by: Carole L. Haines
God has called me to a journey out of fear to love. That is based on the verse, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:18-19)
God’s perfect love has the power to cast out my fear, to obliterate this Core of fear that I have lived with for so long. Perhaps you have lived with that core as well. God wants to cast it out of you as well with His Perfect love. There is an incredible occurrence in nature that always reminds me of God. When it is a mostly cloudy day, and there is a sudden break in the clouds, where the sunrays shine through and you can visibly see them. They reach from the sky all the way to the ground.
When I was a little girl I literally thought this meant that God was talking to me. I thought He was somehow trying to communicate with me. Well, God’s Word tells me this:
The heavens tell of the glory of God; and their expanse declares the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. (Psalm 19:1-2)
So, in a way, my little girl mind was right. I have since realized that I can hear God best alone with Him in His Word. I sit with Him often and long, especially now that I have retired from my former work. But I realize there has been a disconnect between my spiritual growth and my emotional growth. I am learning that through the study I am in called “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (EHS).
My desire is to grow up into all things in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 4:13) I learned a verse many years ago that has given me insight into this disconnect that can happen in growing up in Christ.
“We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.” (1 John 4:16)
We learn God’s love in two ways, by Word and by Experience/Relationship. The first part is to come to know His Love by His Word, being in it, taking it in, learning it. But it is believing His Love through relationship and experience makes it become real. I believe this is the progression I am experiencing of His Perfect Love. I believe as I grow it will cast fear out. We will be sitting with this one a bit and learning more and more from 1st John 4. Let me leave you with this one incredible encouragement.
“But we all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18) Be Blessed, Dear Believer.
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