Love does not fear...

“In this world we are like Jesus.  There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

        I used to often pray asking God for wisdom.  One week I was faced with many wide varieties of challenges.  Each challenge needed to be examined closely and dealt with carefully.  Some were easier to deal with than others but in general I still had a hard time making the right decision.  It wasn’t that my lack of wisdom was not there to help me decide the right from wrong or the better choice, it was more that I just simply wanted to choose what I wanted for myself.  Other times I plainly ignored the right that I needed to do.  God gives wisdom generously.  I can remember so many days where I was faced with challenges upon challenges and temptations upon temptations.  And even though I knew the “right” that I needed to do many a times, I simply didn’t do it.  I chose to do the wrong.  Sometimes I even chose to do nothing.  But I have found that there is something better than wisdom.

        I strongly believe that the only way to become fully alive in God is to become fully alive in love.  Only in “love” can a person find true life.  Love is the core of Gods being… and to live in completeness with God’s love is to live in God.  People sometimes wonder why their life or relationship with God is so mundane.  They think that they are not ready spiritually to let God do the impossible through them so they back down from any spiritual challenge that approaches.  And when a person backs down from a divine moment fear begins to grow within them.  Among the evilness that separates us from living utterly for God I think that fear might be upon the highest of podiums. When we allow fear to become part of our ordinary lives, it begins to corrode our inside being, and it rudely kills everything about us. Everything in this world fears, except love.  Wisdom, patience, hope, faith, kindness, generosity, humbleness, all of these can fear.  Fear is a distressing emotion aroused by a perceived threat. Although many believe that Fear should be distinguished from the related emotional state of anxiety, which typically occurs without any external threat, I believe that fear has everything to do with starting that anxiety.  Fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, and it is the result of threats which are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable.  Fear almost always relates to future events, such as worsening of a situation, or continuation of a situation that is unacceptable.  Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves. On our left- fear of the unknown and on our right- fear of the known.  He, who fears to suffer, suffers from fear.  When a person whom fully lives in love is caught in a storm, they don’t pray to God for safety from danger, but they rejoice in becoming a testimony to others. 

        What are we Christians called to be?  How are we supposed to live our lives?  “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and them in God. In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” We live as ‘one’ in a God who does not fear nothing… we live as ‘one’ in a God who made everything out of nothing. And to know that God lives in us and us in him, that should be more than enough for us to do the impossible.  That should give us strength, courage, faith, trust and wisdom without fear.  Fear does not partake of God and thus it cannot be part of our lives.

        1 John 4:15 says; “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and them in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the Day of Judgment: “In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

I recently read Psalm 126.  The idea that is portrayed here is the salvation of the people of Israel who were taken into captivity by another nation. God brought them back from captivity and their response was; “When the LORD brought us back from captivity we were like men who were dreaming.  Our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongues with songs of joy!”  All of us know what it means to be captive to something. While in captivity we are filled with fear.  When God intervenes and saves us from a place of rescuing he not only rescues us from our physical danger but he also rescues us from the greater of the enemies, and his name is fear.  People have different fears… some fear failure, humility, even where they will be in the near future.  Some fear the difficulties of life while others fear losing somebody dear to them.  Still other people fear doing great things.  They fill life's characteristics with the idea that fear exists throughout everything.  So I would like to finish this thought with a verse that drives me to live my life fully in love with God.  It is found in Zephaniah 3:17.  “The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save.  He takes great delight in you, and will quiet you with His love.  He rejoices over you with singing.”  The word “rejoice” is the Hebrew word for “Giyl.” And it is translated to spin around under the influence of emotion when one is in a state of gladness and joyfulness.  In other words God dances with joy over you!  Knowing that our God dances over me with joy and gladness lifts me up to live a life beyond what fear can touch. It buries me in the core of God to where I feel invincible. Because of His love for me; because of His joy for me, I desire to live a life full of love in Him so that He can live in me.  A true Christian is made perfect in Love and fear does not live within them.