“So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up.  And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied” (Acts 9:31).

The church grew because of two ingredients: walking in the fear of the Lord and walking in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. While the times may be a little different for us today, surely those same ingredients hold the power of increase for us, too.

“The Fear of the Lord”

I wrote a Bible-marking article on this topic and in that study learned what it means to fear the Lord and all the beautiful consequences of it:

• It means to keep God’s commandments so that it may be well with us (Deut. 5:29).
• It means to depart from evil in order to gain wisdom (Job 28:28).
• It means to walk in God’s ways in order to be blessed (Psa. 128:1-4).
• It brings strong confidence (Prov. 14:26).
• It involves humility and the reward is riches, honor, and life (Prov. 22:4).
• It means doing what is right so that God will welcome us (Acts 10:35).

“The Comfort of the Holy Spirit”

And there are blessings to walking in the comfort of the Holy Spirit:

• “By the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Rom. 15:13).
• “The Spirit helps us in our weakness…and intercedes for us” (Rom. 8:26).
• “If you live by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, and you will live” (Rom. 8:13).
• “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5:5).

What does this have to do with loving the church? The church is made up of people who are walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. This means we have a Family filled with wise and confident people doing what is right. It means that when we gather together, we are surrounding ourselves with people who are filled with hope and God’s love. What a balm for our troubled or overwhelmed hearts!