Perfect LOVE casts out all FEAR

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.