Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer shows how heavy your heart feels right now, carrying fear for someone you love while seeing so much hatred and unkindness in the world around you. It is painful to watch people act with hate, and it is natural to feel shaken when you wonder if that hate could have harmed someone dear to you.
Scripture contrasts hatred and love very clearly. Hatred stirs up strife and division, and it ends up hurting the one who holds it. Bitterness eats away at the heart of the person who keeps it, often while the one it is aimed at is not even aware. Love does the opposite. God calls us to love one another as Christ has loved us and to forgive one another as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. That is a high standard, and it is only possible as we remain in Him, because this kind of love is the fruit of His Spirit at work in us.
When fear grips the heart it is tormenting. The Bible teaches that perfect love casts out fear, and that fear has to do with not yet being fully assured of God's love. We love Him because He first loved us. He is the initiator and we are the responders. The one proof He has given of His love is the cross, where Jesus laid down His life for His friends. There is no greater love than that. Because of that cross, those who are in Christ can have boldness and not live in terror of judgment. You can bring your fear to Him and ask Him to make His perfect love more real to you, so that you can face what comes without being tormented by fear.
It also helps to remember what the Bible says about death. There is physical death, which is the separation of our consciousness from our body, and there is spiritual death, which is separation from God. Jesus said not to fear those who can harm the body and after that can do no more, but to have a reverent fear of God who holds eternity. For the child of God, death has lost its sting because sin has been dealt with at the cross and death has been swallowed up in victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. No one has power to keep his spirit when his time comes, and that is in God's hands alone, not in the hands of hateful people. The hatred you see in the world is real, and Jesus taught that the world's hatred is ultimately hatred toward Him. When you represent Him and love Him, you may feel that hatred, but you do not need to take it as your own burden to carry.
God wants to bear this burden with you. Bring the person you love before Him by name, ask Him to watch over and protect that life, and trust that He sees and knows what you cannot see. Ask Him to fill your heart with His love so that you can respond to hate with kindness and tenderheartedness, forgiving as you have been forgiven, and to give you peace in place of fear.
I pray that God will comfort you now, quiet your fear with the assurance of His love shown at the cross, guard the one you are praying for, and help you to rest in the victory and care that belong to those who are in Christ. May He give you strength to love even when others are hateful, and to know deep in your heart that you are secure in Him.
Scripture contrasts hatred and love very clearly. Hatred stirs up strife and division, and it ends up hurting the one who holds it. Bitterness eats away at the heart of the person who keeps it, often while the one it is aimed at is not even aware. Love does the opposite. God calls us to love one another as Christ has loved us and to forgive one another as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. That is a high standard, and it is only possible as we remain in Him, because this kind of love is the fruit of His Spirit at work in us.
When fear grips the heart it is tormenting. The Bible teaches that perfect love casts out fear, and that fear has to do with not yet being fully assured of God's love. We love Him because He first loved us. He is the initiator and we are the responders. The one proof He has given of His love is the cross, where Jesus laid down His life for His friends. There is no greater love than that. Because of that cross, those who are in Christ can have boldness and not live in terror of judgment. You can bring your fear to Him and ask Him to make His perfect love more real to you, so that you can face what comes without being tormented by fear.
It also helps to remember what the Bible says about death. There is physical death, which is the separation of our consciousness from our body, and there is spiritual death, which is separation from God. Jesus said not to fear those who can harm the body and after that can do no more, but to have a reverent fear of God who holds eternity. For the child of God, death has lost its sting because sin has been dealt with at the cross and death has been swallowed up in victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. No one has power to keep his spirit when his time comes, and that is in God's hands alone, not in the hands of hateful people. The hatred you see in the world is real, and Jesus taught that the world's hatred is ultimately hatred toward Him. When you represent Him and love Him, you may feel that hatred, but you do not need to take it as your own burden to carry.
God wants to bear this burden with you. Bring the person you love before Him by name, ask Him to watch over and protect that life, and trust that He sees and knows what you cannot see. Ask Him to fill your heart with His love so that you can respond to hate with kindness and tenderheartedness, forgiving as you have been forgiven, and to give you peace in place of fear.
I pray that God will comfort you now, quiet your fear with the assurance of His love shown at the cross, guard the one you are praying for, and help you to rest in the victory and care that belong to those who are in Christ. May He give you strength to love even when others are hateful, and to know deep in your heart that you are secure in Him.
