Hi how are you all? Hope you are all well and loving life. This week in our world has been one of turmoil with racism being brought to the front and people from all over the world having something to say about it. I was praying and felt God say to me that racism is rooted in fear. Fear of what? Fear of people of different cultures, fear of difference, fear of death.
I felt the Lord ask me “how’s my fear level”. So that is the question I am asking you too. So if fear has a level, what fills up the rest of the cup to the top. The answer is love. It says in 1 John 4:18 that-
Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love”.
So it is perfect love that casts out all fear. Who is perfect love? Jesus. If we have the love of God fully in our hearts, fear cannot permeate any place. None of us are there just yet but we need to work on having perfect love by trusting in God. This is where our faith comes in.
Hebrews 11:6 states that without faith it is impossible to please God. How do we receive faith? By hearing and hearing and hearing the Word of God. We can’t receive anything from God except through faith. So we need to receive God’s love through faith.
If we want to know what perfect love looks like then 1 Corinthians 13 tells us. Please read through it in your Bible. Some of those characteristics of love are:
- it does not rejoice at injustice but rejoices when truth wins out. Jesus was consistently on the side of those injustices in his day. For example, He ministered to a Samaritan woman, stopped a woman being stoned for adultery, touched a leper, His disciples included a tax collector, He told the centurion that He had never seen great faith not even in Israel, He healed a foreigners daughter and so on. Jesus showed us love – not in pity but in empowerment. He met each of their needs and then empowered them through value, worth and love. It is time for us to cast out fear and start loving, valuing and empowering people just like Jesus did.
- It never gives us, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures. I think that at this moment in our history, this should be our slogan. We are never giving up until love and justice is for all, we are never losing faith in God as He is and has the answer for everything happening, we are remaining hopeful that love will prevail and this situation will be dealt with once and for all and we will continue enduring until this happens.
Jesus never gave up on anybody. You may tell me He gave up on Judas. But like Peter repented for denying Jesus, Judas could have repented for betraying Jesus. Jesus always saw the good and continues to see the good in everyone. Why? Because we are all created in the image of God. We all came from Adam and Eve and then from Noah and his wife. There is no mention of colour regarding people in the Bible.
So my question to you and me is how is our fear level? Let’s work on that and start allowing the perfect love of God to cast it out. Then we will see people as they truly are – loved by Jesus died for by Jesus and created by God.
Bless you heaps and keep living the life God intended for you.
Karen
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