Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

There seem to be a lot of fear being spread through media and, therefore, through social media we see a lot of bad things lately like murders, disappearances, sex trafficking, stealing of children, hate crimes, pretty much anything horrible that you can think of.  As I read through Facebook before I fall asleep (which I try not to do anymore), it keeps me awake at night, thinking about the horrible things that are going on in our world.

People are killed and abducted in their homes. THEIR HOMES! Isn't anything sacred anymore? Why can't we feel safe letting our children go to school during the day or lie in bed at night without worrying about a home invasion? Because people are cruel. It's a sad fact, but it's true.

And that's not the only kind of fear there is. There is fear of the future. Fear that a past mistake will come back and haunt us. Fear, fear, fear all around! It's a lie of the devil, and it's something that we don't have to let bother us!

Sure, you're probably thinking that we can't stop something like that, and no, WE can't. But I know someone who can!

God has been trying to get across to me lately that He is the one who eradicates fear. Why should I fear something that I can't control? It all comes down to me feeling like I need to control things, and the truth is, I can't. I can't do anything about what's going on in our world. I can't do anything about anything. All I can do is put my faith in the One who knows what He's doing.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

This verse has been on my mind a lot, and God has been showing me things about this verse that have changed my entire thinking about fear. In this verse, this "perfect love" IS God.

If we fear anything, we can't love. If we can't love properly, then we're missing the whole point of love. Love is never fearful. It's trusting. It's faithful. It's honesty and truth. It is NEVER torment.

Fear is pure torment. We allowing fear to rule us, to dictate our actions. It's robbing us of sleep, of faith, and of trust. And it needs to STOP!

As I was looking through Facebook the other day, I came across this picture from Our Daily Bread.

On my Facebook page for this blog, I shared it and wrote: "‎Faith‬ is, yes, and we also have to remember that 'Perfect ‪‎love‬ casts out fear.' Once you have FAITH that God (Perfect Love) will take care of every situation, fear no longer has a leg to stand on."

Do you remember the when Jesus was in a boat with his disciples, and they were all terrified during the middle of a storm? This is what He said to them, "But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”" (Mark 4:40)

See, between faith and love (Him), God is telling us that we have the means to defeat fear. I liken it to a battle brought on by the devil himself. He is going to throw everything he can at us to make us scared, to keep us from having the faith to believe that God can and will change our situation. It's our job to not allow the devil to continue to keep us from God through fear.

Hebrews 13:6 (NKJV) says,

So we may boldly say:
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear.
What can man do to me?”

I think that "man" can refer to ANYTHING. No one or thing is going to hurt us because we have God on our side. And God is PERFECT LOVE that casts out fear. But notice the "boldly" here in the verse. It's our job to say this boldly, to believe it WITHOUT a doubt!

So how do you stop being fearful? You give it to God. I asked God once how I was supposed to just give Him something like that and let it go. I saw myself holding a pen, and God said, "Let it go."

"But how, God?"

"You just drop it."

So I dropped this pen, but a few minutes later, I picked it back up. "That's your problem," He had said. "You always want to pick up something that you should have given to Me."

It took many tries before He finally got that pen, and then it disappeared completely. I didn't pick it back up.

You're probably thinking that it stopped there. No. It didn't. The devil tried to hand it back to me, and I took a hold of it, scared to drop it again.

We're fighting a battle, but God has given us the means to "drop the pen" and make it disappear. His perfect love for us has eradicated all fear, but it's our job to have the faith to not pick up the pen again.

What will you choose today? Will you drop the pen and let it disappear, or will you keep holding onto it and live in fear? The choice is yours. God never gave us fear. The devil did. So which do you want to hold on to? Perfect love or lies?

Shake off the dry bones

As I woke this morning (5/8/2015), a phrase was running through my mind, “Shake off the dry bones.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but as I searched through Bible verses with “dry” and “bones” in it, Ezekiel 37:2 popped out at me, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. 

Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry.

Of course, the very dry bones meant that these bodies had been there for a while. There was no flesh, sinew or anything left on them. They were as dead as dead can be. So I’m thinking, “Okay, God. There’s something important about this phrase. What is it?” So, I read the entire section of Ezekiel 37 “The Dry Bones Live”. 

God told Ezekiel to “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.”

So, Ezekiel does, and the bones stand up, getting their sinew and flesh, but they aren’t breathing. God told him to prophesy again. 

Also He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.

So now, we have a living breathing army who was once dead come back to life again. You have to remember, this was a vision that God had given Ezekiel about Israel as a nation. God was causing Israel to rise again, and He was reestablishing the army. 

What got me was the next few verses, God’s explanation of what the vision was about.  

Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’”

If we take this and put it into context into today’s time, God is telling us that He will take our old, dry bones and renew them, giving us hope again! If we listen to His words, have faith, and stay strong, He will breathe life back into our dry bones, giving us hope once again!

See, Christians are beginning to get weary. The enemy is fighting us hard, but God says to shake off the old bones! Shake off the weariness and have hope! He will see us through, and He’s going to make sure that we’re set up in the place of our inheritance (His promises). We're an army, and He's breathed life back into us!

Don’t lose hope. Don’t let the dry bones overtake you. Shake them off, and live in faith, knowing that God is going to put us back where we belong. He is going to help us and see us through the difficult times to get us to the good times.

 

The Former and Latter Rain WILL Come Down Because It's Harvest Time!

I've started a new Facebook page for this blog, and I share tidbits of insights into things God has shown me and more. Well, a few days ago, this is the Word God gave me, and I've been seeing a lot of confirmation regarding this prophecy.

God is restoring DOUBLE what the enemy has stolen! He said, "Restoration for 2015!" Stand on that, receive that, and be free.

How awesome, right? I'm definitely standing on that promise!

Since God works in mysterious ways, I was reading through my Bible a few days before this. I came across a Bible verse, quite by "accident." Joel 2:23 (NKJV)

Be glad then, you children of Zion,
And rejoice in the Lord your God;
For He has given you the former rain faithfully,
And He will cause the rain to come down for you—
The former rain,
And the latter rain in the first month.

And if you stop here, it would be awesome enough, but it gets even better as it continues.

²⁴ The threshing floors shall be full of wheat,
And the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil. ²⁵ “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
The crawling locust,
The consuming locust,
And the chewing locust,
My great army which I sent among you.
²⁶ You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
And praise the name of the Lord your God,
Who has dealt wondrously with you;

So what does it all mean? That's exactly what I asked myself. If you look at it in face value, it just seems like God is talking about sending the rain because they needed a harvest, food. But, when you break it down, it really means a lot more, something deeper. Sit tight as we explore what God's prophecy above has to do with the rain verses I'll be showing you.

First, we need to define the former and the latter rain.

The former rain comes in the fall, between October and December. It was to "prepare the seed-bed and assist germination." (MacArthur NKJV Study Bible pg. 1272)

Now, let's talk about the actual Hebrew meaning. Former rain is Mowreh (mo-reh') in Hebrew. It is a masculine noun meaning, "early rain" or "teacher." (Strong's Hebrew Dictionary)

We see how the former rain fits the verse, but how does "teacher" fit into this? Here's the MSG version of our first verse in Joel.

He’s giving you a teacher
    to train you how to live right—
Teaching, like rain out of heaven, showers of words
    to refresh and nourish your soul, just as he used to do.

The " former rain" has a double meaning. It's quite literally the first rain, but it's also a teacher. We need to understand how the rain works to get the harvest, restoration, and blessings coming to us via the former and the latter rains. God is teaching us how to nourish our souls in preparation for the harvest to come.

Let's now turn our focus on defining the "latter rain." According to MacArthur, "the latter rain came in Mar.-May to provide ample moisture for the grain and fruit to be rich and full." (NKJV Study Bible pg. 1272)

The Hebrew word for latter rain is Malqowsh (mal-koshe'). It means, "latter rain, spring rain" - "the March and April rains which mature the crops of Palestine." But, the word Laqash (law-kash') - it's origin - means "to glean, gather, take the aftermath, take everything." (Strong's Hebrew Dictionary)

Now, let's focus in the former rain and the latter rain coming in the first month. Did you catch that? God will provide BOTH rains in ONE month.

So, both the former and latter rains will be coming in ONE month. And when these rains come down together, the "threshing floors shall be full...and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil." The harvest will be so big that storehouses can't hold it all.

According to MacArthur, "Moisture from heaven invariably accomplishes its intended purpose in helping meet human physical needs. The Word of God will likewise produce its intended results in fulfilling God's spiritual purposes..." (NKJV Study Bible pg. 1041)

But, it has to be the right time for us to get this harvest. Leviticus 26:4 shows us that the rain has to come in its right season.

then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

 MacArthur says that, "If the rains did not come at the right times, the people experience crop failure and famine." (NKJV Study Bible pg 190)

I thoroughly believe that the right time is now. God has said that He's restoring what the enemy has stolen from us in 2015, and the rains are falling this month!  "So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, The crawling locust, The consuming locust, And the chewing locust..." The locusts can't eat our crops anymore. He has no authority over them because its our inheritance! 

When God sends His rain, and we reap a harvest from it, that is our inheritance. 

Psalm 68:9 NKJV says:
You, O God, sent a plentiful rain,
Whereby You confirmed Your inheritance,
When it was weary.

In this heavy rain, God was confirming His promise to see the "inheritance" through. God has told us that He's restoring everything that the enemy, the locusts, has stolen, eaten, and this is our year to get our harvest, to get our inheritance back.

Amazing, right? Our Inheritance is coming back to us! The devil can't have it anymore, and we're getting a DOUBLE PORTION back.

But, we must remember this one important fact from the verses above. We have to "praise the name of the Lord your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you...." 

Praise is a very important key to receiving the blessings that God has given, or is giving, us. Praise opens many doors to God, and it closes the doors of the enemy. It stops the enemy from stealing your harvest, and it stops him from making you feel like you don't deserve what God obviously wants you to have.

So get in agreement with the Word today. The former and the latter rains have fallen, and it's time that we received our inheritance, the harvest. It's time we received the restoration of DOUBLE what the enemy has stolen. Let God be your teacher and show you exactly how to receive your inheritance. Remember that praise is key.

Does your shadow cast perfect love?

I had my thumb and index fingers on each hand touching.  The overhead light cast a shadow of that, and it looked like a heart.  My shadow was casting a heart, and then I thought, Does the impression I give others leave the same?  Does my shadow in life cast off perfect love?

I don't want to be remembered as a sourpuss who was always frowning.  I want people to see me and say, She's a happy, loveable person.  I want people to know the love of Christ after I leave their presence.

See, we as Christians need to give off the love of Christ.  If it's in us, we need to show it.  I know that we have bad days, and it's certainly easy to walk around with a frown on our faces or tears in our eyes.  We get angry and sometimes say the wrong thing, but is that how we want people to remember us?   

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.  No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.  1 John 4:11, 12


God wants us to love one another, and since He lives in us, the Bible says that His love is perfected in us.  That means that God's love is perfect, and that perfect love is what dwells inside of us.  So, how can we not cast off love when perfect love dwells within us? 


I'm not saying that it's not alright to have a bad day.  It is, but how can things be so bad when we have the love of Christ working within us?  


This is the love of Christ.  It's a love that we cannot even fathom.  God sacrificed His only Son, so that we may live.  What are we sacrificing for God?  Surely sacrificing a bad day for God isn't quite the same as Him giving us His Son?  




For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  John 3:16
  

What if the person you just gave the finger to who made you angry in traffic needed to see that kind of love today?  What if they were in a hurry to get to a sick loved one who needed them?  Needed Christ?

What if that person who bumped into you accidentally in the grocery store was looking for that perfect love and all you did was talk ugly to them?  

What if the woman sitting alone in a cafe wondered if anyone cared about her and all you did was snub her when she smiled at you?  

Think about that for a moment.  I'm guilty of being ugly in the grocery store when it's crowded and all I want is to get home after someone tried to run me over with a grocery cart, but what if that person needed to see the perfect love of God in me, and I was too stubborn, too human, to give them that kind of reassurance.  

Today, I urge you to be nice; let your shadow cast perfect love today.  Don't leave people with a terrible impression of who you are.  They need to see God in you.  Not the human side.  They see enough of that in this world as it is.



Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not [love], I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.  1Corinthians 13:1
 

Guest Post: Bearing Fruit by Staci Stallings

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit. –John 15: 1-2

Every so often a misinterpretation corrected sends shock waves through my life. Thus it was with this Bible verse.  I had always defined “bear” as meaning to produce.  In other words, “Every branch in Me that does not produce fruit, He takes away…”  Then I began reading about how God doesn’t expect us to do things for Him, no, He wants to do things through us if we allow Christ and the Holy Spirit to take over our lives to such a degree that it is Them doing the doing and not us.

Okay, but there was still this verse.  Clearly it says if I am in Him, I will or should produce fruit.  Right?  Well, maybe.

I give you this new insight to ponder, not so that you can accept it outright, but so that you can try it on in your life and see if it fits.

 There is a second definition of “bear” I had never considered. It is actually the first definition of the word.  Bear means “to carry or to hold.”

Does that make any difference in how you read this verse?  “Every branch in Me that does not hold fruit, He takes away…”  To me, holding is much different than producing.  Holding is passive.  Someone else has done all the hard work to produce it, all I have to do is be strong enough in Christ to hold the fruit He’s producing in my life!

You know, looking back, I wonder how much fruit I didn’t “hold” because I was so busy trying to “produce” fruit on my own.  I wasn’t focused on what God was doing in my life, I was focused on what I was doing for Him.  Trust me on this, the difference between the two in theory and in practice are huge!

 The funny thing is, since I’ve stopped trying to produce fruit for Him, fruit in abundance of abundance has come into my life.  In my books, in my kids, in my marriage, in our finances.  Things I used to work so hard to accomplish (which never seemed to work out) are suddenly heaped upon me in blessing after blessing. I am convinced it’s because I stopped trying to produce and started being content just to hold that this change has come about.

So, as I said before, consider this simple yet profound modification in the way you define “bear.”  It may well change your entire life!

Copyright Staci Stallings, 2006

Staci Stallings, the author of this article, is a stay-at-home mom with a husband, three kids and a writing addiction on the side. She is a #1 Best Selling Christian author and the founder of both Grace & Faith Author Connection and CrossReads--a site where Christian readers and authors can connect.

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Victory is Ours for the Taking!

It's not big news when I say that Jesus died on the cross.  It's not big news when I tell you that in dying on the cross, He died to take away our sins and make a way straight to Him that isn't through sacrifice.  But when Jesus died, crying out, "It is finished," (John 19:30) what was He really saying?

I'm sure there are many different things that Jesus meant when He cried out these words.  He could've meant that His reason for being on Earth was done or that He knew it was His last moments.  What I think it means - well, one of the meanings of this phrase - was that He had given us victory.  That when it was finished, the victory, over situations in our life, battles, is ours. 

See, as a Christian, we are in constant battle with Satan's forces.  The devil will come against us faster than we can think.  He tells us lies, very convincing lies, brings us down, strikes us with fear and sickness, but we don't have to live that life.  Why?  Because the battle has already been won!  When Jesus died, He took care of that for us!

When God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for us on the cross, He knew that with His death we would have victory.  So why are we still fighting these battles that have already been won?

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:57)

It's simple.  We're human, and we want to do things on our own.  We want the doctor to fix our aches or medicine to take away the depression.  But we have to learn to let that go.  Reach out and grab your victory.  It's there for the taking.  

God wants us to live a life of honor and glory in His Name.  That also means that we can use His Name to proclaim our victory because it gives GOD the honor He's so deserving of.  We have power in the Name of Jesus to overcome devils, make mountains move!  That means that our mountains, the things that cause us to stumble or completely stop us from having faith because they are weighing us down, will MOVE simply because we have victory through Jesus!

Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: (Zechariah 4:7)

Put your faith into that victory.  I know that it's hard, but if we have faith as a grain of mustard seed  (That's about the size of a poppy seed.), we can move mountains, casts trees into seas, and they will have to obey us because we are speaking this in the Name of Jesus.  (Matthew 17:20, Luke 17:6) 

That's not a lot of faith that is required of us if you think about it, but somehow, we make it into a lot.  We make our molehills mountains instead.  Step back, take a deep breath, and step over that molehill before it becomes a mountain.  Who art thou, O great mountain?   Who is this mountain to stop us?  In the Name of Jesus, it will be nothing but a plain - flat land for us to walk across instead of being stopped by a gigantic rock.  

Step into faith and cast away that mountain.  WE HAVE THE VICTORY!  CLAIM IT TODAY!


For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.  (1 John 5:4)

"Fear not, little flock..." How is fear trapping you?

Fear – it can bind us in so many different ways.  There is a fear of the unknown or our future, sometimes even our past, death, and in times of trouble.  We’re scared of things that we shouldn’t be, but you know, it’s human-nature to fear things that aren’t in our control.  I’m not talking about ghosts or zombies either.  What I’m talking about is a fear that will inevitably keep us from trusting that God has things in His control.  But, He ALWAYS has things under control. 

Our future is something that we will always be concerned about – especially when things aren’t going the way we want for it to.  Our life can take an unexpected turn, and then, boom, the devil is whispering in our ear telling us to be scared – that God has forsaken us and left us.  So, we end up FEARING the unknown future because we think that God has tossed us aside because we aren’t getting what we want in our life.

Proverbs 29:25 NKJV says, “The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.”

Let’s begin with the first line of this verse.  “The fear of man brings a snare…”  A snare is a trap.  It’s a trap that will keep us from trusting in the Lord.  Fear binds us from where we need to be in our steps with God. 

There was a time that I feared dying more than anything else in my life.  I feared that one morning my nieces would walk up stairs to wake their Auntie Em and find that I had died in my sleep.  But why should I fear dying?  Why should I let Satan trap me by making me fear the one thing that would bring me to God?  This had become a constant battle with me as I lay my head on my pillow each night.  I would lie in bed crying at times because it scared me so badly.  But one day, I let it go.  I let that fear go and began trusting that God would protect me and keep me in His loving arms. 

“…But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.”  And I’m still here.  I haven’t died, and I’m living to tell a story that someone needs to hear. 

Fear is a trap, and we just have to cut ourselves out of it by trusting the Lord.  Oh but trust is so hard!! How can we trust that our future will go where we want it to?  How can we trust that we’ll live through the night to see another beautiful day?  How can we trust that our past is really behind us and won’t rear its ugly head again? 

That’s were faith comes in.  Hebrews 11:1 NKJV says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Faith is believing that things are taken care of, believing that whatever it is you are fearing is in God’s control.  God has His hands on your life.  He will protect you.  Just seek Him.    

Psalm 34:4 NKJV says, “I sought the Lord, and He heard me, And delivered me from all my fears.” 

God will take these fears away.  He knows that we’re only human, and that it’s in our nature to worry and fear.  But, what He wants from us is to trust Him, seek Him, and believe in Him because he has our best interests at heart. 

One Sunday our pastor said, “Faith is a motivator, not fear.”  It’s true.  Faith will motivate us.  Faith will cause mountains to move.  Fear will cripple us and trap us inside our own minds. 

Luke 12:32 NKJV -  “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  God is watching out for us.  He has our best interests at heart.  Why should we fear when all we have to do is seek God and His kingdom? 

I will leave you with this verse. 1 John 4: 18 NKJV “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.  But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”

Be made perfect in love, the Love of God.  God is perfect love.  He casts out the fear in our lives, so we won’t be tormented.  God doesn’t want us to be miserable.  He wants us happy.   

“Fear not, little flock…”