Sermon 7

Love

Passage: 1 John 4:18-19
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. We love because he first loved us.
Be patient, my soul: thou hast suffered worse than this. -Homer

It's always hard to find a Bible passage to write about. There are so many countless stories in there that I don't know what to pick, so often I just go to Google and type "Bible quotes". Today, however, I found one that has a particularly warm place in my heart. Sola Fide is a close friend of mine and the only one who has an extremely strong faith. She has a habit of accurately pointing out things that I never saw, and whenever I am upset she can quote Bible passages to me that make me feel a million times better. Today's passage is one of those, and very technically I have stolen what she told me for my sermon. Thanks, Sola Fide!

As well as I am doing regarding my bad spell, it's still a rough road. Every once in a while I have lapses where I feel like crying. I had sent an email to Sola Fide and she sensed that something was wrong. I explained my whole problem and she did her best to comfort me, including sending that passage and some of her words of wisdom, which I will take down here.
In relationships, we all too often hear things like, "I'm so worried about him liking me", "I'm scared he's going to dump me" or "I just want to look my best so he'll like me!" I had always thought that this was fine, nothing wrong with being concerned. But, as Sola Fide pointed out to me, there isn't any room in love for fear, which is what all three of those statements contain. True love is perfect, and if your love is perfect you wouldn't be scared all the time. So, perfect love gets rid of fear; it drives it out. We really don't need to freak about relationships. As big and important as our partner may seem to be, if they could really be effected badly by our appearance or if there really was a threat of being dumped, they evidently aren't a very good partner.
The passage continues to mention punishment. In the examples I gave, they all indicate a fear of something happening (him/her not liking them, being dumped, again not being liked). The 'something happening' is the punishment, which John states has to do with fear, ergo it has no place in love, either. This is greatly comforting, I find. Thoughts like those I mentioned aren't very nice, and they make you constantly stress and fret about everything. However, if you are truly in a perfect, true love, you won't have to stress. Love will never punish us; it's a reward in a sense.
Because punishment has to do with fear
and fear has no place in love.

AND He first loved us, before anyone ever did (even our parents! before we were even a twinkle in the eye...), which is why we can love.

~Godspede