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. ~ 1 John 4:18

In a recent conversation, my father-in-law asked me, “What do you think about the Russian invasion of Ukraine?” I thought for a few minutes and then said something like “Vladimir Putin is a cagey character who might be bluffing, as he has done in the past. If he invades Ukraine, it is motivated by fear.” Whatever the circumstances; whether it is a one-on-one interaction or an international affair, fear is the root cause of violence. The passage above plainly states the remedy to fear and its cause. 

        Love cancels fear. Therefore, the absence of love causes fear. Fear is a natural response to any threat to one’s self interests. As a primal instinct, fear helps us to stay alive in the face of real, violent danger, like a hiker who rounds a bend in the trail and suddenly looks into the angry eyes of a grizzly bear. Thanks be to God who, after casting humanity out of Eden, instilled these impulses for self-preservation. 

        Again, let us consider the implicit message of the apostle’s statement. While they lived in Eden, the people did not need to fear. Sin caused them to fear - “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:10) After doubting God and acting in their self-interest, the people knew fear. Doubt weakened their love for God when they wondered if God would always fulfill their desires. Sin and fear would go hand-in-hand in the world outside Eden ever since.

        Satan, the originator of Sin, was the most glorious of the angels in the LORD’s divine council. He rebelled against the LORD and led a third of heaven’s hosts to destruction. Why? Because the LORD’s glory out shown Satan’s and he feared he would lose social superiority, not being content to influence only a third of his fellow creatures. Who can say what caused Satan’s fear? Does he deeply feel self-loathing, inadequacy, and vanity? Obviously he does, but where did that start? Was Satan, then called Lucifer, genetically flawed? If so, how’d that happen? Why would the LORD create him that way? Some day, we can ask the LORD if we dare, for it is His prerogative to withhold whatever He pleases because we are also mere creatures and the LORD is the Creator. 

        Satan’s fears, vanity, anger, and lust gave birth to the Sin that caused Cain to kill his brother Abel. Subsequently, and for the same reasons, humans have harmed each other in very personal and global ways throughout history. Feelings of inadequacy and pride result in broken relationships, tension, and chaos that range from general dis-ease to riotous violence. Fear breeds envy and enmity between classes and cultures, political ideologies and religions, modernity and tradition, and countless other differences. It causes some to dominate and others to cower. It is the root cause for invasions, wars, national, regional, and local incivility, and schism in the Church. If not checked, fear leads to strife, and ultimately panic that devolves into total chaos. Therefore, take a moment now to recall such things in your life’s journey and try to discern the fears that caused them. I’ll wait…

        The theme passage for today assumes the reader already knows how Jesus opened the way home to Eden. Through Jesus, the born-again Christian Believer receives the Spirit of God, which is the essence of love. The love of God cancels the power of Sin so that one only needs to embrace it and allow it to override fear and its terrible consequences. Humility, grace, and mercy naturally diffuse the onslaught of vanity, anger, and lust. Therefore, one can reason that Christians who submit to fear, whatever the cause, are not perfected in love. The tricky thing is to exercise humility, grace, and mercy intentionally to curb vanity, anger, and lust. But intentionality results from awareness and repentance that are surprisingly uncommon in the Church. Violent words and deeds often occur in the local church and fear causes pain, even there. We are all on the Way of sanctification, that means the perfecting in love mentioned by John above. It stands to reason that we will succumb to temptation from time to time, but without a concerted effort… 

        If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 1-3)

        Let us pray together that the Father’s house would be a place of prayer that overflows with the LORD’s love.