Perfect Love Drives Out Fear

Many acts of bravery have been performed during war... almost always by average people with average abilites. People much braver and much more noble than I can probably hope to become. Among many motivating factors, a soldier who sacrifices his life by jumping on a grenade to protect his nearby brothers, does so out of love. This, a person who undoubtably lives with the same fears that would plague any normal man. Fear of rejection, fear of hurt, and fear of death. God's word says "perfect love drives out fear". Love is the most powerful and most influencial force that exists and I will always believe that it can overcome fear and death in any circumstance. Christ proved this on the cross and thus we as Christians can now claim the power of love.

For those willing to learn and grow, every life stage teaches us about love. As a parent whose primary weapon in parenthood is love, it becomes an absolute revelation of fact that a child cannot function without love. Orphans who grow up in neglect are the biggest victims and stories of the human disability that is fear. Without love, without trust, without a safehaven, life becomes for them a mountain of fear, coming in waves of circumstance masked as rejection, insecurities, and abandonment. Rather than exploring life from a launching pad, time is spent avoiding pain, neglect... acting out... or altogether sucumbing to the lie that noone wants you. It is a powerful disability that has become an epidemic to the human race, regardless of background or upbringing. It is the breeding grounds for Satan to build up his Kingdom. In a globalized world where information is at anyones fingertips, it doesnt take much digging to see the effects of lives lived in fear... the hatred, devestation, and destruction that can result. Am I being a bit dramatic here? Perhaps, but those of us fortunate enough not to have experienced it to a large degree sometimes choose to continually build up our bubble, to detract that reality from our tangible lives. The fact remains, this world is hurting and broken(the harvest is plentiful), and fear still reigns mascarading through sinful man.

Even still, LOVE can and does conquer fear. LOVE, as the word says, is what defeated death yesterday, today, and tomorrow when Jesus returns. Love cannot be conjured up by good intentions... that is at best fabricated and unauthentic love. True love cannot even be conjured up by human encouragement and rally. Love must be UNDERSTOOD... BEFORE you can love. A child learns love through their parents and this is why parenthood has such a critical role in this world... yet even more so, we learn love through God. "We love because He FIRST loved us". Love is not the result of evolutionary development, or because it biologically benefits our ability to survive and coexist... it isnt an innate, randomly existing altruistic force. Love derives from God as God IS love... he is the author and love was/is purposefully shown for us to see and replicate. Love is an absolute. Christ displayed it to the fullest example to date for us to see. While we were yet sinners he died for us. All of us. Understanding love is so closly tied to our ability to understand identity and purpose. They all fit together like a perfectly formed jigsaw puzzle that creates a bigger picture.

Our biggest weapon against hate, brokenness, fear, and death... is love. We must know Him to know love. And thus, it is simple to me... at the risk of sounding exclusive, I believe a home without God is a home without true love. As a parent it is scary to think that one day, I'm going to release my own flesh and blood out into this broken world. I know that my biggest contribution is to equipt them with love... and to do so, to equipt them with an understanding of the author of love. It is a command given to us by Christ himself.. to raise up disciples.. to baptize them in love... and release them because there is much work to be done. As Christians, my hope is that parents would be ambitious for their kids, dream big for their kids... and rather than settle for surviving (and living selfishly) in a world of fear, that we would through the love of Christ, equipt them to conquer a world of fear ... as we ourselves are hopefully brave enough to do.