Proverbs 14:2,  He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the LORD: but he that is perverse in his ways despiseth him.

There is no reason to not know where you stand before God.

Our God is not a capricious God.

He is not eccentric, erratic, fickle, flighty, impulsive, or whimsical.

Our God is steady and fixed.

James calls him the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

The writer of the book of Hebrews pronounces that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Therefore for a man or woman to not know where they stand before God is to ignore all that God is.

No doubt the trouble is with you if you are confused about your relationship with God.

Paul in 2 Timothy 2:15, counsels Timothy to:  Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

He tells Timothy to study to show himself something.

Timothy, you don't study to show God something.

God already knows all about you but you don't know yourself unless you study.

Study Timothy! to show yourself whether or not God approves of you.

Don't you want to know if you are approved unto God?

Don't you want to know what God thinks of you?

Do you have a fear of the Lord that drives you to want to know?

Does your fear of the Lord drive you to study so that you can know?

Paul tells Timothy to test yourself against God's word.

Stand as straight as you can next to the straight edge of God and see where you deviate from God's standard, from God's word.

Put yourself up against God's perfect plumb line.

Because you are a sinner you will deviate Timothy but only by study will you find out the deviation.

God will not send you a special delivery message of your deviation from his word.

He has sent you all that he is going to send you in his word.

There is no straighter straight edge than that.

His word is the perfect perpendicular against which all other perpendiculars are measured.

His word is the upright by which all is to be measured and the result of that measurement is only revealed by study.

Any uprightness that a man has, has got to come from the perfect upright, that is the word of God.

That comparison against the uprightness of God's word by a yielded believer will result in an ever closer conformance to God's word and therefore a workman that needs not to be ashamed.

This is a workman who is approved of God because this workman conforms to the uprightness of God as expressed in Jesus Christ the word of God.

This is a workman, who though study, identifies those things in his life that do not please God and then goes about the business of appropriating God's grace to change them.

This is a workman who walks in his uprightness which is the uprightness of the word of God.

What does this walk reveal and what does the lack of this walk reveal?

According to this proverb it is a revealer of whether or not the workman fears the Lord.

So here in this proverb is the "fear of the Lord" test.

It has to do with walk. James said it this way.

James 1:22-25,  But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

This workman beholds his natural face in a mirror and the mirror tells him that his face is dirty.

The mirror is the standard or upright that reveals the man but the man doesn't do anything about his dirty face and goes his way without any action.

He counted the mirror as nothing.

But the man who looks into the perfect law of liberty, a mirror that truly reveals the face of the man and sees his dirty face and does something about it this man shall be blessed in his deed.

The first man counts as nothing the mirror that reveals to him what he is.

The second man counts as a valuable treasure the mirror that he faces.

The first man is a hearer only of the word and the second is a hearer and a doer of the word.

The first man despises the word but the second loves the word and we are told he shall be blessed.

In other words the word does a work in the man who hears and does.

In other words hearing and doing is a walk that conforms a man to the uprightness of the word of God.

What causes one to be attracted to the mirror and to act on the message of the mirror and another to reject the message of the mirror and go his way?

The answer is in our proverb for the day.

It is the fear of the Lord!

He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the LORD:

So if you fear the Lord you will study the uprightness of God and by God's grace be conformed to that uprightness.

If you fear the Lord you desire to live in exact conformance to truth.

You desire to act in conformity to God's uprightness.

If you don't fear the Lord or you fear the Lord little then you do not care to know God's uprightness.

You do not care to know where you deviate from God's uprightness.

Why? Because you do not fear the Lord.

You do not wish to please him with your walk.

You choose to be perverse in your ways.

Perverse means to turn aside, to depart, to be froward.

It literally means bent, crooked or twisted.

Uprightness is straight, perverse is bent.

The Book of Proverbs mentions perverse persons, perverse minds perverse tongues, perverse words or speech and perverse ways.

Paul in Phil 2:15 urged Christians to be moral "lights" witnessing to their "crooked and perverse generation"

Uprights witnessing to the bent, the crooked and the twisted.

(the plumb bob or level witnessing to the 2x4 as to what is upright)

The perverse man beholdeth himself in a glass and he goeth his way.

He is not interested in being approved of God.

He does not fear God so he turns aside and away from any study that will show himself his condition before God.

Our proverb says this one not only does not fear God but he despises him.

So what is a mark of one who fears the Lord?

A mark of one who fears the Lord is one who walks in his uprightness.

David knew this when he wrote in:

Psalm 119:7,  I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.

Did David study to show himself approved unto God?

This psalm says he did for he expected to praise God with uprightness of heart.

Uprightness of heart that he gained by the study of God's word and its revealing to him of any deviation in his walk.

David's fear of the Lord caused him to desire that any deviation he had from the pure word of God be corrected.

Dr. Bob Jones Sr. must have had the same heart when he said that if he had one drop of blood in his veins that was disloyal to the Lord Jesus Christ he prayed that God would open up his veins and get it out!

And it all comes from the proper fear of God!