Led by Love
1 John 4:18-19
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 because he loved us first.
These are two of my favorite verses of Scripture. No two passages unravel the motive of our hearts in relationship to God and each other as much as these two. You really can be motivated by only one of two forces, love which describes perfectly who God is, or fear which is this absence of God and His perfect love. The rest of your emotional psyche and the framework of how you view the world is rooted in one of these two forces.
Both love and fear are vying to write the narration of your life's story. Love is narrating a story of redemption, restoration and joy. Fear is trying to describe your life as a sorrowful story of bitterness, disappointment and defeat.
Love is leading you into the arms of a compassionate Father. Fear is teaching you that you can't trust anyone but yourself.
Love teaches us not to worry about the cost and consequences of living the life of faith we are called to. Fear teaches us to always consider what we have to lose and to guard closely the little we have so we don’t lose more.
When you feel loved, you feel brave, empowered and confident. When you feel fearful, you feel insignificant, weak and discouraged.
Love reminds us that the future is only going to get better. Fear reminds us we better not make another mistake and has us for-boding what's next.
Love tells us that yesterday’s setbacks and trials made us stronger today. Fear tells us that yesterday’s setbacks are the reason we are not successful today.
Love gives us the ability to have meaningful relationships with people without unhealthy expectations or requirements. Fear keeps a tally of how we have been wronged by the various people we do life with.
Love finds a way forward. Fear finds an excuse to stay stuck.
Love is exclusive from fear, you can only be consumed with one or the other.
At the end of the day you can only be the person you are willing to fight for yourself to become. In the kingdom fighting looks like falling in Love. The day you stop falling in love is the day you begin to let fear creep in and eventually consume you.
I recently heard a story about an American soldier (Sgt. Harry Adams) in WW1 chasing a retreating German soldier through Moselle, France. The American is chasing the fleeing German with nothing but a pistol that has only two bullets left. The German runs fearfully into an abandoned house and into a trap door that hides a concealed safe room. The American stops outside the door, fires his last two shots into the trap door and demands the German surrender. Not realizing this was the Americans last two shots, the German comes out of the hidden room and surrenders to the American. Before the arresting American can lead the defeated German out of the house, a German lieutenant colonel comes sheepishly out of the room with his hands raised in surrender as well. Again, before the now astonished American can do anything further, 18 more German staff officers come out of the room in surrender. Then again, 350 more German infantrymen came out and surrendered to the single American as well. The American, trying to keep his composure, leads them all under arrest with nothing more than an empty pistol.
Was this single American soldier that frightening to all those Germans? Of course not, the Germans had simply lost sight of what they were fighting for and ultimately lost their will to fight. When you lose the will to fight you are then willing to surrender to anything.
None of us choose to be led by fear, but oftentimes we lose sight of the one who is the source of love and ultimately lose our will to fight for love to be kindled in our hearts. It's our responsibility to reject fear, by placing our eyes on Jesus once again, so that His perfect love can expel any fear that may have crept into our hearts. It’s in this way we can be continually consumed and led by His love and overcome all that the enemy tries to get us to surrender to in fear.
Love,
Pastor John
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