11-29-2014

Good Morning All,

         1 John 4:18; “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

        He was a cantankerous patient.  He growled at the nurses and the nurses’ aides who tried to help him.  He never said thank you or offered a smile or a kind response.  He seemed to be angry at everything.  One night, when he was particularly grumpy, an older aide asked him why he was so mad at everyone.  He stopped for a moment and while looking at the ceiling began to tell the aide his story.

    He told the aide that he wasn’t angry; he was frightened.  He was afraid of what the doctors would tell him.  He was afraid of losing his independence.  He had never depended on anyone for anything but now; he had no choice.  He was afraid and being afraid made it hard to be thankful, joyful or hopeful.  Fear was driving away his confidence; fear was making his life miserable.

    Fear is the devil’s favorite tool.  When we fear, we tend to become frozen in our vision.  We seem to only focus on how big the challenge ahead of us is and not on God’s grace.  Fear paralyzes us into inaction.  It drives us to emptiness and hollowness.  It deprives us of the confidence in the love that God pours upon us; it weakens our faith.  Fear causes us to deny our thankfulness and our willingness to see past the immediate and miss God’s perfect promise for our life.

    The only way for us to lose our fear is for the perfect love of God to drive it away.  We can never fight fear on our own.  We will never defeat fear on our own.  It is far stronger than we are.  If we are going to defeat fear we will need help; help from God.  His grace is poured out upon us freely because of Jesus and his all atoning sacrifice for us.  Because of Jesus’ victory, we have nothing to fear.   The devil can only taunt us but in the end we know that God and his mercy will prevail in the end.  Nothing can defeat God and his love for us.

    So as we face our fears, we can be confident that God has already defeated them.  We can trust that in Him we have complete victory; in Him we have the promise of our salvation.  When we grab hold of this truth, we can give thanks to God that this challenge or struggle that we face has already be conquered by his mercy.  We can know that each struggle will end in God’s loving arms.  We can rejoice in his grace and peace. 

Father of all mercy, when we stand on our own fear can overtake us.  Use your love to drive out our fear.  Strengthen our faith that we may stand tall and face our fears with the confidence of your love destroys fear.  Be with those who are struggling at this time.  Give them the strength to overcome their fears.  Show them your perfect peace.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret