Love Casts Out Fear

“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. We love because he first loved us.”

In this verse John explains that in God’s perfect love there is an absence of fear. The two cannot co-exist. He then shows us that God’s perfect love is primary. Love belongs to God as it is part of his very essence and being (1 John 4:8) and it is only because he first shared his perfect love for us that we have the ability to love him in return.

In our fallen state, we will not experience the fullness of God’s loves. What’s more, our hearts are often so consumed by fear that we feel little of God’s love at all. Fear itself is a suffering or punishment levied on our hearts, sinking us down into the brokenness of this world. This burden of fear becomes all the more consuming when we stray away from the truth and power of God’s love.

The truth is that God loved us first. The truth is that, “…God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). The truth is that the same love that had the power to save us from a fate of damnation lives in us as Christians. Let us overcome fear with faith that God’s love for us is far greater than any anything there is to be afraid of in this world.