Good Morning All,
1 John 4:18;
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do
with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”
I remember as a kid I would stay up late
on Friday nights and watch the old movies that used to come on after the 10:00
local news. They were usually from the
1950’s and earlier; a lot of times they were black and white. Once in a while they would be foreign. This was my first experience with the mouths
moving but not matching the words. There
were a variety of movie types.
One that I vividly remember
starred Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. It was entitled “Scream and Scream
Again.” I sat there and watched the
whole thing and then sat in my bedroom with the light on all night. That was one of the scariest movies that I
have ever watched. I still think the old
movies are scarier than the new ones.
The old ones relied on camera angles, careful editing and solid
acting. Today it relies on computer
graphics and effects. Yet as I watched
that old Vincent Price movie; I was very afraid.
There may be different times
that you were very afraid and not have anything to do with a movie. Sometimes the most fearful events occur in
real life; events that can cause us to leave a light on all night and to sit in
fear. It might be a sudden illness or a
sudden death. It might be a prolonged
illness. It might be a loss of a job. For some it is actually a stretch of time
where their life is going fairly smoothly.
These folks are just waiting for life to turn against them. We live in fear and we live in fear because
we fear punishment. We fear punishment
for sins we have committed. We know
these sins and the devil knows these sins and he reminds us of them any chance
he gets. We live in fear.
Yet Jesus came to remove the
fear. Jesus came as God’s perfect love
faced all the challenges that we face, even facing down the devil and death
itself with God’s perfect love. In that
perfect love, whole and complete, God displayed that perfect love by giving the
victory that Jesus earned over death and the devil to us. He gives us the victory and along with that
he gives us love and peace.
Yet since we are not yet
perfect, we still experience bouts of fear.
We still fear even when we know that we have nothing to fear. When this fear occurs, we can only look to
God, clinging solely and totally to his grace.
When we cling to God, through faith, we trust his perfect love to
conquer our fears. It is we have and it
is all we need. Our imperfect love will
fail but thanks be to God that he gives to us the victory.
Father, when my fears arise;
lead me to look only unto you. Guide me
by your Spirit to rely on you. Be with
those who are in fear right now. Calm
their fears, give them peace. Lead them
into your wondrous light. This we ask in
the precious name of Jesus our risen Lord, amen.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret
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