Real Hope: No Fear in LoveSample

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

The message of Christmas took all my fear away! This radical statement is true and has been tested for over five decades of my Christian walk. I read last week that many of the younger generation live in constant fear and anxiety about what the future may bring. This is fuelled by unending comments on climate change, artificial intelligence, geopolitical tension, etc. They are certainly big issues and all-consuming for some.

The bigger issue should be, however, our relationship with God, the problem of our sin, its consequences and our place in eternity. Some might say, ‘Haven’t we got enough problems?’, but these are real issues.

Christmas tells the big story of how God initiated a plan to resolve all these eternal issues in one fell swoop. God because of His great love for us arranged for His eternal Son to be born of the Virgin Mary and to be given the name Jesus, ‘because He will save His people from their sins’.

Only then did I realise that John summarised the sin/salvation/eternity repair job as – ‘There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment’.

By receiving the Gospel message, I understood what John said – ‘I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life’. And so, I came to peace with God and to have the peace that God knows what the future will bring.

Written by JOHN SCOTT