Godly fear simply has to do with giving God the respect and reverence that He deserves. Every Christian must possess it.  It is not surprising, then, to read that the early church feared God.

Acts 9:31 (ESV)
³¹ 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.  

Walking in the New Testament usually referred to daily living.  The daily life of the average saint in the early church consisted of demonstrations of godly fear.  There was a good reason for this.  Early Christians witnessed the power of God firsthand.

Acts 2:43 (KJV)
⁴³ And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.

The apostles performed many miracles, including speaking in tongues, healing the sick, and transferring miraculous powers to others, resulting in the early church being filled with the fear of God.  We should be filled with godly fear as well.  We may not see the miraculous workings of God firsthand, but we do have a record of them in the Bible.  Biblical miracles show us that God has power over nature (Matthew 8:26), sickness (Matthew 9:35), death (John 11:20-45), material things (Matthew 14:15-21), etc.  If we believe the Bible is God’s Word, we know how powerful our God is; thus, we will always be filled with godly fear.

The early church feared God because they knew that God punishes sin.  In Acts five God gave a demonstration of this by punishing Ananias and Sapphira with death because they lied to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:1-11).  It was important for God to teach the church a lesson while it was in its stage of infancy.

What do we learn from Ananias and Sapphira?  We learn that unrepentant sin will never go unpunished.  Ananias and Sapphira had an opportunity to repent but they refused to do so; thus, they were punished.  The church was filled with fear because they realized that God is not only a loving God, but also a God who is severe when it comes to unrepentant sin.

Even though God will not punish us physically the way He did Ananias and Sapphira, we know that we will face something worse—an eternity in a devil’s hell—if we do not repent when we sin.

Matthew 25:41 (ESV)
⁴¹  “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

This should fill us with fear.  We should fear God, not only for what we know He can do, but because we know what He will do if we fall outside of His favor.  In the end, though, our godly fear should be rooted in our knowledge of the indescribable greatness of God.  He is the most supreme being in existence, and He deserves our daily respect and reverence.

Do you fear God?  Your immediate response to that question will probably be “Of course I do.”  But, do you really?  Let us all give God the reverence He deserves, not only with the fruit of our lips, but by living the godly lives that He desires from us.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 (ESV)
¹³  The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.