A Reverent Faith in a Casual Age

A Reverent Faith in a Casual Age

Modern Christianity often struggles with reverence.

In an effort to make faith feel accessible and relatable, we have slowly softened the mystery at its heart. The holy is made casual. Awe is exchanged for comfort. Jesus becomes our best friend, and God is reduced to Papa—familiar, friendly, and unintimidating. Worship becomes therapeutic rather than transformational.

And quietly, almost imperceptibly, the fear of the Lord—the beginning of wisdom—slips from view (Proverbs 9:10).

This is not a rejection of intimacy with God. Scripture itself proclaims that we are adopted as sons and daughters, able to cry out “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). Christ calls His disciples friends (John 15:15). God is not distant, indifferent, or cold. The Christian faith is deeply personal.
But intimacy in Scripture is never detached from holiness.

The same God who invites us to draw near is the God before whom Moses removed his sandals, for the ground was holy (Exodus 3:5). The same Lord who speaks tenderly to Isaiah also causes him to cry out, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). The disciples who reclined with Jesus at table later fell facedown in terror when they glimpsed His glory (Matthew 17:6).

Familiarity without reverence does not deepen faith—it diminishes it.
When reverence is lost, the Gospel is quietly reshaped. Repentance becomes optional. Obedience is reframed as legalism. Sin is minimized, and grace is cheapened. Christ is welcomed as comforter but resisted as King.

Yet Scripture never separates love from lordship.

Jesus is gentle and humble of heart (Matthew 11:29), but He is also the One before whom every knee will bow (Philippians 2:10). He forgives freely, yet commands, “Go, and sin no more” (John 8:11). He is the Lamb who was slain—and the Judge of the living and the dead (Revelation 5:12; Acts 10:42).

A Gospel without reverence is a Gospel without a cross.

The Church has always held that true worship is not casual encounter but sacred participation. We do not approach God as equals, but as creatures redeemed by mercy. Even in our adoption, we remain recipients of grace, not its authors. As Hebrews reminds us: “Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28–29).

Reverence does not create distance—it restores right order. Awe does not contradict love—it protects it. When God is treated as a peer, worship collapses into performance. When Christ is stripped of His kingship, discipleship becomes negotiable. When holiness is treated as optional, grace loses its weight and glory.

The early Christians understood this well. They gathered not casually, but with trembling joy. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers—and “awe came upon every soul” (Acts 2:42–43). They knew that to draw near to God was both gift and surrender.

Christianity was never meant merely to soothe us. It was meant to sanctify us.

The call to “fall on your knees” in O Holy Night is not sentimental poetry—it is biblical truth set to music. It echoes the great Christological hymn of Philippians: “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:10). The Incarnation does not lessen reverence; it demands it. God made low calls us lower still—not in shame, but in adoration.

What our age needs is not a more casual God, but a renewed vision of His majesty. Not less intimacy, but deeper worship. Not a faith that fits comfortably into our lives, but one that calls us to fall to our knees.

For the God who invites us to call Him Father is still the God who reigns in glory—and He is worthy of reverence.