There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

1 John 4:18 (ESV)

Did you know that God’s word tells us to “Fear not”, “Do not fear”, “Do not be afraid” over 300 times?

Looking across all manners of phrasing, some Bible scholars say there is at least one Biblical reminder not to be afraid to cover every day of the year.

Sweet friends, every day we have a choice between living from a spirit of love or a spirit of fear.

Love is messy and marvelous and miserable and miraculous.

• Truly loving another requires the courage to know them completely.
• Truly loving takes the strength to ask questions with responses we might not expect or might not like, answers that take patience and grace to process.

Fear settles for shallow interactions and comfortable routines that give the appearance of a loving connection without the effort of actually forging one.

Love refuses to settle for anything.

• Love desires the deep connections that grow out of honesty and shared trust.
• Love builds unbreakable bonds, forged in facing together who you were and who you are becoming, where you’ve been and where you are going.

This is the courageous love that our great and mighty God wraps around each of us every day. This is the infinite depth of love that led our Savior to the cross for you and for me, even though our good is not good enough, our bad gets pretty bad sometimes, and our downright ugly is, well, downright ugly.

Though we may resist His ways and His will, God persists in His desire to connect deeply with us. Though we may reject Him altogether, the Good Shepherd continues to search for His lost sheep, to call to us individually, to shine His light upon us. All of these things He does so that we might live in the light of His mercy and grace, the joy of His comfort and peace, so that we might know, FULLY KNOW, that we are eternally loved by Him.

Beloved, our God is not afraid of our hard questions or our hard responses. He does not fear our resistance or our rejection. He knows our innermost thoughts and our most secret attitudes and actions.

He knows us, FULLY KNOWS US, and yet our God still longs for our courageous love. Our God refuses to settle for shallow interactions and religious routine.

Dear heart, God’s word tells us clearly that God is love and that God wants us to mature (perfect) in His love. When we focus on God’s love, when we follow Christ’s ways and allow God’s love to flow from us, especially in difficult or frightening times, we are living in perfect, or mature, love.

Say it with me: Mature love casts out fear!

Pray it with me: May we all endeavor to study more, to seek God more, to mature in His love more! Jesus, may we be Your hands and feet, giving others the encouragement and the resources to cast out fear!