Although we’re certainly not perfect, God’s divine love for us IS perfect! If He would die for you while you were in sin, separated from God, there’s just nothing He wouldn’t do for you! As you dive into this powerful five-day devotional, your mind will be flooded with thoughts of God’s Word and His love, driving fear far from your life forever! Get ready to become absolutely FEARLESS!
Gregory Dickow Ministries
Day 1
Scriptures: 1 John 4:17-18, Romans 8:29, Philippians 4:19
Perfect Love Casts Out Fear
In this month’s devotional, I want to share how you can be free from fear forever.
Fear is at the root of just about every negative thing that happens in our lives. We’re afraid of failing, being alone, or rejection; afraid of running out of money; afraid that people will let us down; afraid that we won’t find a spouse or the one we found will leave us (or in some cases that they WON’T leave us—ha, ha!). We’re afraid something bad may happen to us or our children—and the list goes on and on.
All fear is rooted in the core belief that God’s Word won’t work. For example, the fear of not having enough is rooted in the fear that Philippians 4:19 isn’t true. If you believe that “God will supply all your needs according to His riches…” then fear leaves.
God loves us because He IS love.
God doesn’t look at us based on our performance, flaws, or shortcomings. When He sees us, He sees Jesus. God doesn’t love us because we are lovely. In fact, we are often anything but lovely! He doesn’t love us because of something we’ve done. And He doesn’t judge us because of something we haven’t done. We have to understand the nature of God. He is GOOD—all the time! God doesn’t take life; He gives life. God doesn’t hurt, He heals. The life of Jesus is the picture of God’s love for us. Jesus never takes healing away; He gives healing. He doesn’t take sight away; He gives sight. He doesn’t withhold food; He multiplies it!
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love banishes all fear.”—1 John 4:18
In tomorrow’s devotional, we are going to look more closely at God’s perfect, unconditional love that banishes all fear.
Day 2
Scriptures: 1 John 4:18, Hosea 1:1-11, Hebrews 8:12
When God Says: I Love You!
What is this perfect love that drives out and banishes all fear?
Perfect love is love that you can’t stop. There’s nothing you can do to gain it. And there’s nothing you can do to lose it. God’s love is free. It’s nothing you can work for, earn, or deserve. Perfect love is telios agape, in Greek, which means total and complete unmerited love. There’s nothing you can do to add to it or take away from it because it’s based on God’s character and His promises, not our character or our promises.
Revelation 1:5–6 says, “He loved us, He washed us, then He made us kings and priests.” Notice, God doesn’t love what was washed. He washed what He loved. He loved us first! Then He washed us. Then He made us kings and priests!
We live in a fearful world and generation. When you awaken to God’s perfect love towards you, it casts all the fear from your life. You don’t have to drive it out. Love does.
God’s love isn’t based on what we can do, because it’s His love—it’s perfect.
If you’re always performing to please people or receive their love or approval, you’ll always be operating in the fear that perhaps you won’t receive their approval if you don’t perform well enough. But there’s just nothing we can do to earn or lose God’s approval.
God’s love is perfect for three reasons. When God says, “I love you,” He means three things:
1. “I’ll never break My promise to you.” God bases His promises on His love, not on how we perform. Love is an unbreakable promise from God. All we have to do is focus on His goodness and love, then fear will leave. For example, 2 Timothy 2:13 tells us, “Even when we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” This delivers us from the mindset that it’s all up to us.
2. “I will never leave you or forsake you.” This casts out the fear of being alone or lonely. He will never leave you out or cast you out. Today’s culture seems to have what I like to call, Dixie Cup Love. This is where people treat others and relationships as if they are disposable. God is not like that! In the book of Hosea, God tells a prophet to love a harlot—even when she returns to her harlotry.
3. “I will never remember your past.” God doesn’t remember our past. He doesn’t cover it. He washes it away. We’ve all had a fear that our past will be brought up. But God’s love casts out that fear. Hebrews 8:12 says, “And your sins & your iniquities, I will remember NO MORE.”
In tomorrow’s devotional, we are going to learn about why the problems in our lives are not the real problems. We will also discover the secrets to overcoming them all!
Day 3
Scriptures: Mark 4:14-41, Psalms 23:1-6, Jeremiah 29:11, Job 37:5-6
The Problem is Not the Problem
God’s love prepares us for any storm so that we don’t have to fear whatever comes our way.
The problems in our lives are not the real problem. Read Mark 4:35–41. I want you to notice a few things about this powerful passage of scripture.
The storm in Mark 4:35–41 occurred the very SAME DAY that Jesus said earlier, “The sower sows the Word” (Mark 4:14), and “The Kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed in the ground and goes to sleep” (Mark 4:26). Here, Jesus sums up the Kingdom of God:
1. The man plants seed; 2. He goes to sleep; 3. The seed grows.
Notice this: “On the same day, when evening had come, He said to them, ‘Let us cross over to the other side’” (Mark 4:35). Here we see Jesus has planted the seed of God’s Word.
When the storm hits, He is at peace and asleep. The storm was not the problem. If it were, Jesus would not have slept through it. The storm simply revealed the problem that already existed. The problem was that the disciples were ruled by the storm, resulting in fear, rather than being ruled by God’s love and promises.
Here is the secret: Whenever fear comes, take inventory of what you have. God’s love is always accompanied by a gift! Here He armed them with four powerful gifts to make it through the storm. And He has armed YOU with these same four powerful gifts:
1. The disciples had a promise. Jesus said, “We’re going to the other side.”
2. They had God’s presence. Sometimes we forget He is with us. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Because Thou art with me”
3. They had God’s divine power. God is sovereign over it all including nature. “God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour’” (Job 37:5-6) and to the wind and waves, “Quite! Be still!” (Mark 4:39).
4. They had God’s purpose. God’s purpose is always greater than the problem. Declare this in the midst of your storm: “This storm is not going to drown or defeat me because I haven’t fulfilled His complete purpose for my life yet. I shall live and not die and declare the works of the Lord! According to Jeremiah 29:11, God’s plans for me are good and not evil. If this storm defeats me, that would be evil. So, I say to the storm, ‘Peace, be still!’”
Now when the next problem comes, you know how to deal with it because you’ve learned the problem is not the problem. And you have taken inventory of what you ALREADY have!
Jesus calmed the storm. Why? The only one who can calm the storm is the one who is not afraid of it. Never forget that whenever you go through a storm, you have His promise, His presence, His power, and His purpose.
Day 4
Scriptures: 2 Timothy 1:7, 1 John 4:10, 1 John 4:16-18, Proverbs 28:1, Philippians 1:6, Psalms 84:11, Job 3:25, Philippians 4:19, 1 John 4:17, Hebrews 4:16
The Power to Be Free from Fear Forever!
Today, we are going to look at some of the ways fear stops us from going forward and we will banish these fears forever.
1. Fear gets us to compare ourselves to others. We won’t be happy when we compare ourselves to others and to what they have. We can only be second-best at being someone else!
2. Fear makes us think we could never change. Perhaps you’ve feared that you’ll always be the same, never able to overcome. But beloved, God, who has begun a good work in you and WILL complete it!
3. Fear makes us afraid that we will not have what we want. God is not holding any good thing back from us. You and I are the righteousness of God the moment we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. Since we are now righteous, He will not withhold any good thing from us. He will freely give us all things.
4. Fear is a magnet for failure in our lives. Fear is a force that causes the very thing we’re afraid of to come to pass. What we fear comes upon us.
5. Fear gets us to doubt that God’s Word will work. All fear is the result of not believing a promise from God.
How to be free from fear forever.
Notice the three gifts God gives in 2 Timothy 1:7, and how they can free us from fear:
1. Power. Power delivers us from fear because all fear comes from a sense of powerlessness over our situation.
2. Love. When you understand perfect love, it delivers you from fear. And perfect love is that He first loved us!
3. A Sound Mind. This means to think from God’s point of view as expressed in His Word. A person with a sound mind comes into agreement with God’s way of seeing and thinking.
You can be bold in the face of fear because the righteous are as bold as a lion. Have confidence in knowing who you are, like the lion, who knows he’s the king of the jungle. Inside of you is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. And as He is in this world, so are we—FEARLESS!
Day 5
Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 1:20, Psalms 23:4
Concluding Thoughts
Beloved, with this new revelation of God’s perfect love for you and a new understanding of who you really are, you are prepared to stand fearless in the face of any fear that tries to creep into your life, mind, or emotions. You can cast it out with the boldness of a lion!
Remember, God’s Word is true, whether you feel it or not. He has kept all of His promises for 6,000 years of human history and has never failed. Fear will leave you when you rely on something that can’t fail: the promises of God! (2 Corinthians 1:20)
When God says, “I love you,” He means that He will NEVER break His promises to you! God has made over 7,000 promises to you in the Bible to prepare you for anything and everything that will ever come your way. And one of the greatest promises of all is this: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me!” (Psalm 23:4)
Declare this out loud today:
I will never live in fear another day of my life, because God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind! God has perfect love toward me, which banishes all fear. He loves me because He loves me—not because of what I have done or can do. He is my Father and comes running to me whenever I fall. He has made me His son or daughter! I am His, and He is mine. He kisses me with the kisses of His unconditional love and acceptance, and they sweep away all my fears. He is watching over His Word to perform it, and He will not break any of His good promises toward me. What a loving God! What an amazing Father! What a beautiful Savior I have, in Jesus’ Name! AMEN!