So it’s well after midnight, but I’m up because God did some wrecking me in the last couple hours. He told me to watch the movie “Goodnight, And Good Luck,” which I did with my friend Andrea. It’s an awesome movie all about McCarthyism and the Red Scare, ie it’s a film about fear. So naturally after the movie that’s exactly what our conversation was all about. And God just showed up. That’s the only way I can describe it.
You see we know what fear can do. Look at history, look at your friends, look at your own life. Fear messes people up. It makes completely rationale people do completely stupid things…like stay in a passionless career choice, or turn neighbors into authorities for crimes they didn’t commit, or think a sound in the middle of the night is someone trying to kill them, or commit a hate crime. It sometimes even leads to war. But we also know that Love conquers all. Love never fails. Love wins. So if we know how powerful fear is, but we know that love beats it, then love must be pretty flipping powerful, right?!?
Because real love, the kind that casts out fear and all that amazing stuff Scriptures claims, is like saying, “Because I have God inside me, I have His love, which conquers EVERYTHING. That’s inside me! So you have NO power over me. So yes, I’ll honor you and let you have your way and love you, no matter what you do because I’M NOT AFRAID OF YOU. You don’t have power; God does. God is love and I know how the story ends. Love wins. SO YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING TO ME.” If we really lived like that, really believed that we would become fearless. WE WOULD BE UNSTOPPABLE.
But the thing is…we are. We are unstoppable. Because we do have love- the most powerful weapon- inside us, whether we believe it or not. We ARE unstoppable whether we believe it or not. A man with an AK-47 will easily win a knife fight if he knows he has the AK-47 and if he chooses to use it. So right now….at this very moment…I AM UNSTOPPABLE. But fear has stopped me. It’s stopped all of us. McCarthy feared communism because ultimately he doesn’t trust that democracy can stand up against its opposition. Likewise, deep down, fear is us not trusting that God can stand up in the face of opposition. So the question then becomes: What am I afraid of? And how the heck can I kill it? Because I’m sick of falling short of that fear-trompling love. I’m sick of not believing that God is who He says He is. Aren’t you???
THAT’S the insanity of the Gospel. That Jesus loved us perfectly, loved us with no fear that we would reject Him. No fear that it was something He couldn’t handle. No fear that we didn’t deserve this grace or that we couldn’t return the favor. Loved us in this crazy way when we were His enemies (Romans 5:8)! Think about that. That’s crazy. That doesn’t make sense. That’s love. And that’s the insanity that continues to change the world.
