No Fear!

1 John 4: 16b – 18

“God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. ¹⁷ And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

¹⁸ Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. ¹⁹ We love each other^[b] because he loved us first.

Well I guess you figured it out, March is the month to talk about fear.  It can be explained as false evidence appearing real, being afraid, or a darkness that the enemy tries to block out the light of God.  It can be from things that we perceive may happen but may not or things that are happening and we don’t know what to do or how to move forward.  It hinders us, stops us, and can even paralyze you if you allow it. 

It comes from our enemy, Satan.  He tries to convince us of the opposite of what God said about us or promised us.  1 John 4 talks about God’s love for us.  God loved us so much that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to die for our sins. He knew no sin, but died for us.  Why? So that we could become His children and know His love. 

GOD IS LOVE!!  It is who God is, not what He does. When we realize how much He loves us, we can be confident in Him.  We do not have to be afraid or filled with fear about anything.  God is greater than any fear, and is well aware that we will experience fear.  He said, fear not, many times in the scriptures.  He is aware of all the things that we could be afraid of or that the enemy will try to make us afraid of.

God created us with purpose and gifts and sometimes we may feel that we are not enough, know enough, or can do whatever it is that God is calling us to do. We feel afraid or experience fear.  We don’t want to move forward or don’t know how to overcome our feelings.  That is why we need to study God’s Word because there are so many examples of how much He loves His people and the promises that He has for us.  He is greater than anyone and anything.  We can tell fear to go because it didn’t come from God. We are binding it and casting it out of our lives.  We can use God’s Word to speak to that spirit of fear.  The Bible says in 2 Timothy 1:7, “7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” NKJV

Fear does not come from God and we have the authority to bind it and cast it out.  God has given us the power over all the power of the enemy. (Luke 10:19) We have to use God’s Word against the enemy and speak it over our lives daily.  You have to continue to speak God’s Word when you feel fear or when God points out why you are doing something or not doing something.

As we grow to understand and embrace the love of God, we realize that we can be confident in Him.  He promised that He will return for us and all will stand before Him in the day of judgment.  He gave His life so that we could be saved.  We can look forward to spending eternity with Him in heaven.  We have a blessed hope. 

But if we do not embrace His love or come to know about His love, we will be afraid and tormented by fear.  We may be trying to earn His love or afraid that He is mad at us.  When you feel that way, you have not experienced God’s perfect love.  The more I realize how much God loves me, the less I am afraid.

When children know that you love them, they will jump off something high into your arms.  They are not afraid because they know that you love them and they trust that you will not let them fall.  Why is it that we don’t trust our loving Father the same way?  Is it because people have failed us or said they loved us and really didn’t?

We live in a fallen world and the word love is so watered down.  God’s love is unfathomable. Unfathomable means incapable of being fully explored or understood. We will never fully grasp the extent of God’s love while we are here on earth, we only know in part.  But when we meet Him face-to-face, we will know Him fully and understand His great love for us.  As we grow in Him, He will reveal Himself to us and we will gain a greater understanding of how much He truly loves us.  And when that happens, fear has lost its grip and we can say, No fear!