December
14

Serve the Lord Without Fear

And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for He has visited and made redemption for His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from the ages, Salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us; to do mercy with our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant; the oath which He swore to Abraham our father, that He would give to us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and justice in His sight, all the days of our life. (Luke 1:67-75)

The Lord God the Savior is to be approached because He is the God of heaven and earth, the Redeemer and Savior, to whom omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, mercy itself, and also justice, belong…. This is why He Himself came into the world and made Himself visible and accessible, and conjunction with Him possible; and this was done solely that man might be saved. (True Christian Religion 538)

All worship of God must begin with holy fear. But holy fear is not so much the fear of hell and of damnation as it is of doing or thinking anything against the Lord and against the neighbor. Those have holy fear who are in the good of faith. But those have less of it who are in the good of love, that is, who are in the Lord. Therefore it is written in in Luke: “The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, that He would give to us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and justice before Him” (Luke 1:73-74). (Arcana Coelestia 6071:5, 2826:13-14)

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