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I think one of the biggest things that I took away from this was a right view of the fear of God, and the beauty of it. This fear isn't a fear that keeps us up at night, scaring us. It's a fear of God's holiness and righteousness. He is so much greater than us, and that causes us to tremble because He is so big! John Bunyan goes through different types of fear and points out wrong manifestations of this fear. It was very convicting to see these different types of fear show up in my own heart.
Not only that, but the benefits of fearing the Lord in a godly way are so lovely! Since reading this book I have prayed for this fear of the Lord to grip me because it produces such sweet fruit that I want to taste and share with everyone around me!
John Bunyan also makes a distinction between the two different ways that the Spirit works fear into our hearts. First, as a spirit of bondage, the Spirit brings a fear into our hearts as we stare our sin and God's wrath in the face. This fear is a legitimate godly fear to those who don't know Christ because they are finaly seeing who they really are and what they deserve. This fear, however, loses its godliness if the person is converted. Once a man is converted then the Spirit works into that persone a spirit of freedom. The redeemed sinner knows his state, but he knows Jesus has died for him, and trusts in that. The Spirit will never work as a spirit of bondage again in that man's heart. And if that fear of God's wrath shows up again, it is not from the spirit, but from satan. The spirit of freedom works in us the godly fear that Bunyan goes on to talk about for the rest of the book!