It may seem that the opposite of faith is unbelief or doubt. I believe the opposite of faith is fear. Fear causes you to say things of faith, without believing they really are true. Fear causes you to pray out of anxiety and worry, without actually believing the prayer will be heard or answered. Worse, fear may make you believe that a bad thing will happen if you don’t pray, and the prayer becomes more based on superstition than faith. I believe it is pretty much impossible to operate from faith and fear at the same time. Fear cancels out faith. So, how do we move from fear to faith?
The good news is this, we can move from fear to faith. We can walk in absolute faith, completely free of fear. The answer is simple, but not necessarily easy.
1 John 4:18~ “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” (emphasis added)
The Bible tells us that love drives out fear. This isn’t just any love. You may love your spouse, and be loved by your spouse, and still feel an insecure undercurrent of fear that your spouse will betray or leave you. Or even a fear that your spouse doesn’t love you as much as you think. So what kind of love is it that drives out fear? 1 John says ‘perfect love’. What is that? Is there such a thing?
Earlier in the chapter, (1 John 4:16), puts that love in three simple words.
“God is love.”
Perfect love is found in a Person. Jesus. Jesus is perfect love. Jesus loves you and me with perfect love. The perfect love of Jesus drives out all fear. The problem I see with this answer, is that I still see a lot of people, including Christians, who live in fear and not faith. So is the perfect love of Jesus enough? And how does it drive out fear?
Let’s go back to 1 John 4:18- “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
Fear has to do with punishment. But the verse also says that perfect love drives out fear. What is the fear of punishment, and how does it steal our faith? A better way to ask would be, what punishment are we afraid of? When it applies to our Christian walk, would it be safe to say, it is the fear of God’s punishment on His enemies? The fear of the punishment for sin?
Perhaps this verse sums up that fear:
Hebrews 10:26-27~ “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.”
Let’s break it down, and see what this verse is really saying. It may seem doom and gloom on the surface- give you a hopeless feeling of, ‘I better not sin again, or there is no hope for me!’- but I believe this verse is extremely encouraging, and reveals vital truth about God.
First, ‘if we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth...’ What is ‘the knowledge of the truth’? I believe it is the knowledge that Jesus died for our sins, and that He is the only way to the Father.
‘... no sacrifice for sins is left...’ Of course no sacrifice is left, because scripture tells us over and over, that Jesus was sacrificed for every sin. That’s why He said, “It is finished.” He took every sin- past, present, future- of the entire world, and bore the punishment Himself on our behalf.
‘...but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.’ Does it say there is a judgment and raging fire that will consume the enemies of God in scripture? Yes, but that’s not what this verse is saying. It says there is a fearful expectation of that judgment. Hmm, sounds like fear of punishment, doesn’t it? That judgment is for God’s enemies. Are we God’s enemies?
If you have surrendered to Jesus, and received His awesome sacrifice and forgiveness, the Bible tells us quite a bit about how your relationship to God has changed. You may think you have become a ‘servant of Christ.’ True, but there are levels of truth. A deeper truth is that Jesus said, “I no longer call you servants, but friends.” (John 15:15) We are God’s friends. Or deeper, we are His children. (1 John 3:1) Deeper: we are His Bride. (Revelation 19 & 22) Do any of these levels of relationship the Bible tells us we have with God, sound like we are His enemy?
Should we have fearful expectation of the judgment reserved for His enemies? I’m not ignoring the fact that the verse starts out talking about deliberately sinning after receiving the truth, but consider the relationship I have just described between us and God when we receive that knowledge. We become His friend, His child, His bride. If you have received the knowledge of that truth- who we are in Him- would you deliberately keep sinning? I don’t think so. The point of the verse is to realize that the reason we confess sins, is that we don’t want that barrier between us and God, because that breaks relationship. We withdraw from Him because of fear and shame. That’s not what He wants.
Let’s go back to 1 John 4:18. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Moving from fear to faith requires a revelation- the knowledge of the truth of who we are in Him. The more we become aware of, and the deeper we immerse ourselves in the perfect love of Christ, the more we will move from fear to faith. Jesus’ perfect love will drive out any fear of punishment. Jesus’ perfect love will drive out all fear. We will no longer fear punishment, because we are not God’s enemy. We will focus more on His love and less on our shortcomings. We will be confident that His love is unconditional, and freely given, and always available to us. We will feel less like criminals facing judgment, and more like dearly loved children, disciplined when necessary, to make us stronger as we mature in Him. But mostly, we will will have absolute, unshakable faith.
Like I said, simple, but not necessarily easy. It takes a lot of courage to surrender to Jesus. Not just to receive His sacrifice and forgiveness, but to surrender to His love and engage in an open and honest relationship with Him. Since he created humans, His deepest desire has been to have an intimate relationship with us. He desires to have a relationship far beyond that of master/servant. He wants us to be friends- even deeper, He wants us to be His family. Like any relationship, it takes work. But all it takes to start is just one step. It will be the best step you ever take.
All I can tell you is from my personal experience. I have never, for even one second, regretted surrendering to Jesus. I love Him more every day. I have moved from fear to faith. I KNOW He loves me. It makes me love Him more. I don’t know what else to say. I just encourage you to take that step.
To close, I want to pray for you, what Paul prayed for the Ephesians.
I pray that out of His glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through His spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. ~Ephesians 3:16-19
