our greatest fears, unrealized

1 John 4:18: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love."

I am still thinking on 1 John 4 (see this previous post on fear) and listening to the No Longer Slaves song (have you sung it yet?).

As I wrote last week, I struggle with all kinds of fears. I think the above verse digs a little deeper into our hearts and what drives us. It says that what should be our greatest fears--ultimate aloneness, real death (spiritual and eventually physical) without the Creator's life breathing into ours, and bearing the weight of all our sin--don't have to be realized in Jesus.  

Whatever horrors or hardships you face in this life, and there are many, these are not ones you have to face if you choose Jesus.

Whatever awaits us upon death, separation from the Creator doesn't have to be on the list.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Romans 8:35-39

The worst we could ever face is exactly what Jesus faced willingly for us. It was the glorious plan from before creation (1 Peter 1:20). 

He was completely cut off from the life of God (Matthew 27:26). . . so we would never have to be without Him.

He bore the weight of the curse of our sin (1 Peter 2:24)--God's wrath . . . so we could be forgiven and made new.

Friends, this is the secure spot we get to live and grow and obey from! It's not a place of fear, but of love. This is where our greatest growth can happen. This is where our greatest joy overflows.

This certainly doesn't make life easy; but it does fill us with hope and a promise of future victory.

John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."

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