Verse of the Day for February 27

John has been writing about confidence in the day of judgement, and he makes a claim about the relationship between two things most people carry at once.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.

Casteth out is a forceful phrase — the same kind of word used of driving something from a house. The two do not negotiate; one displaces the other.

And the clause at the end names the mechanism. Fear hath torment, and the word means punishment. The fear John is describing is specifically the fear of being punished.

Which is why love drives it out rather than courage doing so. You cannot brave your way past the suspicion that God is holding something against you. You can only be convinced otherwise.

He that feareth is not made perfect in love — not a rebuke, a diagnosis. Where fear remains, love has not finished its work.

Anxiety before God is not usually a failure of nerve. It is an unfinished conviction about how He feels toward you.

The remedy is not to try harder to be unafraid.