The fear of the Lord is a deep reverence and awe God‘s power and authority, often seeing as a positive attribute in religious contexts.
While I religious spirit typically considered a negative term because of overly rigid adherence to the rules and traditions often associated with a lack of genuine relationship with God and potentially stemming from a spirit of fear and judgement from a spirit of fear and judgment rather than true devotion.
The fear of God is a healthy respect and submission to God‘s will, which leads to a desire to live righteously, while a religious spirit and manifest as a controlling, legalistic attitude, focused on outward appearance, and strict adherence to rules, often neglecting the deeper aspects of faith. We see an example of this in the Bible with the pharisees.
The fear of God is motivated by the recognition of God’s power and a desire to please Him.
I really, really the spirit can be driven by fear of punishment or the need to appear pious devout.
A person who carefully considers their actions before making decisions because they want to live in accordance to God‘s will has a fear of God.
Someone who hardly judges others were not following specific religious practices to the letter, even if they’re motives are not aligned with love and compassion has a religious spirit.
From Pity to Praise 