1Jn 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Fear- dread-terror.
PERFECT LOVE casts our fear.
Remember this from yesterday--
1Jn 4:12 ...If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
ONLY if God is dwelling in us is HIS love PERFECTED in us, and that happens ONLY if we LOVE one another. THAT perfected love is what will cast out fear, it will cast out torment. If we are filled with fear, with terror, with dread, then we are not loving others as we should, we are not allowing God to live in us. The more fear we have the less our God is in us.
Some people are naturally (or so it seems) more fearful than others. Some are more apprehensive, some are anxious and filled with anxiety, and fear is a way of life to them. Being somewhat such a person- finding myself having an anxiety attack at ten years old- long before our medical/psychological fields truly knew what they were- I was suddenly experiencing this strange, awful, physical reaction to nothing I could understand at the time, later, MUCH later, I would realize the catalyst was my father leaving us for a week to attend a work function in another state, something ten year old me had never had to deal with- dad was ALWAYS the one that was there even when mom went through a lot of medical stuff. Anyway, here I was thrust into this horror of fear caused by something totally alien to me and my life was altered from that point on. There was a point in my life I hated to leave the house (praise God that was only a short/dark period of my life) that fear was so incredibly intense and even today I cannot honestly say I have no fear in my life- does this mean God is not dwelling in me, that I do not love others enough, that I don't have the perfect love of God in my life? It's possible, but then again I HAVE to say this… at the point we allow ourselves to believe that we are perfected, aren't we yet again caught up in self-delusion, self-righteousness?
Paul said this- and I've gone back to it time and again because I have to-
Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Oh wretched man that I am. Those words came from Paul, one of God's apostles. Were there ever any closer to God than the apostles? And yet those words describing Himself as wretched, those words calling his body the body of death came from one close to God!
What is the message being given here?
I believe- and I could be wrong- but I believe that we are in a PERFECTION PROCESS, a GROWTH PROCESS, that we are living towards that perfection but it's NOT something that we pull on like a longed for warm coat, button up and never take off. This perfection is a living, breathing thing because this perfection is the LOVE of GOD dwelling in us as we love others!
Perfected love will automatically dispel fear and the greatest fear we COULD have is the fear of losing life eternal with our Savior! Yes?
This should be our GREATEST ever fear. All other things to fear are not to do with our eternal life. When we fear spiders, strangers, birds, germs, death itself, we are fearing things that do NOT affect our eternal life. The thing that affects our eternal life is whether or not we have accepted the love that our Savior has for us, and in accepting that love it LIVES within us as something ALIVE being perfected and the result-- is our LOVE for others -- which in reality is God's love for us alive, perfect.
To NOT have the love of God in us should be our greatest fear!
To NOT have the forgiveness of our Savior, this should be our greatest fear!
To NOT have the righteousness of Christ standing in place of our filthiness, this should be our greatest fear!
To NOT KNOW GOD, to NOT BE KNOWN BY GOD this should be our greatest fear!
Perfect love- GOD- casts out any fear we have that we should not have eternal life.
We must have FAITH in God, believing in God fully, trusting in our God more than we could ever trust in ourselves. We have a lot to fear if we are placing our faith in ourselves and not God. We should be filled with terror, dread, fear, horror if we are looking INWARD for salvation and not outward to our God to be saved.
1Jn 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
We are perfected by GOD in us, and GOD casts out all our fear.
All by the grace of our God, all by HIS love! Please perfect us!
Fear- dread-terror.
PERFECT LOVE casts our fear.
Remember this from yesterday--
1Jn 4:12 ...If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
ONLY if God is dwelling in us is HIS love PERFECTED in us, and that happens ONLY if we LOVE one another. THAT perfected love is what will cast out fear, it will cast out torment. If we are filled with fear, with terror, with dread, then we are not loving others as we should, we are not allowing God to live in us. The more fear we have the less our God is in us.
Some people are naturally (or so it seems) more fearful than others. Some are more apprehensive, some are anxious and filled with anxiety, and fear is a way of life to them. Being somewhat such a person- finding myself having an anxiety attack at ten years old- long before our medical/psychological fields truly knew what they were- I was suddenly experiencing this strange, awful, physical reaction to nothing I could understand at the time, later, MUCH later, I would realize the catalyst was my father leaving us for a week to attend a work function in another state, something ten year old me had never had to deal with- dad was ALWAYS the one that was there even when mom went through a lot of medical stuff. Anyway, here I was thrust into this horror of fear caused by something totally alien to me and my life was altered from that point on. There was a point in my life I hated to leave the house (praise God that was only a short/dark period of my life) that fear was so incredibly intense and even today I cannot honestly say I have no fear in my life- does this mean God is not dwelling in me, that I do not love others enough, that I don't have the perfect love of God in my life? It's possible, but then again I HAVE to say this… at the point we allow ourselves to believe that we are perfected, aren't we yet again caught up in self-delusion, self-righteousness?
Paul said this- and I've gone back to it time and again because I have to-
Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Oh wretched man that I am. Those words came from Paul, one of God's apostles. Were there ever any closer to God than the apostles? And yet those words describing Himself as wretched, those words calling his body the body of death came from one close to God!
What is the message being given here?
I believe- and I could be wrong- but I believe that we are in a PERFECTION PROCESS, a GROWTH PROCESS, that we are living towards that perfection but it's NOT something that we pull on like a longed for warm coat, button up and never take off. This perfection is a living, breathing thing because this perfection is the LOVE of GOD dwelling in us as we love others!
Perfected love will automatically dispel fear and the greatest fear we COULD have is the fear of losing life eternal with our Savior! Yes?
This should be our GREATEST ever fear. All other things to fear are not to do with our eternal life. When we fear spiders, strangers, birds, germs, death itself, we are fearing things that do NOT affect our eternal life. The thing that affects our eternal life is whether or not we have accepted the love that our Savior has for us, and in accepting that love it LIVES within us as something ALIVE being perfected and the result-- is our LOVE for others -- which in reality is God's love for us alive, perfect.
To NOT have the love of God in us should be our greatest fear!
To NOT have the forgiveness of our Savior, this should be our greatest fear!
To NOT have the righteousness of Christ standing in place of our filthiness, this should be our greatest fear!
To NOT KNOW GOD, to NOT BE KNOWN BY GOD this should be our greatest fear!
Perfect love- GOD- casts out any fear we have that we should not have eternal life.
We must have FAITH in God, believing in God fully, trusting in our God more than we could ever trust in ourselves. We have a lot to fear if we are placing our faith in ourselves and not God. We should be filled with terror, dread, fear, horror if we are looking INWARD for salvation and not outward to our God to be saved.
1Jn 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
We are perfected by GOD in us, and GOD casts out all our fear.
All by the grace of our God, all by HIS love! Please perfect us!
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