Fighting Fear (Friday Devotional)

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We loved because He first loved us.”

- 1 John 4:18-19

Fear has an outsized influence on decision making. Sometimes this is a positive thing: you fear losing steady income, so you save; you fear gaining weight so you eat in moderation. Fear of the worst case scenario can keep your basest instincts in check.

But more often, fear does not enable self-control, it cripples it.  When you are afraid, instead of thinking rationally and reasonably, you simply react. Instead of holding to what you know is right, you jump at what feels safe. Fear has a way of causing you to think, say, and do things which would normally make you cringe.

Common sense says that you reduce your fear by improving your safety, or at least your feeling of safety. But the unfortunate reality is that a new menace always seems to be right around the corner, whether familiar or in a new form. No matter how much security your provide yourself, no matter how many threats you eliminate or prevent, fear always tells you that you’re a step behind and that danger could strike any day now.

So the Bible offers a different formula for driving out fear, one that is not intuitive but works nevertheless: love. Rather than reacting to fear with anger and rash decisions, God says to respond to fear by worrying less about your own well-being and more about how you can help another’s. We see this lived out in the ministry of Jesus, who spent his days surrounded by the diseased and the demon-possessed, but who reached out instead of recoiling. We see it in his preaching, where he proclaimed the good news even while some of his listeners plotted his death. Ultimately, we see it at the cross, where he gave his life so that we might be saved. In moments when Jesus would have had every right to fear for himself, he thought first of others.

Love does not promise safety and security—after all, Jesus’s supreme example of love resulted in his crucifixion and death. But it does promise that you can face even the most frightening challenges without fearing them. Instead of cowering in the face of your dread, love empowers you stand up for others. Instead of condemning those you see as threats, love enables you to see them as people created in the image of God. Where fear wounds, love redeems.

In a world that sometimes seems to grow more frightening every day, God’s message remains the same: “there is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.” When you are afraid, instead of grabbing at the low rung of anger and spitefulness, may you reach for the higher ideal of Christ, who responded to fear with compassion, mercy, and grace. May the cross serve not only as your salvation, but as your example—that even when things are at their scariest, loving like Jesus can only bring victory.