Conquering the Bully of Fear
Fear is a bully.
It bosses humanity around, limits our options, and causes torment. Yielding to fear shrinks us into a lesser version of ourselves – one that God never intended.
God is Love and 1 John 4:18 says love casts out fear. In the NIV version it specifically says:
There is no fear in love. Instead, perfect love drives away fear. That’s because fear has to do with being punished. The one who fears does not have perfect love.
Meditating on this transformational truth can change everything. I love what the Message version says:
God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
Wow!
God has a LOT to say about your situation.
And the beauty is that NOTHING can separate us from Him – we are actually one with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). Savor what Romans 8:31-39 says in the NIV. It’s worth taking on the passage!
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Paul is really asking the question. We need to camp out on how MUCH Love is for us. It makes everything else against us soooo insignificant! How mortifying for the enemy!
32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There really is nothing that can separate us from Love.
Our sin can’t.
Our faithlessness can’t.
Our failures can’t.
Our ugliness can’t.
Shaking our fists at Him can’t.
The only way that separateness can shadowbox itself into our lives is when we are not yet convinced in our hearts and minds of our utter union with God.
That is why 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (AMP) says:
4 The weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood]. Our weapons are divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 5 We are destroying sophisticated arguments and every exalted and proud thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought and purpose captive to the obedience of Christ
That is why we are transformed by the renewing of our minds – to Who Love is, to what He did, to who He says we are, and to what we are called to do.
Let Love champion you over everything bullying you!
Let Love have the full run of the house!
Be sure to check out my book, Marked by Love, to encounter God’s amazing love for you!
