THE LOVE OF GOD CASTS OUT FEAR

When I was a young boy growing up in church, one of the scariest sermons was the "turn or burn" message that would be used by preachers and evangelists to scare the congregation into taking a decision for Christ and get born again and I remember watching a popular play at the time called "heaven's gate, hell's flames" that depicted the horrors of people who died and found themselves captured by Satan to be tortured forever in hell by demons while the christian believers who died found themselves welcomed by Christ's angels to the gates of heaven and this has been the popular belief throughout Christendom regardless of creed or denomination and many have supposedly decided to get saved because they were scared of going to hell and I suspect this has been a great financial earner for the church as well. 1 John 4:18 says "there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. but he who fears has not been made perfect in love." verse 19 says we love Him because He first loved us which means the very salvation we have stems out of His love, John 3:16 sums it up by saying that He sent His Son to us because He loves the world and the very core of the gospel is love not fear, no loving father would want his children to fear him but rather he would want his children to love him and forge a close relationship with him, the same is true of our Heavenly father who has reconciled us to Himself through His Son and wants everyone to experience the love that goes beyond our understanding, a love that is limitless and unconditional not based on our performance or abilities in whatever form, but purely based on His Person; this is the love that our heavenly Father wants us to experience and share with both friend and foe, the book of 1 John 4:16 "And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in Him." notice the verse does not say that God has love but that He IS LOVE and because He is love, He draws all men(and women) to Him because it is out of Him (who is love) that we have our being. So what is the gospel then, the gospel is simply put a manifestation of God's perfect love for humanity by enduring shame and suffering so that He could show us that He loves us and this is exactly the same type of love that husbands are required to have for their wives, to love them and sacrifice themselves for them just like Christ sacrificed Himself for the church. The church should be busy loving and not condemning people for their sins, the homosexuals, atheists, abortionists, sex workers e.t.c need to hear from our lips and our conduct that they have a Father who loves them unconditionally and it is only by accepting His love that they will experience His healing and His forgiveness for it is the goodness of the Lord that leads to repentance Rom 2:4. condemning these people to hell just won't work, we have elevated ourselves above the "sinners" and promised ourselves heaven for our self righteous works,and this holier than thou attitude has caused many who were in the institutionalized church to leave, just look at all those groups cropping up in Facebook of victims of church abuse who were violated by their church brethren who apparently believe that everybody sins are bad enough to warrant them hell but their own sins are "covered by the blood" as they like to proclaim. The love of God casts out fear, fear of the unknown that so many have had over the centuries, the fear of not knowing whether one will be in a place of paradise or torment or simply cease to exist well the good news is that our heavenly Father has promised us eternal life and that NONE will perish but that all will come to repentance when they see the perfect unending love that the Father has had for us for all eternity and we will rejoice and bask in the Light of His love which is His Son Jesus Christ.