“No fear exists where His love is. Rather, perfect love gets rid of fear, because fear involves punishment. The person who lives in fear doesn’t have perfect love”, 1 John 4: 18.

After writing the last post on God’s love, the Holy Spirit led me to explore the fear destroying capacity of that love.

God’s heart is that through this article, women across the globe will be freed from the grip of fear and released to step into their greatest, and fulfill the plan and purpose of God for their lives.

So many of us who are living mere existences, with very little influence upon the world, are where we are because of fear. God has been speaking to my heart about His desire to shoot you forward. He has much for you to do, but the devil is successfully using fear to halt God’s plan from being fulfilled in your life.

I know that God has been speaking to you, but I also know that many of you have been making fear based excuses as to why God’s directives aren’t realistic.

Some reading this have already been advancing, but God wants you to know that periods of stagnation and plateaus are not part of His perfect will for your life. Like with the Israelites whose 11 day journey turned into 40 years of wondering, our Abba, sometimes has to rid us of ‘the Egypt in us’, so we stagnate for as long as it takes. Know that God still has greater things to accomplish through you. You still have higher to climb. Don’t settle! Keep moving upward and forward.

Child of God, if fear is banished from your life, you will become an unstoppable force with limitless potential, doing great exploits. You will begin to fulfill Proverbs 4:18 which says, “The path of the just, as a shining light, goes forward and increases, shining brighter and brighter until it reaches its full strength and glory.”

God made His fear removing love real to me this weekend. For the past week my son has been attending a summer camp at a University in another state. My husband got the time off to drop him off, so he did the 1.75 hour drive that followed our short plane ride. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to get the time off to accompany me to pick him up, so that meant I was going to have to do the long drive all on my own, and I was terrified.

The night before the trip, I tried to fall asleep, but my head buzzed as I contemplated all of the possibilities: getting a friend to drive with me, having my son Uber from the University to the airport, Ubering to the University and back to the airport, hitching a ride with a family living an hour away whose son was attending the same camp. Having my son hitch a ride back home with the afore mentioned family. None of the options were a possibility.

Within recent years, and with my new post chemo, radiation etc. self, I hadn’t driven more than about 30 minutes on my own, so here I was, both terrified and tired, but ready for the journey that I had to undertake.

God was faithful! I got on the flight, and He spoke to me for the entire 30 minutes. My Heavenly Father kept reassuring me of His love for me and He kept repeating, ‘Today is no fear Friday’. He said it so many times that it was imprinted on my mind.

As I got off the plane and picked up the rental car His words continued to echo in my heart: ‘Today is no fear Friday’.

In my fear, the night before, I had downloaded a few sermons that were supposed to keep me focused and alert as I drove. Within the first 5 minutes of the journey I had to stop the sermon, because God was chatting with me. He continued to remind me that He was going to use my life for His glory, and that I was in the palm of His hand, so I had nothing to fear.

As I continue to drive the time on my GPS shot up by 15 minutes, I suspected traffic due to an accident along my route. That started my downward spiral. Thoughts about ‘no fear Friday’ were out the window and I started to complain. The more I complained the further away the ETA (expected time of arrival) moved.

I got stuck in a stretch of traffic: the GPS time increased by 15 minutes, then 5 minutes, and another 5 minutes and another 5 minutes. Before long my already long drive had moved up to 2 hours and 30 minutes. I was driving and getting no where. I was absolutely frustrated, close to tears and whining like a child, then I got the message. As with the wondering Israelites, God was ridding me of ‘the Egypt within’. In His mercy, He was perfecting His love within me.

This is a great time to pause, ponder and ask God to help you identify the areas in which your experiences have caused you to fear. Sometimes what is apparent isn’t the real cause. The fear that caused my complaining wasn’t only ‘the traffic’, but the thoughts of not being there for my son that came to life when I received my cancer diagnosis was a prominent player. That ignited a series of fears that would pop up at the most uncanny times. The fear of being limited by my ‘new self’ joined the party occasionally. My Abba Father loves me so much that He kept driving with me until He got my attention and I let my fears go.

As soon as I started to refocus on the magnitude of God’s unconditional love, fear began to diminish. I stopped complaining and relaxed into conversation with God once more. The words of Exodus 15:26, “…I, the Lord, am your healer”, and the corresponding song, began to play in my heart, and once again, ‘No fear Friday’ was back at the front of my mind.

The road quickly cleared up, and the rest of the trip was smooth. The time seemed to fly by and before I knew it I was just 15 minutes away from my destination. What I loved the most was my continuous conversation with my Abba Father. Even while I was ‘wondering in the desert,’ I was never alone.

God’s word says that His perfect love ‘removes’ fear. That suggests that fear will exist at some point in time, because it has to exist in order to be removed.

One of the tricks that the enemy uses is isolation: when we do something or experience an emotion that we have deemed ‘unbecoming of a Christian’ we condemn ourselves and in our embarrassment we often isolate ourselves by moving away from the exact things or people that God put in place to help and support us. More importantly we often feel ashamed to go to out Heavenly Father. Don’t fall for that trap, it’s performance Christianity. Just be! 😊

During the drive back, my concern was, finding a gas station before I got to the airport, as I hadn’t taken the $80 prepay option offered by the car rental company. I saw a gas station about halfway from the airport and felt impressed to pull in. I put $30 gas in the tank and stopped. After closing the tank, I thought to myself that I should have added gas until the dispenser handle clicked, but I decided against it on the advice of my very wise and intuitive son.

When I started to drive, the gas guage pointer moved beyond full and stayed there for the entire drive to the airport. I kept glancing at it, but it never moved. The car was still ‘overfull’ when I returned it over an hour later.

God’s ‘fear removing love’ is real, and whenever fear rears its ugly head, He proves His love for us by reminding us that He is present and loves us. That love identifies the root of the fear then surgically excises it. The process may sometimes be painful, but the end result is well worth the pain.

Are you ready to embrace God perfect love, that drives away all fear? How about being intentional about making every Friday going forward, a “No Fear Friday!” Just ask your Heavenly Father to help you to grasp ‘how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love for you really is’, then watch as your fears are removed, allowing you become fearless and unstoppable. Isaiah 41:13 reminds us that our Abba says, “I am the Lord, your God, who grasp your right hand; It is I who say to you, Do not fear, I will help you.”

Let’s, really do this! Regardless of whatever has you afraid, I challenge you to make every Friday, a ‘No Fear Friday,’ and bask in God’s perfect love. I would love to hear about your experience with our Heavenly Father. This is just the beginning of your journey of fearless living.

Abba, thank you for your children reading this today. Help each of them to be intentional about accepting your perfect love. Meet with all who accept the “No Fear Friday” challenge. Point out areas of their lives where fear has been crippling their progress towards fulfilling your purpose, and make them as bold as lions, in accordance with Proverbs 28:1. Amen!