Love Overcomes Fear

Bible reading: 1^st John 4:16 – 19

Step 4 - We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord. Lamentations 3:40

Principle 4 –  Openly examine and confess my faults to myself, to God, and to someone I trust. (Steps  4 and 5)

“Happy are the pure in heart.”

The thought of making a fearless moral inventory may sound like an impossible task. Looking at our lives on a moral basis can be very frightening. How can we get to the place where the word fearless can actually describe the moral inventory we make?

The apostle John said, “As we live with Christ, our love grows more perfect and complete; so we will not be ashamed and embarrassed at the day of judgment, but can face Him with confidence and joy, because He loves us and we love Him too. We need have no fear of someone who loves us perfectly; His perfect love for us eliminates all dread of what He might do to us” (1^st John 4:17 – 18).

Love is the key. God, who is the final judge of all morality, loves us perfectly. He doesn’t just love us if we’re perfect. Perhaps we’ve had people withhold love and shame us for our faults and failures. If we’ve only known love to be conditional, it only makes sense that admitting our faults causes us to be afraid of losing the love and acceptance we all need.

To eliminate the fear, we need to surround ourselves with unconditional love from God and other people. Only unconditional love will cover our shame and give us confidence that no matter what we find when we look at ourselves, we will always be loved. The apostle Peter affirmed this by saying, “Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love makes up for many of your faults” (1^st Peter 4:8).

Our moral inventory needs a constant review from the perspective of God’s love.

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