Always remember, the focus of the New Testament is not on our love for God as much as it is on our coming to know the love He has for us. His love in us will drive out fear and every fear-fed issue in our lives. Consider the various things in life that are driven and fed by fear:

• Anger can be rooted in the fear that we won’t get our way without intimidation.
• Procrastination is rooted in the fear of not doing something well.
• Shyness is based in a fear of people.
• The need to control people is rooted in fear and insecurity.
• Doubt originates in our fear that God’s Word is not going to work for us.

These are some of the issues that will change when we receive a deep revelation regarding the truth that we are one whom God loves. Believing
the love God has for us liberates us from the need to force our way through a situation. God can take care of the issues we have strained to control.
He will flush out the destructive work fear has wrought in our souls that keeps our emotions tied up. Then He will show us how to live freely —
from our hearts where His love reigns.

Looking back to where it all started in the Garden of Eden, we can see that as a result of sin, Adam’s first response was fear. God’s answer to that fear
was love, as manifested through the last Adam, Jesus. God’s grace in sending His Son to redeem us is a revelation of His love. We are surrounded by
His love and grace which have the power to overcome sin, and all that sin has done to destroy mankind over the centuries.

Psalm 5:12 says, “For you bless the godly, O Lord; you surround them with your shield of love” (NLT). The Good News Translation says,
“You bless those who obey you, Lord; your love protects them like a shield.”

When we believe the love God has for us, the shield is up and we are surrounded with love and protection. Declare it out loud: “You, Lord, have surrounded
me with the shield of Your love!”

The Apostle John believed in the love God had for him. John died as an old man — the only original apostle of Jesus to live out his life. Whereas
all the other eleven apostles of Jesus were martyred, John was exiled to a life of hard labor on the Isle of Patmos. There he wrote the Book of Revelation.
Later he was released from Patmos and lived out his life in Ephesus. The Bishop of the Church of Ephesus in 190 AD writes of the Apostle John, who
“fell asleep at Ephesus.”

This great Apostle of Love discovered the simple and sustaining ability to live life as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” We can discover the same life-changing
truth. Determine to grow up in the knowledge of the God-kind of love. Allow a spiritual foundation to be built on the same truth this old apostle discovered
back when he was a young disciple of the Messiah: we are disciples whom Jesus loves.