No Lack

Psalms 34:9

O fear the Lord, ye His saints; for there is no lack to them that fear Him.

What does it mean to fear the Lord? Many people take it to mean that we should be afraid of Him. Now I will be the first to tell you that God is fearsome and the Bible says that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Now that is talking about one who is not born again, who dies without Jesus. Yes, that is a fearful thing. To face God in judgement would be the most fearful and terrible thing that could ever happen to a person. There is no hope at all for that individual.

Praise God! We who are bought by the blood of Jesus will never have to worry about that. We are now in the family of God and as His own children, we will not face judgement, Jesus has already faced it for us. He paid the price for our sin so that we could enjoy the love and grace of God for eternity. He is now our loving heavenly Father.

The word translated fear here means to have reverence for and to be in awe of. It is a term of exceeding respect for God. Now we all agree that we should have that. God is due all our reverence and respect and even then, it is not enough.

Now, notice the rest of the verse. It says those who do fear Him, those who do reverence Him will have no lack. Can you imagine life with no lack? Most of us can’t and don’t really expect that kind of life. We have grown accustomed to experiencing lack in our lives. So much so, that those who teach this are thought to be either crazy, uneducated or just simple minded enough to be taken in by verses that don’t really mean what they say. They would say that this is presumption on our part.

If you will look at 2 Chronicles 16:9 you see that it says that they eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, seeking to show Himself strong to those whose hearts are perfect toward Him. In 20:20 it says believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established, believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper. Now you decide what that means, sounds like prosperity, blessing and no lack to me.