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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
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.
1 John 4:18
This ends this reading
from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Do you have fears in life?
You know, this emotion seems
to take hold of us from our earliest years in life, those childhood years when
we began to understand that there were things that could threaten us.
If you’re a parent, or even
if you’re not, I’m sure you have seen a small child turn away from someone they
don’t know, running to the assurance of someone who they trust like a parent they
feel safe with. You see, to a little toddler, any bigger person seems imposing,
a giant who is scary.
As we grow older from those
scary toddler days, it seems like fear grows older with us. It matures and
takes on new forms as we live life facing the inevitable challenges it brings,
new giants that are imposing to us. The difference is that when we are adults,
we usually don’t have our parents nearby to run to and so it seems like we have
to face our fears and anxieties on our own.
Maybe you can relate.
Thankfully, the Word of God
speaks into our lives in ways to bring us assurance and comfort, a sense of
safety when fear comes knocking on our door. We’re going to look at several
passages today that can help us to say, “Adios, fear!”, scriptures I pray you
will write on your hearts. Let’s start with our single verse for today as we
continue studying from the fourth chapter of 1 John.
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. v.18
Perfect love drives out fear.
This is what I always like to
refer to as an absolute in the Bible, a statement that makes a sure and perfectly
reliable truth known.
This verse doesn’t say that
perfect love might drive out fear if you try it or suggest that you give
perfect love a try when there are several right options to choose from. No, it
simply proclaims with bold assurance that perfect love drives out fear. We just
need to receive it without doubt.
Once we do this, once we go
all in on believing without reservation that perfect love drives out fear, then
we have the battle won. Period. I say this, because the only thing we need to
do is find the source of perfect love and there is only One, the Lord God
Almighty, the Maker and Master of all creation. This God’s infallible love led
Him to do this:
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and
only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
These words were spoken by
none other than Jesus Himself, the one and only Son that God willingly gave up
to die in our place so to sacrifice the curse of sin on the cross so that every
sinner could find atonement and a restored relationship with the God of perfect
love. This Savior Jesus went onto show us that indeed He and His Father were
one (John 10:30), including the ability to love perfectly. Here’s what He had
to say in chapter 15 of John’s gospel.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved
you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s
friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. Vv. 12-14
So to sum up where we are
right now in this amazing message, we were given the opportunity for salvation
by the God of perfect love who gave up His one and only Son Jesus, who then showed
us perfect love through His willingness to lay His life down to save us, those
who believed in Him and carried out His commands in obedience.
As we saw in yesterday’s
passage, these displays of perfect love paved the way for us to have a sure and
confident future, the sure promise of Heaven.
Because God has given you a
sure and confident future, He would ask us:
What are we worried about?
Why are we afraid of anything?
These are good questions,
right?
For as we learned in this
same chapter, when we choose to believe in Jesus and receive the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit, the Lord God Almighty lives within us and this is why we find
the Apostle Paul proclaiming these words of assurance, words meant to drive out
fear. He wrote in Romans, chapter 8:
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did
not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along
with Him, graciously give us all things? Romans 8:31-32
Friends, God has no rival.
Period. There is nothing He can’t overcome and no one He can’t defeat.
So why do we fear?
There really is no
justification for it and to double down on how foolish it is for a Christian
believer to allow fear into their lives, we need to consider this truth:
When we fear, we send the
message to the Lord that we don’t trust Him.
Need an example?
Let’s go back to the
scriptures and time when Jesus was onboard a boat with His disciples crossing
the Sea of Galilee. We read about it in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4:
That day when evening came, He said to his disciples,
“Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took Him
along, just as He was, in the boat. There were also other boats with Him.
A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the
boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a
cushion. The disciples woke Him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we
drown?”
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves,
“Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do
you still have no faith?”
They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is
this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him!” Vv. 35-41
The story here is pretty
simple. A severe storm happens and the boat that the disciples were on started
taking on water due to the wind driving the waves “over the boat”. We read
where the disciples were stricken with fear, so much so that they ran to wake
up Jesus, basically asserting that He didn’t care that they were about to drown
at sea.
Despite all the miraculous
works that Jesus had performed, acts that showed He possessed a power greater
than anyone or anything in the world, the disciples failed to simply trust Him
with faith when danger started to crouch at their door.
And so Jesus has to remind
them of His incredible might by rebuking the winds and commanding the waves to
subside into peaceful waters, an act that left the disciples terrified. Maybe
they should have been more frightened of their lack of faith, a lack of faith
Jesus calls out in His condemnation while asking His followers a simple
question:
“Why are you so afraid?”
Indeed, why?
This same question applies to
all of us who have decided to follow Jesus in our own lives. For if God is
truly in us and with us, who can stand against us?
We know the answer is nothing
and this is why we can all say, “Adios, fear!”, trusting in God and His Son
Jesus who have given us the perfect love and power within to drive fear away,
now and forever.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a
comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send
any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
