When we speak about love, we speak about God because according to 1John 4:8 (Amplified), "God is love." We say that we love God and that He loves us, but we walk in fear of failure before Him. A lack of loves comes from a lack of faith and "Without faith it's impossible to please God" according to Hebrews 11:6 (Amplified).
We read about God's great love for the whole world and about the great sacrifice He made for us, but we continue walking in fear of failure before Him. 1John 4:18 (Amplified) explains why we should walk more in faith in His love, saying, "There is no fear in love (dread does not exist) but full grown (complete, perfect) love turns out fear of doors and expels every trace of terror! For fear brings with it the thought of punishment, and (so) he who is afraid has not reached the full maturity of love (is not yet grown into love's complete perfection)."
It seems like most Christians I meet, walk in fear of punishment for their failures. It doesn't matter how hard we try doing everything right, we still fail sometimes. We attribute hardship, sickness and the loss of a loved one, to punishment for our failures. Many of today's churches teach that God is either doing these to us or allowing these things into our loves in order to teach us a lesson. And, they tell us that we will have to keep going through these trials until we've learned that lesson. This has opened the door for doubt and fear to enter the believer's life. We've come to where we won't outright deny God, but we won't completely trust Him either.
We judge God by our own standards because we don't fully understand Him. We make excuses for God when He doesn't need them. We try to "cover up" His inability to do what He says, when our prayers aren't answered, to make ourselves feel better. God never fails!!! If something wrong in our Christian lives, then we should, at the least, have sense enough to know that we missed it and not God.
When we're in fear of His love, then we fall into a place of vulnerability and doubt. James 1:8 (Amplified) speaks about a man who doubts saying, "(For being as he is) a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute), (he is) unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything (he thinks, feels, and decides)."
Do you see what predicament being double minded can put a man into when it comes to the love of God? We don't doubt that God loves us, we just don't understand the depth of that love. We believer God forgives our sin, but we struggle with the truth that God made us righteous. We believe that God cleansed us with His Own Blood and then look for punishment at every failure. We believe that God is always with us and doubt His presence when we pray or are in trouble. We believe His Word and then doubt that it's for us today. We believe we were saved by grace and still feel like we're judged by Law.
This is the double minded man James was speaking about. How can we believe that Love would die on a cross for us and then place trials and tests before us to test us? That's foolishness. What sort of husband would put his wife into temptation or trials to test her love for him?
Trust me when I say that there are already enough things on this earth to test you, without God having to present them to you. We must have no fear of punishment and maturely stand in His love against or amidst these trials and temptations. Faith in God's love will deliver you. If that Love would go into the belly of the earth for you, then He will go anywhere for you.
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