There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.
1 John 4:18
Few things sadden me more than how commonly people abide relationships that have more in common with fear than they do with love. Sometimes it manifests in plain site with physical and emotional abuse. And at other times in a myriad of more oblique but no less troubling ways. Wherever there is manipulation, that is fear, not love. Wherever one exercises a power inequality over the other, that is fear, not love.
It is often difficult from the outside looking in to understand what precipitates these fractured relationships. But if you have known fear, you will know that its ability to wield unwanted influence is no small thing. And this is fear’s power, in influence, in it’s capacity to bring us to harmful action and equally harmful inaction.
Were I God I am not at all certain I would have pursued the remedy to fear that He has instigated. Rather I might have chosen bravery, or faith, something more practical, or seemingly holy, or both. But love? Why choose love? The reasons are manyfold but among them is the one that John calls out here,
Love removes the prospect of negative consequence. And negative consequence is how fear’s power is derived. What if that person no longer loves me? What if that person leaves me? What if I’m rejected? What if they don’t want the love that I have to give? What if I’m actually unlovable? Love, perfect love, washes away these consequences. Love confirms in me that I am loved by my Heavenly Father, that I am worthy even in my brokenness of the greatest of sacrifices. It instills in us an unerring sense of our value.
There is no fear in love, it should have no play in our receipt of love or in our transmission of love, church. Perfect love grants us freedom to love and be loved fearlessly. God, who is love, has removed the stain of consequence and punishment, to enable us to fly in the face of fear without anxiety or trepidation. You are worthy, you are loved without limitation by the Most High God. Allow the power of that revelation to be as magnificent as it truly is!
All my love
Stephen Hickson