Love.
In the Holy Scriptures it is written that there is no fear in love.
Your heart is probably recounting every deep wound inside of itself that masquerades as wisdom and whispers that “to love is to risk.” To risk is to lose. To lose is to break. And to break is the fear.
Our humanity wrestles with how a love without fear is possible and Apostle John puts the answer in his very next statement…as if he knew we would immediately doubt him. He says simply, because perfect love casts it out. The blessing of love literally devours the curse of fear. It doesn’t just subdue it or restrain it, it removes it completely.
In fact, he goes so far as to say that any fear intertwined with love is actually punishment. And if you haven’t bathed yourself in these waters of love and emerged unafraid...perfected, then you haven’t actually experienced it.
We are nurtured from infancy to believe that to love is to put oneself in danger. But to ensure that you don’t sink deeply into despair at this thought and immediately seek isolationism, it is then romanticized as some rite of passage that we have to undergo in order to arrive at the real thing.
We forget that perfect love has already arrived. It’s here.
It’s not something we have to figure out, or earn. Not some side quest that we might seek out if we have the courage. It already came. It died. It was pierced from His side. It ascended. It’s been glorified and poured out without measure.
I suspect the reason so many of us haven’t received it is because the enemy tells us we are unworthy of it. He then bolsters his case by reminding us of all of the reasons why. Of course, that shame immediately makes us want to hide and if The Garden taught us anything, it’s that when we hide - the very next thing that comes are the fig leaves. As if God couldn’t see our nakedness.
What that does is it creates an abyss of unforgiveness. We become fixated on this idea that somehow the work at Golgotha didn’t really finish anything. Then we get convinced of the lie that Jesus is harboring some secret resentment that He doesn’t say, but He feels every time He looks at us. That causes us to believe that our repentance isn’t enough, so we suffer under our own version of The Law where we have to earn it. And every time any of us try to uphold this law with performance, we inevitably fail…making it impossible for us to let go and forgive ourselves because we are now convinced we aren’t forgiven by Him.
And it’s hard to feel worthy of love when you can’t forgive yourself. So we reject it from Christ, we push it away from others and we think humility is hating ourselves.
And how can God’s love transform you if you hate yourself? How can you possibly love someone else? How can you love a God you think despises you? So we become fluent in our own version of love, born from our own strength.
And if picking up our cross and dying daily has taught us anything it’s this…you can’t do this in your own strength.
If love is earned then it’s born of the first Adam, not the Last.
Only The Lamb can wash you in it. Only The Holy Spirit can fill you with it. Only The Father can declare that “it is good.”
So maybe right now it’s time to get on your knees and open your heart to receive that which has already been given. Maybe it’s time to carefully remove every fig leaf and in your nakedness proclaim to Christ that you need His love. Maybe like Hannah, it might take some groans. Or maybe like David, it might take a Psalm 51 moment of true repentance. Perhaps it’s the audacity of Paul who believed He was received by Christ, even though days before he was persecuting Him. Maybe it’s time to be a child again and crawl into His lap, never questioning that He would want you to sit anywhere else.
All I know is that none of us are going to make it without this love. We can’t keep hating ourselves. We can’t keep loving people through fear. We can’t keep bleeding everywhere. We can’t keep wounding the ones we are meant to feed and calling it “self preservation.” We have to be filled with this love if we are going to survive this place.
And can I say to you right here, right now, with all that you are carrying, all that you have been through, you are worthy of this love!
Don’t ever let anything, human being nor demon prince, make you feel unworthy of it when Christ gave Himself up for it. He looked at you with His eyes of fire and said, “You…that one right there. You are worth it all!”
Beloved, in order to receive love, you first have to perceive that you are loved. Be loved right where you are.
Sin and all. Brokenness and all. Bondage and all. Fear and all. Mistakes and all. Lies and all. Bleeding and all. Fig leaves and all.
My precious brothers and sisters, release it all. Give it to the One who says you don’t need to be afraid anymore. Haven’t we carried this pain long enough? This shame long enough? This fear long enough?
Maybe it’s time, simply because it’s time.
Let His blood seep into every wound and sing a new song over you. Oh death where is your sting? Let His warm breath melt every icy place. Let His finger touch and shatter every rocky place. Let His pulse reawaken every numb and unfeeling place. Let His love swaddle you in the steadfast assurance that He has never forsaken you, nor could He.
For what Father can forget the child who nurses at His chest?
“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.We love because he first loved us.”
