Section Three - Fear verses Perfect Love

The Robbing of our Innocence:
Fear is truly a stronghold of bondage in our lives if Perfect Love is not applied to its foundation. We are unable to really please our Lord if we refuse to deal with the fears in our lives. In this section we are going to dig into an area that needs to be reckoned with.

Throughout the scriptures the Lord is exhorting us not to fear but to be of great courage. His displeasure is when we, who are supposed to be filled with His love, find ourselves yielding to the cry of our deep embedded covered up fears.

As a Restoration Minister I have come to believe that the sins we commit against God are initiated by our fears. We can blame everything on the Devil or his demons but until we deal a deathblow to the fears initiated in our lives we will not be able to destroy the strongholds set up in our childhood by the enemy.

This message in of itself is quite simple yet the intricacies of the web of fears in ones life can be quite complex as Satan would have it. Satan hates all mankind and purposes his attacks on us even while we are in the womb of our mothers. Satan knows that by instilling fears into our lives early, could cripple us as Christians later.

Recognizing that our childhood holds the key to most of the fears in our lives is a great revelation in itself. We must then ask the Holy Spirit to guide us as to where He was during our childhood and then apply the real truth of His love there so that we can get about the business of forgiveness and restoration to our inner child who has refused to grow up because fear had not been dealt with.

The reason the world has not been totally evangelized yet for Jesus is because of fear, which is the opposite of faith. Are we preaching yet! The reason this message is now coming forth is because Jesus is getting His church ready. If you refute this message you must also refute the Holy Scriptures. From the beginning to the end of His Holy Book, He instructs us to; “fear not” the creation that He created, but to fear Him, in reverence and love because He is the Creator of all things.

In Section Five of this Restoration Manual, you will be given powerful tools to assist you with your total restoration and healing. But it is here that we need to take a breather and go back to some fundamental things to help us identify strongholds that have been established in our early years. Let’s identify some of the characteristics of “fear” and the characteristics of “perfect love.”

Fear Identified:
Fear is a spirit
Fear causes torment in our spirit
Fear is built early in our lives, even before we exit the womb
Fear is built on lack of trust of that which is whole and true
Fear attacks the physical, mental, and spiritual parts of our lives
Fear soaks up life and hinders growth
Fear causes doubt
Fear causes separation
Fear can paralyze us making us captive unto bondage’s

Perfect Love Identified:
Perfect Love has a name: Jesus the Christ
Perfect Love is total forgiveness and the act of forgiving
Perfect Love is perfect peace
Perfect Love is great Joy
Perfect Love is long-suffering / patience
Perfect Love is meekness / humility
Perfect Love is gentleness
Perfect Love is faithful
Perfect Love is hopeful without doubt
Perfect Love is temperate / self governing
Perfect Love is true freedom
Perfect Love is true unity
Perfect Love is perfect faith
Perfect Love is unconditional

I John 4:18:
There is no fear in love; but PERFECT LOVE casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

Fear keeps us divided, Perfect Love keeps us united (Ephesians 4: 3 – 6)

Perfect Love takes Captivity captive. (Ephesians 4:8; Romans 8:15)

Read Proverbs 14:26 – 27; I Corinthian 13: 4 – 13; Ephesians 4: 1 – 3; I John 4: 7–21; II Timothy 1: 7; John 17: 20 – 26; Galatians 5:22

Fear God, not man:
I have found over 62 verses in the scriptures that admonish us not to fear but to trust God in all areas. A central theme in all of these verses is trusting in the Creator of our lives. I found verses that related to; provision, forgiveness, promise, redemption, deliverance, encouragement, strength, and sound mindedness. But the most important factor in all of this is; God loves us with a true and great affection. (Genesis 15:1 and Revelation 1:17)

Though the Lord our God tells us not to fear, He is referencing the things of this world. We are however to fear Him with reverence. He strongly encourages us to love him with a reverent heart, being zealous for Him. (Psalm 23:4; Psalm 118:4-8; Prov.29:25)

Categories of fear:
Environmental / Elemental / Natural

Fear of heights (Eccles. 12:5), closed spaces, water, storms, fire, wind, noises (or the lack of noise), darkness, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, animals, insects, the unknown.

Social / Learned
Abandonment, rejection, failure, no control / losing (I have found many who have these issues in their lives).

Physical
Provision, guilt, dying, ugliness / deformity

Fear enters in:
Because we are created in God’s image, Satan has a mission to have us destroyed as quickly as possible. One of Satan’s tactics is to instill a fear foundation in our lives as soon as possible. If he can motivate our parents to fight or damage their bodies prior to our birth he is able to place a foundation that will keep doors open for his involvement in our lives until we give our lives back to Jesus (John 10:10).

The study of our childhood could result in some very interesting fears which maybe are still hidden, but have been influencing our disobedience to God. Unless the child receives proper healing, that wounded child inside of them will continue to affect that individual well into their adult years (I Corinthians 13:11).

Knowing now that our fears influence our judgments and encourage us to exercise our free will over the perfect will of the Father, we must start dealing a death blow to any strongholds of fear in our lives. The Word of God is about to show us how, in the next few sections of this manual.