Chapter 83—Come with Reverence
Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with
reverence and godly fear.
Hebrews 12:28
.
There should be an intelligent knowledge of how to come to God in
reverence and godly fear with devotional love. There is a growing lack
of reverence for our Maker, a growing disregard of His greatness and His
majesty. But God is speaking to us in these last days. We hear His voice
in the storm, in the rolling thunder. We hear of calamities He permits in
the earthquakes, the breaking forth of waters, and the destructive elements
sweeping all before them.
In these perilous times, those who profess to be God’s commandment-
keeping people should guard against the tendency to lose the spirit of
reverence and godly fear. The Scriptures teach men how to approach their
Maker—with humility and awe, through faith in a divine Mediator. Let man
come on bended knee, as a subject of grace, a suppliant at the footstool
of mercy. Thus he is to testify that the whole soul, body, and spirit are in
subjection to his Creator.
Both in public and in private worship, it is our duty [
There are instances
where Ellen White stood at the desk while offering prayers of consecration
during church services.
] to bow upon our knees before God when we offer
our petitions to Him. Jesus, our example, “kneeled down, and prayed.” And
of His disciples it is recorded that they, too, “kneeled down, and prayed.”
Stephen “kneeled.” Paul declared: “I bow my knees unto the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ” (
Ephesians 3:14
). In confessing before God the sins of
Israel, Ezra knelt. Daniel “kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and
prayed, and gave thanks before his God” (
Daniel 6:10
). And the invitation of
the psalmist is: “O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before
the Lord our Maker” (
Psalm 95:6
).
“What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy
God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God
with all thy heart and with all thy soul?” (
Deuteronomy 10:12
).... “The eye
of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy”
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