Love Drives Out Fear…

“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 love because he first loved us.”  1 John 4:18, 19 NIV

So much in life can make us unsure. Maybe we aren’t sure if we can trust a certain co-worker or boss. Or maybe we have been hurt by a family member and are unsure if they are trustworthy. Our wounds from our past shape our worldview and affect how we view relationships, family, and our relationship with God.

Life in imperfect. We all know that. But the truth is, we serve a perfect God. But we don’t trust him like He is perfect. What we tend to do is bring in all our baggage from life, all our hurts, pains, and emotional scares into our relationship with Christ and all that to be the foundation of the relationship.

A.W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

That is a powerful statement and one in which I would agree. A huge struggle in our relationship with Christ, is this back and forth between what our experience has taught us (mostly negative) and what the Bible says about Him. A big part of strengthening and deepening your relationship with Christ is allowing God to transform your thinking; putting more and more trust into the God that He really is, and not the one that we think He is.

One place to start is looking at His love. Understanding what He did for us, the sacrifice He made; and the fact that nothing we do can separate us from that love, will be what begins to shape our hearts into a correct view of God.

God will never love you any less or more than He does right now. His love is infinite and eternal and will never decrease or change.

Therefore, there is no need to fear. No need to let our baggage shape how we think He loves us. His love is perfect and in perfect love there is no fear. And because of that perfect love, we too can love others.

What fears in your life need to be put to rest by His love?