Never, Never, Never Fear God. God is love, and the one who dwells in love dwells in God and God lives in him. 17. By this, love has been made complete among us, so that we would have fearless confidence in the Day of Judgment, because just as that One is, we ourselves are like Him in this world. 18. There is no fear in love but complete love casts fear outside, because fear has to do with punishment, and the one who fears has not been made complete in love. (1Jn 4:16-18)
Verse 18 tells us that fear has to do with punishment, that anyone who fears has not been made complete in love. While some translations have numerous passages saying “Fear God” and “Fear the Lord” the word Fear came from the Latin text which was the source of our early English translations. Even Hebrew-English dictionaries and lexicons have added fear to the meaning of the Hebrew word “Y’reh” so it is often translated Fear, but the Hebrew meaning is Revere. This is a night & day difference because we call the Lord our Heavenly Father, Whom we are to revere but we are not to be afraid of Him.
Today many children and adults have never known a loving earthly father, so they are not able to relate to our Loving Father in Heaven. There are a number of very strong ministries whose call is to teach Christians to relate to the God of Love, our Father. Those ministries are performing a very valuable service enabling those people to be able to relate to their Father. It is amazing to me how many people have grown up without a loving father. Most of those have a problem relating to our Loving God, being blessed by the ministries that have that mission.
Fear of the Lord is appropriate for idolaters and unbelievers, as in 2 Chronicles 17:10. And the fear of the LORD* fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were all around Judah, so that they did not make war against Jehoshaphat.
A believer is never, never, never to fear God. A believer is to revere God, the most Loving Father ever.