Perfect love casts out fear

In their song, Oh My Soul, Casting Crowns sings, “There is a place where fear must face the God you know.”

There are two parts to this line which aptly apply to the fear we see around us in 2022 … or the fear we have within us.

There is still a large number of people who are afraid because of the fear stoked around the coronavirus. The point Casting Crowns makes is that fear cannot stand before God. The best Bible verse on this point is 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”

The purpose of fear is to help us identify and avoid trouble. The object of this verse is God, or more appropriately, Jesus Christ and the salvation we have available through Him. The trouble with fear is that it sometimes paralyzes us to the point that even a fear of God does not rouse the heart to act. Only the salvation Christ offers will relieve us from the fear of the penalty of sin, and only a heart perfectly stayed on God will relieve fear of the world. Let me restate that. It is very much possible to not be afraid, but this state requires that we be perfectly stayed on God.

1 John 4 is all about God, the love God has for us, and the love we are to have for God. Chief among the believer’s fear may be persecution and death from persecution. Yet this is to allow fear to control us if we shrink back to save our lives and avoid pain. Perfect love (in God) enables us to act through God’s strength. In other words, perfect love demonstrates the love and glory of God.

We should restate this as well. Fear involves a distrust of God and His ability to grant us the strength and courage necessary to face uncertainty. John does not only call us to a perfect love and does not give us the liberty to believe that few can attain this state. The whole of chapter 4 carries the meaning that a lack of perfect love is distrust of God, otherwise known as doubt and unbelief.

We should also be aware of the warning Jesus Christ gave us in Luke 21:34, “Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day will not come on you suddenly like a trap.” Fear which paralyzes is a trap, and then we will be unaware of the evil befalling us.

The second part to the line by Casting Crowns is “the God you know.” Many people still have a general belief in God, however, few of them know God. Here, we should harken back to the King James usage of “know” in the Old Testament: Adam knew Eve and… This knowing involves a deep, intimate knowledge. Adam and Eve had a knowledge of each other that no one else had.

This is how our relationship with God is to be. We are called into communion with God, a fellowship in which God knows the very deepest recesses of our hearts. It is a knowledge to surpass the knowledge anyone else has about us.

Our trouble here may be that we do not know God very well. For some people, “the God you know” refers to a God who is limited in ability or is distant and slow to respond. For others, this God offers no strength or freedom from guilt. There is not, as John calls us to have, a “perfect love.” Perfect implies that there is nothing lacking, and when the adjective is paired with love, it means that there is nothing lacking in our love for God. Incidentally, perfect love for God is what Jesus said is the greatest commandment. When applied to everything else in this life, it means that through God we can have the strength and courage to

• attend church and worship Him
• witness to others
• face persecution and ridicule for being a Christian
• let our light shine in a dark world
• not be weighed down with the worries of life
• be available to other people, understanding that many of those around us are hurting and may be afraid, not knowing how to be released from that hurt and fear.

Our desire for safety and fear of illness has, I’m afraid, compromised our love for God, and from that point, it is a downward spiral. The purpose of fear is to prompt us to seek God and the salvation Christ offers. Fear is meant to help us build a perfect love for God, but we have instead allowed it to drive us away from God.

As I write this, I cannot help but think of Luke 9:62, “But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’”