Love > Fear

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18)

We live in a world that seems to be fueled by fear. Media pushes it since a good headline for a news story seems to be one that preys on some form of fear or insecurity.

War. Terror. Economic collapse.

On a personal level we can often have fear or insecurity over things that affect us.

Death. Sickness. Financial ruin. Loss of a job.

The list goes on, and I’m certain as you read the few things I listed you added several to the list what hit you or your family this last year. All of those are thought patterns designed by the enemy to do one thing: take our focus off of God and onto ourselves. If he can get you to doubt God, he’s put the first chink in the armor.

God love us, and with such a perfect love we have no way to fully comprehend or understand the depth of it. We talk about what He did, but do we really understand? I know that I certainly can’t fully understand the depths of Him sending his Son to earth knowing He would die for mankind so that they would be restored to Him. What makes it so hard for us to understand this completely is the knowledge that He did this knowing full well that many would reject this offer. Despite that He did it anyway. I let fear stop me from talking to a stranger about God, which only involves my feeling possibly being hurt if rejected.

He sent his Son to die for us. The depth of that commitment should speak volumes to us about how much we can trust Him, and know that His love stands ready to carry us through.

He doesn’t promise that all will be unicorns and rainbows down here – far from it. This life is filled with problems, suffering, and the only promise He makes we need to stand on is that if we believe on Him, and give our lives to Christ that we will spend eternity with Him. When you compare 70-80 years with eternity it’s a BLINK! We just don’t have the frame of reference to what eternity will be like since we are time-bound creatures, and everything in this life seems so permanent. But what is truly important is our long term goal of this life. I certainly want to be comfortable but I don’t believe God is concerned about my comfort. He is concerned about my soul, and the souls of those around me.

So for today, my prayer is not to less the temporal worries that I see going on around me control my mind and allow fear to enter. God’s perfect love is the antidote.