“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear…” I John 4:18
The world can be deceptive. Have you ever been to a carnival where there was a house of mirrors? The mirrors are warped and give back to you a distorted image of yourself. You look short, you look tall, you look wide, you look narrow. What if you grew up in that house of mirrors and never saw anything else but those images? You wouldn’t know what was right or true about life. I think the world is like this. If you never know God or what is upright in Him, all you know is distortion. What is true to you is warped. However, God offers us a different reality. God offers us a new image of what love is. The other loves we have known have been a mangled image of what God intended for us.
God sent Jesus to give us an accurate image of what love is. He came to straighten what had become bent out of shape. He came to untwist what had been perverted. The love Jesus offered was a foreign love that had never been experienced before. It was new, unfamiliar. It was alien. It was a love that was focused on you instead of on self. It was a love that gave instead of a love that took. It was a love that was liberating instead of manipulative and controlling. It was a love that asked to be trusted.
However, It can be hard to let go of what we were conditioned to believe was true. It’s not always easy to undo our indoctrination, even if it was false. The world not only deceived us to accept a contorted view of life, but it also hurt us, causing us damage, some worse than others. Not only has it left people maimed; but it has also caused fear and pride to make men and women into tools of destruction against one another. Trust? What a bizarre idea Jesus brought to the world. Submission? What a ridiculous thought. Our world has been about control, self-reliance and survival. Christ came to present a reality that is about love, trust, and submission. His reality is original. His reality is what was always intended. His reality is what He wants to bring us back to.
The love of Christ can undo the twisting that deception has done. His love can repair what seemed to be irreparable. It’s a different kind of love – a love that can be trusted. He asks us to surrender to Him. He asks that we make Him our Lord. Submission is not a bad word when it relates to true love. Our submission is part of our faith in His love, bringing us into relationship with a God who loves us with an unadulterated love.
Application: It can be a big leap to trust God after being marred by the world we are a part of, but Christ came into our world to die our death, so that we would know He can be trusted. We can know the amazement and wonder of submission to His heavenly love.