“New Testament spirituality is still based on the fear of the Lord. Most of us have difficulty nurturing that living reverence, or respectful love, which is the fear of God. We have been raised by parents who have either spoiled or rejected us, or perhaps have done both. We project their inconsistency and ambivalence on our picture of God. But God is not an arbitrary and authoritarian parent. Love and Justice, mercy and anger are not struggling in his nature or flowing and erupting unpredictably. His justice is always controlled and directed by his love. He causes “all things to work together for good to those who love God” (Rom 8:28). Even sorrow and tragedy are not “accidents” or meaningless evils. They are strokes of discipline his love has designed to conform us more fully to the image of his Son (Phil 3:10; Heb 12:5-11).”
Richard Lovelace, Renewal As A Way of Life, Wipf & Stock Publishers (January 2002). Renewal is an applied version of Dynamics of Spiritual Life, a theology of personal and social spiritual renewal.