1 John 4:18 (NIV)
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
Ok, raise your hand if you have not been made perfect in love.
My hand is up and I imagine yours is too. I’m honestly not even sure what that would look like, except to look at Christ. This verse comes in the middle of John’s well-known “love passage” where we also learn essential truths such as, “God is love” (verses 8 and 16), and “We love because he first loved us” (verse 19). It’s well-worth reading – or re-reading – to put this relationship between fear and love in context.
If I were to stop people on the street (from a safe 6-foot distance of course!) and ask them, “What is the opposite of fear?” chances are they would answer something like bravery or courage. If I asked for a list of 10 words, how likely is it that any of them would be love? We don’t typically understand these two things as opposites, or even contrasting ideas.
In some ways, they seem to go hand in hand. I could make a pretty good-sounding argument that fear is born out of love. After all, if I didn’t love my family so much, I wouldn’t be afraid of losing someone to this virus. It’s because I love my kids that I fear not being able to provide for them if I become unemployed. It makes a lot of sense… but it isn’t biblical.
Jesus is our example of perfect love. Jesus loved his friends, but when the storm battered their boat in the middle of the sea did he fear for their safety? Nope. Not only was he without fear in that moment, but he questioned their fearful response. It seems we may have gotten the relationship between fear and love a little wrong. Love is not the source of fear.
Perfect love (a.k.a. God) drives out fear. When we fully receive and trust his love for us, there simply isn’t room in our hearts for fear. It doesn’t mean that nothing difficult or painful will ever happen to us, but that we trust him to be in it with us and to work all things together for our ultimate good. This is a lot easier to say than it is to live out and I’m definitely a work-in-progress in this area. But I’m learning to let fear act like a smoke detector in my life. When fear starts calling the shots it is like an insistent beeping that demands my attention. I can either respond from a place of fear or from a place of love. Choosing one automatically excludes the other. Maybe it’s time to ask God to put some fresh batteries in your smoke detector.
Don’t forget that love is a verb. It is something you do, not just something you feel. When we focus on loving the people around us well, there’s no room for fear in that either. I don’t recall another time in my lifetime when there were this many needs so readily visible around us. Do we have to find new ways of meeting needs and expressing love in a time of social distancing? Absolutely. Is fear a reasonable excuse not to do so? Hardly.
How does love drive out fear? The same way anything is driven out – the new thing occupies the space where the old used to be. We receive a love that contains no fear and allow it to fill us until it overflows onto those around us. The calling is the same as it was before we found ourselves in a global pandemic. The temptation to fear may be greater but so are our opportunities to love. We always have a choice.
Moment of Beauty
Look around your local area for beautiful examples of people loving each other well. Read articles, find videos, and look for ways to join what God is doing in the midst of difficult times. Find the drive-through food banks, the teachers comforting struggling kids over Zoom, the friends delivering groceries to vulnerable friends. Thank God for these acts of love, big and small, that conquer fear. Ask him to show you where he’s at work and where he wants you to join him.
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