Ctrl+Alt+Love

2 Cor. 4:2 “In the full light of God’s truth we live…” [GN, with emphasis]

The second antidote to fear is Love. 1John 4:¹⁸ “Love contains no fear — indeed fully developed love expels every particle of fear, for fear always contains some of the torture of feeling guilty” [Phillips, with emphasis]. How much fear is contained in love? None! If you love the Lord, you will have no fear of spiritual things and no fear of eternity. Love does not entertain fear. Fully developed love sweeps through the life and purges fear. Peradventure there is a grain of fear lurking around, fully developed love will sweep it out. The Bible tells us that it is because fear always contains some of the torture of feeling guilty.

I was listening to Rick warren share an experience, he said he wrote a love note to his wife while they were still dating. And at the end of the letter he signed his name and put John 4:18 but his wife stopped talking to him. The scripture he actually intended to write was 1 John 4:18. He said he tried for weeks to find out what he had done only to discover later that he had written 1John 4:18 “For you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!” Reading that must have made her very upset but with sheer determination, he got her back. Sometimes the solution for some men is sheer determination.

Love neutralizes fear in two ways. The first way to neutralize fear with love is receive God’s love for me [you]. A lot of people struggle with receiving God’s love because they feel guilty, or unworthy, or they feel God cannot love them. 1 John 4:18 shows us the connection between guilt and fear. We become afraid because we are guilty, then we feel guilty because we are afraid. God is saying, stop feeling guilty when you have repented. But if you have not repented, please repent. If [and when] you have repented, you need to receive God’s love for you. You can never be free of fear until the love of God saturates your heart.

Prayer: My Father, my Rock, Lover of my soul, Lord I receive Your unconditional love for me, in Jesus Name. Amen!