Sisterly Love

Guess what I found on my clothes when I went to pack for BJU this morning? :)

No prizes if you can guess who it's from:) I ♥ You Clara, who always thinks of what everyone else would like, adores any tv with a princess and a battle, and never buys anything for herself.

1 Corinthians 13 
[ The Excellence of Love ] If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. ...

Perfect Love casts out fear

Do you know what the opposite of love is?

Hate?
No.

Anger?
No.

Exasperation?
No.

The Bible says the opposite of love is fear.

1 John 4:18:
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 

New Oxford American Dictionary defines fear as:

fear |fi(ə)r|nounan unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat: drivers are threatening to quit their jobs in fear after a cabby's murder | fear of increasing unemployment | he is prey to irrational fears.
If you look at hate, anger, and exasperation, the root of all of them is fear. Fear of rejection,  fear of failure, fear of imperfection, fear of fear.
We've all experienced it. Fear is unpleasant.There is no way you would want fear. Especially when it is keeping you from something as wonderful as perfect love.
But as annoying, paralyzing, and nerve-wracking as fear is, it is not unavoidable. It is not invincible. It is overcomeable.

Isaiah 41:10‘Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’ 

Here's the kicker: if you want to be free of fear and ready for perfect love, you have to trust God.
Let me tell you from experience how hard this is. It is so easy to get sidetracked by the danger,  the worry, the fear.

Matthew 6:34 

“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

God needs us to trust Him with our everything.

Psalm 55:22Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you;
He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

God's perfect love casts out all fear.