The fear of God is the foundation of every form of righteous fearlessness. The refusal to fear God opens you up to every kind of timorousness. Jesus tells us explicitly that we are not to fear man, but rather to fear God. He sets this forth as a basic alternative.
If you fear God, you will not fear man. If you fear man, then you will not fear God. How can you believe God, when your ears are full of man’s threats, promises, blandishments, and dire predictions? You cannot.
God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being. It is in Him that we have financial troubles. In Him we have cancer. In Him we anticipate the loss of a loved one. In Him the airplane crashes, in Him the ship goes down.
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In Him our children marry, and have children. In Him our crops are brought to harvest. In Him we clear a profit. In Him we live and move and have our being.
Now we can do this knowing about it, or we can do this not knowing about it. If we don’t know about it, then we will be startled at every little thing. We not only will fear man, but we will fear a branch scraping the house in the wind. If we know about God as the one in whom we live our lives, then we can trust. We can rest. We can fear no man.