Fear of Flying
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.1 John 4:18 NASB
Casts out– No, we’re not ready to examine the first part of John’s thought yet. You know, that part about “no fear.” We will get there, in a Hebrew sort of way, by investigating this verse in reverse. Before we get to the fear part we will have to find out what John means by “casts out.” It might be more complicated than you thought.
“Casts out” is made up of two Greek words, éxō and bállō. The adverb is obvious: “Outside.” Interestingly, an idiom using this word means, “outsiders,” or those who are not part of the believing community. Perhaps there is a connection to Paul’s instruction to cast out the recalcitrant one. At any rate, the association makes it clear that “out” means outside the camp, removed from the group—an allusion to certain actions taken in Exodus.
The verb here is bállō. “Transitive a. ‘to throw, propel,’ ‘cast oneself down’; b. ‘to lay down,’ ‘pour in,’ ‘lay up (in the heart)’; c. intransitive ‘to cast oneself on,’ ‘sink into (sleep).’”[1] The action is intensive. Perhaps we can think of John’s description like hurling a ball out of the stadium. Way out! So John wants us to realize that “perfect love,” i.e., that kind of love that is completed in its obligation toward God and men, throws out fear. He will give us the reason behind this intensive action soon, but for now we need to reflect on the action itself. Do you feel free from the gravity of your past? Are you flying away from those traumas and temptations that once haunted you? Or does fear still hold you to the earth, gripping you from the grave? Yes, bállō can mean “sink down,” but in John’s vocabulary, even sinking down is release. It is the equivalent of Paul’s baptism unto death (a very strange combination of words). It unencumbers us, vacating the verdict over us, providing (in John’s other combination) the law of liberty.
Maybe we need to rewrite John. We might be more comfortable with “perfect love should cast out fear.” We know this is what’s supposed to happen, but I’m not sure we experience this sense of flight from fright too often. Maybe when we first realized forgiveness was a reality in our lives. But then life returns to quasi-normal and those old fears whisper reminders that we’re really just the same as before. Oh, we have a new destination (eventually) but our old ways of dealing with things are habits hard to break. We read John’s exhortation about perfect love and are convicted that his words really don’t describe us now. We think we’ve failed again, only this time the failure hurts more because we believe we aren’t worthy of the perfect love that should be coursing through our spiritual veins. How do we know we don’t cut it? Simple. We can’t fly.
Something has to change.
Topical Index: cast out, éxō, bállō, fear, free, 1 John 4:18
[1]Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament(91). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
In a very much simpler View… looking at the fur from the beginning, it says. There is no fear in love. If we are in love my aunt love is God. If we are in God. The focus would be the word in. In to be encompassed around, to be inside of. What a concept protection. If we are to put on the armor so to speak pig.. It is only a reminder in her head that we are in God. Be blessed oh, because you are a blessing. B. B.
Something does have to change.
When Yeshua said “apart from me you can do nothing”,
he was referring to the capacities given in the “new birth”.
In our natural state, everything is on us. If we don’t do it,
it doesn’t get done.
But as God transforms our natural minds and hearts into
the temple of the Holy Spirit, we find ourselves changing and
experiencing events and outcomes that are of His doing.
True, we can’t fly, but we can see Him and His love working
in us “to will and to act according to His good purpose.”
“God is a Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” John 4:24. 2Tim. 1:7 tells us that God has not given us the spirit of fear. Fear, like faith, is a spiritual expectation for the future based upon what we believe is true. Faith in the truth of His promises is how we worship God. Fear is worship, too: but it worships a lie. All fear puts its faith in a lie. All false beliefs, therefore, will give us fear as a counterfeit for faith. The dark kingdom is a lying kingdom that spawns unholy spiritual realities that want to reside in our reality, and they all lie to get themselves in our spiritual doors. What is that lie? That they are “us”: our true identity (which is the holy grail we are all desperately searching for). When we believe that, these lying spiritual realities are through the door and on the throne before we can say anything. Fear then is in control, and we are down in the basement while fear is upstairs enjoying our breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight snacks.
These are spiritual problems, but they don’t stay there – in our spirits, that is. Every belief (which is a spiritual condition) also manifests as thought, and we know that all thought produces a resultant reaction in our bodies, as well as in the environment in and around us. Faith and fear, like all spiritual realities, are contagious: they spread, and replicate, too. Our hardware is designed to run on spiritual software: we “serve” any and all spiritual direction that we choose (believe) to let in to our control rooms. Every thought, emotion and action in our lives is a mere reaction to what we are choosing to believe (spirit), which is why we don’t get a whole lot of lasting victory if we try to change behavior without switching out the underlying beliefs that are driving that behavior (or disease, or mental state, etc.). When we choose to believe fear, we put fear in the driver’s seat (god). The question then becomes, how do we get it back off the throne of our lives?
What spirits do you think Yeshua was “casting out”? Little men with goat feet? Fear is well known in the medical world to be behind all diseases of mental illness, and is implicated in many of the chronic body ailments, too. And that is just what the secular world has noticed! If you are suffering from panic attacks, however, the world can only offer bandaids because the medical industry lacks the ability to get rid of the underlying lies we are believing that let in these unholy spiritual slave drivers: fear, bitterness, envy, rejection, and friends. The Bible tells us that these are spirits “not of God”, and tells us that not only do we not have to put up with them, we are expected to get rid of them. Oh; that is called repentance. God’s end of the transaction is called deliverance. (Fear is a sin because it is a total lack of faith in God.) The end of the story -where we decide that fear and friends can go and we can stay (as per salvation instructions) – is where we can finally have peace and rest without the torment of these spiritual realities not of God. Halleluah!
Fear, like all sin, is supposed to stay outside of us, for evil can only exist if we let it reside inside of us. We fight evil by not letting it be real (in control) in us. Evil, like love, is not an abstract: it ‘needs’ a medium (which the spiritualist world is more honest about than most Christians) who I believe, sadly, like to stay either in denial or in fear (worship) of what we are supposed to be opposed to, for without us, evil cannot even exist.
“All fear puts its faith in a lie.”
You have made some very powerful points here, Laurita! Thank you for sharing your knowledge (experience) of this ‘dark side’ of life, a place we are not meant to inhabit.
Or, more properly perhaps, Gayle, not meant to inhabit us? Evil is an interior job, after all.
I think it helps also to read the whole chapter of I John 4. He talks about many spirits have gone out into the world. He tells us to examine those spirits, those voices. What are they saying to us? They could be voices from our history that are trying to tell us what our future will be. John tells us that he, the Spirit of God has not given us the spirit of fear. He is saying that the reduction of fear in our lives is based on our comprehension of his love for us. Perfect love, or mature love, casts out fear. The understanding of his love displaces fear. We spend so much time working against something instead of working with God. We are being transformed by the renewing of our minds. We change our mind about things by the knowledge of the truth. It’s like having your computer constantly receiving new data and having new experience through this ongoing process. If God has given us all things why do we continue to live in poverty. The Lord is my shepherd I shall not WANT.
Fear has been a major controlling factor in my life but that is changing. About six weeks ago I was hopping in the shower and the Spirit of God said to me “I” have not given you a spirit of fear! He said, you can choose to live in this or not. I got it when he said it to me. I am now in the process of living that out little by little as I am faced with the varieties of fear that affect me. I basically say out loud, “fear produces torment, this is not of God and I will not receive it “. Almost always I reinforce that with another scripture and declare truth. Such as Jesus did in the wilderness, his answer to Satan’s insinuations was “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God“. End of story, for that day, for that moment. I have to ask myself what am I hearing and am I listening to it? So many times all we have to do is listen to ourselves and to what we’re saying in order to know where our hearts are at. The Bible says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
Although I do this so poorly and so rarely I think the answer comes in “beholding the glory of God” we are transformed from one degree of glory to another. Sitting in his presence. He prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies, he anoints our heads with oil, our cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever! Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!
Thank you Skip for that incredible sharing.
One thing I have learned is to try to understand that people may react differently than I would to the same set of circumstances. This is what can cause a fracture or problem among persons. God has given each one of us a unique personality. And we can see that even babies react differently to things like noise. Sometimes parents will attempt to remake a child in an image that they believe is better than the image God has given that child. This is wrong, but it happens all the time.
As adults we make the mistake of trying to understand another person from our perspective instead of trying to understand how this person will react and perceive the situation. I am not you and you are not me. For example, weight is not really a touchy issue for me. I am overweight, and I need to lose weight. If my sister were to tell me I need to lose ten pounds, it would not bother me. But if I told her she needed to lose weight, she would be offended as most women are. 🙂 BUT there are other issues for me that are sensitive to me. And some of us may not have the same physio/bio/genetic makeup to react to a stressful situation as others. It really is hard to put yourself in another’s place. And it is impossible to do so if there is no direct communication that allows you to begin to know the other person.