More than 100 times God tells us in His Word to, “Fear not!” Why? Because fear is an enemy of God, therefore, it is our enemy as well. From the beginning, it was God’s original plan that we leave fear-free, but when sin entered this world, fear did too. And yet, living free from fear is still available to us, but it’s up to us to live out God’s original plan. It’s up to us to learn how to fight fear and win.
Living in this world will always give us pause…to be gripped with fear, to be paralyzed with fear, to lose sleep because of fear, to be riddled with anxiety because of fear, to be controlled by fear. Fear will always seek its primary objective in our lives—to create unbelief, which is believing something other than what God has said about any situation.
But we were never meant to be controlled or affected by fear at all. We were meant to walk in faith, to walk by faith, to deal with what live throws our way with faith. But if we don’t learn how to fight fear and win, it will contaminate our faith.
There is only one way to defeat fear and that is to walk in the opposite of fear—to walk in love. Because Love Overcomes Fear. Because faith works by love (Galatians 5:6-7). Because God loves us as much as He loves Jesus. If that was hard for you to read and believe, then begin confessing the truth Jesus said until it becomes real to you: “I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me” (John 17:23).
Love is the driving force that flushes out all fear, so the more we are filled with love, the more we receive love, the more we walk in love, speak in love, and extend love—and the less fear controls our reactions, responses, and emotions, and wrecks our thinking.
But love doesn’t overcome fear automatically in our lives. We have to develop it. We have to develop faith in love.
Discover Love
The first step in developing love is to understand who love is. First John 4:7-8 tells us. that God is love—which means He doesn’t have love, he is love. If we read these verses with that in mind, we could read it this way—and it gives us a fresh and clear understanding: “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God (Love). Anyone who loves is a child of God (Love) and knows God (Love). But anyone who does not love does not know God (Love), for God (Love) is love.”
If we approach the Word of God with this in mind, it changes the way we think of God, and the way we relate to him. Consider John 1:1 through this lens: “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God (Love), and the Word was God (Love).”
Read John 1:14 in the same way, “The Word (Love) became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
Imagine reading every verse of Scripture that tells us something about God in this way. It would transform the way we see God and increase our understanding of Him and who He is. God is love and love is God. They are one in the same. You cannot separate them. Love Overcomes Fear.
Develop Faith in Love
The second step to developing love is to understand that perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). It does not manage it; it does not cope with it; it does not cover it up; it does not tolerate it—because fear has torment. What is that torment? Being frightened. Whatever it is that we are frightened of, we don’t have to be. We can develop faith in Love, which overcomes fear in all it’s forms.
When we are first born again, God, who is love, comes to live on the inside of us; we become indwelt with love. “For we know how dearly God (Love) loves us, because he (Love) has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love” (Romans 5:5).
From that initial step of making Jesus the Lord of our lives, we’re to grow. We’re to mature. It’s a process we never stop pursuing because as long as we’re on this earth, we never stop growing. We’re to continually exchange all our ways of thinking and living and loving with God’s ways. We’re to be transformed from the inside out. Romans 12:2 says, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God (Love) transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s (Love’s) will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
We often refer to this as renewing our minds, and as we practice it, faith moves in and drives fear out. First John 4:18 tells us, “There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror! For fear brings with it the thought of punishment, and [so] he who is afraid has not reached the full maturity of love [is not yet grown into love’s complete perfection]” (AMPC).
Developing a relationship with Love begins with making Him our Lord and Savior; it continues as we renew our minds. And renewing our minds happens as we read and study the Word of God, as we exchange our thoughts, perspectives, and attitudes for Love’s. As we exchange fear for faith.
Mark 11:22 says to have faith in God. If God is love, and He is, then we could read this verse to say, “Have faith in Love.” Fear is having faith in death. In fact, fear of death is the greatest of all fears; it’s having faith in the law of sin and death. But by having faith in Love, by developing love in our lives, Love Overcomes Fear.
Believe the Word of Love
The third step is to developing love is realizing that faith is the opposite of fear; that we can believe Love and the Word of Love, or we can believe fear and all the words of fear we hear and/or speak. How many times do we speak fear and death when we say things like, “That just kills me,” or “I was laughing to death”? Remember, the Word tells us that life and death are in the power of the tongue, meaning in the words we speak (Proverbs 18:21).
It’s time to get fear out of our vocabulary. For example, it’s time to eliminate using words that don’t produce faith—words such as incredible or fantastic. Incredible means something has no credibility. People don’t usually mean it that way when they say it, however, the devil doesn’t judge us according to what we mean; he judges us according to what the word means—and it’s something we don’t want in our lives. We want what’s credible in our lives—like God’s Word and His many attributes—love and goodness and kindness and patience and faith and on we could go.
Fantastic is another example. People don’t mean any harm when they say, “Wow, that was a fantastic message,” but it’s the wrong use of the word. Fantastic means fantasy and can’t be believed. As message preached based on the Word of God can be believed. It’s credible. It’s true. It’s worthy of honor and application in your life.
The point is to think about what we say and the true meaning of the words we speak, because we want to be speaking life, not death (Proverbs 18:21). We want to be speaking faith, and not fear.
Fear comes by hearing and hearing the words of death. But faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Or, with the understanding that God is love and love is God, we could say, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Love.” And then it speaks; faith speaks (2 Corinthians 4:13). What does faith speak? Faith. And Love.
We all want the power of God in our lives, but the Bible doesn’t major on God’s power—it majors on His love. And if it weren’t for His love, we’d never know anything about His power. It was because Love loved that He exercised His mighty power in the earth. It was compassion that moved Jesus when He healed the sick and fed the multitudes with a young boy’s lunch (Matthew 14:32). “Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:14).
Love functioned in and through Jesus.
Love wants to function in and through us.
Because Love Overcomes Fear.
Practice Love
It is wise to rebuke fear, to cast it out in the name of Jesus, to resist it, to stand against it, but it is the practice of love that defeats fear in our lives—because Love Overcomes Fear. We practice love when we love others with Love’s love.
First, we love God, and out of Love’s love, we love others.
“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God (Love). Anyone who loves is a child of God (Love) and knows God (Love). But anyone who does not love does not know God (Love), for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8).
It was Jesus who said, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40).
This is the commandment of Love. It’s so easy to practice anger, to practice unforgiveness, to practice impatience, to practice stress and busyness and anxiety. But how much better it is to replace all that with practicing love. Today, start practicing loving others with Love’s love that’s He has filled you with.
Being filled with God’s love, loving Him and loving others comes with a promise we all want to see come to pass in our lives: “Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them” (John 14:21).
Love God. Love people. Practice love. And watch what God does in our lives as Love Overcomes Fear.
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