The Freedom God Gives Us
By: Chelsey DeMatteis
“Perfect love drives out fear.” - 1 John 4:18
The things we see really do stick. Believe it or not, many of us can still see hazy memories from our early years of life. The Lord meant what He said when He told us to be careful of what we hear and what we see because those things linger, and those things will either breathe life and His light into our bones or they’ll be used as ammo from the evil one.
A few months ago, I sat in bed and couldn’t shake these scenes from movies and videos I had recently seen that did nothing but fill me with fear. As I wrestled and prayed, I felt compelled to write them all out on paper with a note as to how they made me feel because who better to hand them over to than Jesus.
As I read them aloud and stumbled over tears during my prayer my heart was overcome by 1 John 4:18, “perfect love drives out fear.” In that very moment sun pierced through the window in a way that made me know I was absolutely heard and seen by The Lord.
I’m sure you’ve had a few of these difficult days, the ones laced with painful memories or visions of things you saw or words you’d heard. But it’s in those moments where His love drives out all fear, for always. The freedom we were promised in Christ the day we accepted Him continues to lead us into more freedom, day by day. After I dropped that piece of shredded up paper in the trash with all the fear-filling things on it, I walked away and said, “you just keep making me more free.”
His freedom doesn’t stop coming. How amazing is that? “Whom the Son sets free he is free indeed” John 8:36. This means every single day we have the opportunity to find more freedom as we lay down the things that take our eyes off of Him. Fear and His perfect love can’t live in the same places of the heart. This is a truth He continues to lay on my heart as I dive deeper into His word. Truth, love, grace, and mercy all reside in the light. The places of our hearts that are filled with things of this world don’t have light living in them, it’s our duty as believers to lean in, listen to His voice, and begin removing those places so the light pierces through them.
For whatever reason, fear seems to be something I’ve always asked Him to take away but never asked that it be replaced with what He desired for me to think of. Isn’t it funny how that happens? We desperately plea that God takes away the things that anguish us but rarely do we in the next breath ask Him to replace it with something of Him.
I think this is where our perspective begins to change as we deepen our walks with Him. We start to see Him negate our life of the hard and fill in those holes with good. So naturally, instead of us just waiting for Him to do it, we begin to ask Him prayerfully to do that in us, to drive out the fear, the pain, the heartbreak, the pride, the anger, all the sin, and we ask Him to fill us with the very things that will make us look more like Him and experience Him in a new way. Praise the Lord, that beautiful sunny Friday morning a new space of light and life opened in my walk with our Creator.
Another piece of me became freer in Christ and He desires the very same freedom for you. I pray as you find yourself reading this that you know the Lord wants to remove whatever the “thing” or “things” are in your life that takes your eyes off of Him and His promises. Go lay it down at His feet. Put it on paper, read it aloud, and hand the things over, just as He has commanded us to do.
I can promise as you do this you will feel His perfect love cover you like a blanket of peace, even if only for a moment. That perfect love of our Heavenly Father comes into our weary hearts. This love is what makes us new, sets us free, and lets us experience real love from Him and by His grace, we don’t just get to experience it, we get to live in it!
You can find more from Chelsey on her website, https://www.chelseydematteis.com/.
Related Resource: Jesus Calling - Stories of Faith
Kerry Washington, Andrea Bocelli, Reba McEntire, Mark Wahlberg, Tony Dungy, and Matthew McConaughey—what do all of these people have in common? They are all people of faith who have leaned on God in both the good and challenging times—and they’ve shown up to tell their stories of faith on The Jesus Calling Podcast. The Jesus Calling Podcast provides a place for people from all walks of life to share the heartaches, joys, and divine moments that keep them going.
Inspired by Sarah Young's classic devotional book, the Jesus Calling podcast has brought encouragement and peace to millions. New episodes drop every Thursday! Listen today on LifeAudio.com or wherever you find your podcasts.
Originally published Wednesday, 16 November 2022.
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