Perfect Love: Embracing a Life of Radical LoveSample

Love, an Antidote to Fear

Today, I invite you to read these scriptures out loud, personalizing them as needed by replacing “you” with “I” and so on:

1. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” Romans 8:15 (NKJV)
2. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)
3. 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. We love Him because He first loved us. 1 John 4:18-19 (NKJV)

In those scriptures, we see that fear is a spirit God has not given us, we must not receive the spirit of fear the enemy gives, and love is a spirit God has given to expel fear. Perhaps you have received the spirit of fear due to various circumstances; receive freedom in the name of Jesus! We must rebuke the spirit of fear whenever he tries to take over our minds, homes, etc.

The Holy Spirit is the spirit of adoption. He brings us into the experiential knowledge of God as a Father and our realities as children of God legally adopted with the precious blood of Jesus (1 Cor. 7:23; 1 Peter 1:19). As the truth of our adoption illuminates our minds and spirits, we subjugate the spirit of fear manifesting in the form of people-pleasing, timidity, insecurity, inferiority complex, compromise, jealousy, etc.

When faced with challenges and the enemy tries to exploit them with the spirit of fear, I subjugate fear by resting in God’s love for me. I remind myself that my heavenly Father’s love does not abandon. His love makes a way. Romans 8:32 and 37 (NKJV) declares: "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us."

Alleluia! Rest in the love of your Father today. Keep resisting the spirit of fear with God's Word, His love letter to you. God is faithful!