December
11

Serve Him without fear.

And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and worked 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 beginning, 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)

“To fear Jehovah and to serve Him” means worship according to the truths of doctrine. For there are two things that constitute worship, namely, doctrine and life; doctrine without life does not constitute it, neither does life without doctrine. (Apocalypse Explained 696:10)

The good of love is the essential of worship, but good has its existence and form by means of truths; therefore all worship must be from good by means of truths. For this reason, in many passages in the Word where the expression “to fear Jehovah God” is used, it is added, “to keep and to do His words and commandments” … Thence it may be seen that so far as man is in the good of love there is fear of God; also that dread and terror disappear and become a holy fear attended with reverence so far as man is in the good of love and in truths therefrom, that is, so far as there is good in his truths.

Present within all worship there is fear, but this fear takes on a different form and nature; for it is holy fear. Holy fear is not so much a fear of hell and of damnation, as a fear lest anything whatever be done or thought that is contrary to the Lord and contrary to the neighbor, thus anything whatever that is contrary to the good of love and to the truth of faith. (Arcana Coelestia 2826:13)

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