Foundations' Blog

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment." — 1 John 4:18 (NIV)

Fear is a universal human experience; no one can live long without encountering it. While fear itself is not a sin (even our perfect Savior experienced it in the Garden of Gethsemane), it is something we are cautioned against and encouraged to overcome. The only fear we are to retain is the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10, Matthew 10:28). In this blog, I want to explore 1 John 4:18 and consider how "perfect love" can dispel the fear we face.

What comes to mind when you think of "perfect love"? It might be a love that we yearn to feel, possess, and share. The idea of experiencing or expressing perfect love seems beyond our reach, as our love is often tainted by selfish motives and agendas. Yet, perfect love does exist—it emanates from a perfect God, who is Love.

To understand this concept, let’s examine the verse within its context:

"God is love....

Have you ever felt an underlying nagging sense of shame or embarrassment? When you pause to think about it, you know you didn't do anything wrong, yet it feels like you have. If you have ever felt this way, you are not alone and there isn't something wrong with you. It just means there is a place inside of you the Lord wants to apply His truth so you can experience more of the abundant life He came to give you.

In Webster's Dictionary, shame is defined as "a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety." For the sake of this blog post, I want to highlight the words shortcoming and perfection. The type of underlying shame I am focusing on today has to do with an underlying sense of falling short, not being good enough, or somehow missing the mark but not actually knowing how you missed it… it's just a nagging feeling. This nagging feeling can stem from various sources, but let's focus on the distinction between worldly and religious perfection...