Today I’m giving you the choice of a blessing or a curse.
Deuteronomy 11:26
Love and fear are archenemies in the life of the God Girl. They are a blessing and a curse, complete opposites. As the children of Israel grouped up near the land of Shechem, they were shown the mountain of blessings (Mount Gerizim) and the mountain of curses (Mount Ebal), and God gave them a choice between the two. The choice before them was obedience or disobedience. If they obeyed God, then blessings would be theirs, and if they chose the opposite, then they would receive the curse (see Deut. 11:26–32).
Today you have the same kind of choice: you can choose between disobedience (fear) or obedience (love), and one comes with a curse while the other comes with blessing. Most of the time fear promises protection and pretends to come from wisdom, but the truth is that it’s a thief. It steals your peace and your hope, and it weakens your will. But love provides you all the hope, peace, and happiness you could ever handle. Fear leads to slavery; love leads to freedom. The enemy tells you that love is dangerous and leaves you vulnerable. And when you buy that lie, choosing love seems like a dangerous choice. But the God Girl doesn’t need to protect herself from what God says to do. His call to love is to be obeyed no matter the cost. When you make decisions out of fear or self-protection, you push God off of the throne and stand on it with your hands on your hips in total defiance.
Fear should never be a barometer for action, telling you when the weather’s right for you to do this or that—not the fear of losing something you love or of loving someone you don’t even like. If you trust God and his Word, fear will never be your master, but God’s Word will be. Learn the truth about loving God’s way in 1 Corinthians 13. This kind of love isn’t dysfunctional. It doesn’t love for what you get out of it. Study God’s Word, look for truth, and make it a part of who you are, and you will be set free from the bondage of fear.