PERFECT LOVE

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love.”

1 JOHN 4:18 (KJV)

The first time we heard of the word “fear” was in the Garden of Eden, shortly after Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When God inquired of Adam’s whereabout he said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

The fear that man came to feel came with their knowledge of good and evil which is a type of the law. Whenever we live by the knowledge of good and evil we are most likely to fear as a result of the evil that we have become conscious of.

We sometimes look into our future or different areas of our lives and feel the grip of fear over a bad occurrence we do not want to experience. This ought not to be so. Our opening scripture says that perfect love casts out fear. Which love can be perfect?

The perfect love that was spoken about in our opening scripture cannot be our love for God, nor our love for humanity as human love, in its best expression is inconsistent. It has to be the love of God that was spoken about in our opening scripture.

When we concentrate on God’s perfect love for us the fears about our future and challenging areas of our lives will vanish. God loved us so much as to have given us his son Jesus and because of this act of his we can be assured that all we require for life has been given to us and that no more will he be angry at us for our imperfections.