Our God is a Consuming Fire: Why I tend to Forget this

I've been reading and meditating on the Pentateuch (first 5 books of
the Bible) and I just read the passage in Exodus where God descends upon
the mountain in fire, thunder, and lightening. Interestingly, the focus
of this section is on fearing the Lord but not being afraid of the
Lord. It is coming close, but not too close. As I was meditating upon
this reality, I came to the conclusion that my upbringing has created
too great a flipancy in my relationship with God. In other words, I
never really had the sense of God as a consuming fire, even as that
imagery was sometimes used to talk about my purification.

Let me take a stab at why this was. I think a lot of evangelicals are
functionally Marcionites. Marcion was a second century heretic, who
accepted Jesus but reject the God of the Old Testament. In doing so, he
rejected the Old Testament itself. While evangelicals have never done
this explicitly, I think we tend to do it implicitly. We read the Old
Testament for prophecy about Jesus, for historical information about
Israel, and for the Psalms and Proverbs, but generally, we do not
believe it speaks meaningfully into our lives today (I always laugh when
I hear pastors, who almost never preach from the Old Testament,
suddenly act like Old Testament scholars when they preach about money –
tithing specifically!).

Rather than rejecting the Old Testament, we tend to bracket it to
obscurity. Instead of grasping Christ as the key that unveils these
Scriptures, we relegate them to merely affirming everything we already
believe about Christ. It is interesting, that when the New Testament
does affirm that God is a consuming fire, it is no less concerned with
our reverence, but states, "Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a
kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable
worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire" (Heb.
12:28-29).

Importantly, this same author states,

"Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the
heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we
do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness,
but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without
sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that
we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

We are called to draw near, but that nearness doesn't somehow
undermine the reverence and "fear of God" we must maintain in his
presence. What are your thoughts? Did you have a similar experience
growing up? Has your God lost his "consuming" nature?