Love & Fear

“Perfect love casts out fear.”  1 John 4:18a

Love.  American culture uses “love” for so many things:

We “love” God, our ball team, pickled beets (…at least I do, anyway), and, of course, we love our mamas.

What in the world is love???  That’s a whole different post, but one thing the Lord has been teaching me recently is a HUGE thing that love does –

“Perfect love casts out fear.”

As I was reading through this Scripture the other day, I sat there and chewed on it for a few minutes.  The Lord gave me the best picture to illustrate how His perfect Love casts out fear – it was of a club, and LOVE was the bouncer.  And what does that bouncer do?  He escorts out the lowlifes that are causing trouble and does it none too gently. 

I asked the question, “Who is the lowlife?  Who is Fear?” 

My first thought was that it was the weasel in the corner. 

Nope, though, he wasn’t it.  So who was it?

It was the bully -- the guy paralyzing a girl with his threats; the guy keeping her from doing what was right; the guy making her feel like she was worthless or helpless.

Isn’t that what fear does to us?                                                  

It paralyzes us and somehow keeps us from seeing who we are in Christ and the power that we have in Him. 

So when we call on God’s Perfect Love (Jesus),

He comes over,
seizes that bully Fear by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants,
roughly ushers him to the door,
then hurls him into the puddle in the middle of the street. 

And then Jesus comes back to us, binds us up and brings us to wholeness and truth in Himself.

That's what Love does...for me...and for you.  Wow. 

Trusting Him,
Carrie