Be Afraid part 4
God does not want you to be afraid of Him. He never has wanted that and He never will want that. Religion tries to control you through fear and intimidation. "Get left or get right." "Straighten up and fly right or you're going to hell." All of that nonsense. Which CAN be scary. But that's not God. That's not the relationship between Father and Son that we see in Matthew 3:17, "And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." That's not... love. And love isn't just what God does. Love is who God is. Which means love is who WE are. Because as He is, so are we in this world. Jesus said it like this, "When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." That's what happened when Jesus gave His life FOR us and TO us. He gave us His nature. The love nature. He gave us His name. His Spirit. Himself. There is no separation between God and man. How could there be when God lives IN man? That's who Jesus is. God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in YOUR flesh. Love in YOUR body. YOU are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. I said all that to say this: When we know who we really are, and who God really is--who we are in Christ, and who Christ is in us--what in the world is there to possibly be afraid of? Certainly not God Himself. And look at Romans 8:39 in the NLT, "No power in the sky above or in the earth below--indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." In other words, there is NOTHING to be afraid of. Nothing at all. Because our heavenly Father has our backs. One hundred percent. All of the time. He will never leave us nor forsake us. For any reason. No matter what we do. Stumbles and falls do not disqualify us. Mistakes happen so that we can learn from them. Learning and growing is part of the maturation process. We go through something, and even if we don't do it very well, God reveals Himself to us, and in us, and through us. So that we can do better next time. So that we can help someone else through the same thing. Because we all go through the same things. We're all afraid of the same things. But when fear--in the sense of being afraid--turns into reverence for God... that's when our love becomes perfect. And perfect love casts out fear. There is no fear in love. Just as there is no darkness in the light. And we ARE the light of the world. Even as Jesus is the light of the world. It's the same light. The light spoken of in John 1:4, "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." Where there is light there CANNOT be darkness. Where there is love there CANNOT be fear. His LIFE is the light of men. God is not something to fear. God is our very life. He's not out to get us. 2,000 years ago on the cross He got us. Not in a negative sense, but in a positive sense. The judgment of God was not a death sentence. Jesus sacrificed Himself when he died on the cross. The judgment of God was an everlasting, eternal, abundant, Resurrection LIFE sentence. And that's means there is nothing to fear. That means we can let our hearts NOT be troubled. We can live and love. We can live BY loving. Loving God and loving people. Loving God BY loving people. We can love fearlessly. Live fearlessly.