Catching thoughts
Perfect love casts out all fear the bible says. Can we for
one moment expect to understand this verse? It was said recently that as mere
men we do not know how to love we are only in love with the concept of love.
True love is something that we can only be amazed at as we enter the life of
Christ in a new and big way. 1 Corinthians is the closest passage we have to
reveal love and as we try to be such we highlight the fact we have fear of
falling short running our lives. I cannot read this passage and try to attain such,
if I am I reveal I am standing on the wrong side of the bible. I am standing on
the carnal outside looking in and admiring the words. It is then in fear and
rejection we try to attain change. When inside the bible looking out by the
Holy Spirit lifestyle afforded us at Pentecost I am able to understand all 1
Corinthians 13 is doing is describing who I am and what is being revealed in
me. Not by my conscious choice but by the essence of who I am.
Perhaps we do well to focus on the latter part of the verse
that probably we do understand. “All fear” is probably something we are all
accustomed to living from. You know how it goes we get a pain in our big toe
and the thought comes it may be the dreaded lugumba disease. Or we are short on
money and fear comes to tell us we are going to be homeless and living under a
bridge. We have fear of saying the wrong
thing to the wrong person or not being accepted and it goes on and on. So I
think it is fair to say we understand fear and it is fair to say we have absolutely
no idea what perfect love is.
It has been the last few days this verse has been going over
and over in my head. I began to understand where the position of perfect love
is. And as we abide in the perfect spirit of perfect love we live separate to
this world its carnal desires fears and responses. Perfect love is a state not
an action not a place of nirvana that we attain. It is a constant state that is
revealed in us as we walk by the Sspirit. Now what better to reveal to us our
true state of religion than the absence of fear. Paul tells Timothy to test
himself to see if he is in the faith and it is with such we can test ourselves
to understand and have revealed our true state. You see there is no better deceiver
than the carnal man and as believers we do well to allow God reveal the separation
of such in our lives.
So lets get more specific. When was the last time fear
grabbed our lives and debilitated us. When was the last time fear whispered its
foul voice in our ear telling us we have some sickness coming on that will lead
to something horrible. What ever the fear is we do well to ask ourselves what
was our response? Now there are a few responses we all have. Those without
Christ go into a denial or just surrender to the fear. But most with Christ try
to make a conscious act of surrendering the fear in some way. But is there
another way a way of total peace and perfect love. You see the verse does not
imply any action on our part. It is the love that casts out the fear not any
action on our part to position ourselves or work at it. It is within the
perfect love I find the absence of fear.
Recently this was highlighted in the koinonia and the
understanding that our carnal actions feed, align with and motivate the fear. It
is in the carnal man we are distracted from perfect love. When we surrender to
carnality we align ourselves with the source of fear and choose to not walk
perfect love. Granted the love never changes butas carnality distracts we often
surrender our strength to such. In perfect love I do not pray about peace, I do
not fast, pray and strive to enter the peace. It really is simple I just be
perfect love in the Sspirit of who I am. I just abide in who I am and that
abiding goes beyond my consciousness and just is.
If God is love and perfect love casts out all fear then I am
completed in being the understanding it is no longer I that lives but Christ
who lives in me.