Fear

“Fear is such a powerful emotion for humans that when we allow it to take us over, it drives compassion right out of our hearts.” - Thomas Aquinas

Compassion is sympathy, pity, and concern for the well-being of another. Without compassion, there can be no mercy. Without love, there can be no compassion.

There is no fear in love and no love in fear. Fear and love cannot coexist. One or the other must reside. Whichever resides has rule.

The devil brandishes fear as his most useful tool and weapon. He uses fear to cause people to react unwittingly, to do and believe in things that they otherwise would have never done or believed.

The devil perfects his weapon of fear on the whetstone of time. The brevity of time assures an indefectible cutting surface of a double edge sword.

Fear is the belief in imminent pain and peril, both physical and spiritual.

The heart, if not the spirit itself, then certainly the residence for it. Where the spirit of the Lord is, love is as well.

We were not given the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and therefore compassion. These virtues are of our nature. Fear is not our nature. Love is.

Jesus Christ abolished death, the object of fear, the destination of fear, as well as the sting that fear generates through sin.

Because of the salvation brought through Jesus Christ, fear is not in us. It is not ahead of us. Life, immortality, love, mercy, and compassion are.

This is all according to God’s own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.

Bill Hitchcock

Postscriptum: The above was based upon 1 John 4: 15-16 and 2 Timothy 1:7-10.