Here is Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, explaining what does ‘fear of the Lord’ mean:
“You will never ask the Lord to forgive you until you have the fear of the Lord in your heart. Because if you do not love Him, you will never ask Him to forgive you. And you wouldn’t care about asking Him to forgive you. It is that love, that fear of the Lord. What is fear of the Lord? You see – it’s not afraid of the Lord. I’m not afraid of Him. I fear Him. You see afraid is, if I do something wrong, I’m afraid because he will chop my head and He’ll throw me in hell. But fear of the Lord – I do not want to do anything wrong. I am afraid of breaking His heart. He is too much love, not worthy to be broken. I fear hurting Him. I don’t wanna make Him sad. I don’t want to upset Him. I don’t want to make Him cry. I don’t want to break His heart because He is love and I love Him because He loved me from the very beginning. I will try to do everything possible through His grace not to break Him or hurt Him in any way. This is the fear of the Lord, i.e. I love the Lord Jesus. See when you love the Lord Jesus you will always seek His forgiveness. ‘Lord, I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I did this and I said this. I didn’t want to. It is my human weakness. Please forgive me Lord. You know that I love You’. Like Simon. Like Simon Peter. He said ‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?’ You see, do you love me – do you fear me? Do you have the fear of the Lord in your heart? He said ‘Lord, You know that I love You. You know everything Lord. I will always put You number one and then me. You know that I love You. But I’m weak.’
When we fall into the wrong place, when we do the wrong thing, all we need to do is turn to the crucified Messiah. Don’t run away. Run to Him. Don’t run away from Him. Run to Him my beloved and say ‘Lord, I’m sorry. Forgive me. You know that I love You. But I’m weak, living in this weak flesh. I get tempted. I fall. I slip. I slide. I walk away. Please, forgive me daddy. And He will. He will.”