much more. It's the child's quality of life that makes it more valued.

While we dare not compare the high and mighty God to a little girl, it's the awesome wonder of the fullness, completeness, eternity and infinitude of God that demands a reverence above all other things. Forever God stands above all. He is as high above an archangel as he is above Buster. While an archangel would be above Buster (sorry Buster) they are both beings that have been created and given life by the almighty God. God is infinite and all created beings are finite. It is for this reason that the archangel cannot be described as being closer because the archangel is still a created finite being.

Imagine if a Seraph came to earth to our churches after having daily been in the presence of God. How flat and uninspiring would he find our conversations and sermons. Imagine the seraph was given the opportunity to preach and he spoke of what God is like. We'd sack the pastor and just want more. There is nothing more satisfying to the heart and mind than to know God. God has placed that desire to seek Him in all of us.

In Psalm 36 David is moved to write about those who do not know God or give Him the reverence He deserves.

Psalm 36:1-4 (NIV)

We saw on the first day that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Here David tells us about those who do not fear or have reverence for the Lord. They do as they please without any fear or remorse. Without a fear of God, people will naturally sin. People will never fear consequences if they don't first fear God.

In years gone by people would refer to others as "a God fearing man" or that they "serve the Lord with fear". You don't hear these much these days except in the media where the expressions are used more as a mockery. The underlying meaning of these expressions was that the basis of their whole lives was that God was both awesome and potentially terrifying. This fear was more than a natural apprehension of danger but a deep feeling of personal inadequacy in the presence of the almighty God.

Whenever God appeared to people in the Bible, the results were the same – an overwhelming sense of inadequacy, guilt and fear. Abram and Moses put their face to the ground in the sight of God. The prophet Isaiah gives us his account before the holy and almighty God.

Isaiah 6:1-5 (NIV)

In verse 4 we see, when in the presence of God even the prophet Isaiah sees nothing more than his worthlessness and inadequacy. Such experiences though bring the end of controversy between man and God. There is no longer a proud statement of "I'm good enough without God" but like Isaiah a sense of "I am ruined". The fight within the man to stand tall comes to an end and brings a man like Saul (who became Paul) who "trembling and astonished, said, "Lord, what do You want me to do?".

It is this fear of the Lord that saves us from death and brings us into "the life". I think if we all examine our hearts honestly, we will admit that we have compromised a healthy fear of the Lord because it didn't fit our agenda. The world's values present us with so many enticements that may even appear "unharmful" or at least not enough to worry about. The truth is that little by little our compromises are bringing us more into a fear of social acceptance rather than a fear of the Lord. We looked the other day at the omniscience of God. He knows our heart, our thoughts, our deeds and words. A reverent fear of the Lord should dramatically affect each one of these.