1 John 4:18-19 is now available on all streaming platforms!

THE VERSE

[18] There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. [19] We love because he first loved us.

At their core, humans were created to love God and others. Jesus Himself said that the Greatest Commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:35-40). Everything else in the Bible hinges on this! Sadly, if we take a quick examination of our love for God and others we find a love that is fickle, unpredictable, and inconsistent. This understandably can create fear in the human heart! What if this other person doesn’t really love me? What if their love runs out? What if mine runs out too? Here, we’re told that God’s love is perfect! Instead of flowing in and out like the ocean tides and leaving us wondering where we stand in relation to Him, God’s love is always available, present, and sturdy. It’s infinitely perfect! This sort of consistency is hard to even grasp, is it not, because we’re so used to imperfect loves that let us down! God’s love, however, never diminishes an ounce in its intensity for us.

With Holy Week just around the corner, could there be a better framing of the events at the end of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry? It is precisely what we see of Jesus' life and ministry that puts this perfect love on display for us in profoundly vivid ways! As we see and come know experientially know this perfect love, we’re told that two things flow naturally:

First, bad fear is cast out. Because of all He did and accomplished, any unhealthy fears we are holding in our hearts and minds are cast out and perfect love moves in. What are these fears about? In the prior verse (v. 17), we see that it’s in the context of a fear about judgment vs. a confidence in standing before God. It doesn’t mean that there’s not room for the healthy fear of God described in the Bible that’s also the beginning of knowledge. Perfect love grows that holy fear while squelching out the unholy fear of judgement in us. This perfect love teaches us see God in a new light and teaches us to fear Him in all the healthy, good, and right ways Christians should!

Second, we learn to live in response to His perfect love. Though we may never be able to love Him perfectly in this lifetime, we are invited to try and to learn to love Him more as we come to know and respond to His perfect love! What a freeing thought: that all of life is a response to God! God’s is eternally “prior.” He makes the first move, and invites us to respond to Him! We don’t have to wait for the right time to ask Him for something or fear He might be in a bad mood if we show up and it’s not His heavenly office hours. His love and loving disposition toward us simply “is.” We can come to Him knowing we’ll be met by love! This love He offers us free of charge takes up residence in us, first transforming us as it quiets our fears but it doesn’t stop there. It is also embodied by us as we learn to love God and others because of it… Friends, in the words of Fanny Crosby’s famous hymn “Blessed Assurance,” this indeed is our story, and this is forever our song: “We love because He first loved us.”

The Artist

We asked Crystal Bailey (aka Loyal Love) about the significance of these verses to her and the process of recording it. This is what she said:

The first time I encountered 1 John 4:18–19 was actually during my first therapy session about twenty years ago. Hearing this verse revealed the fear that had been driving much of how I operated. In it I found a release of tension I had been holding in my soul. I realized I did not need to earn God's love or live in fear any longer. I had been living in perfectionism and performance, but this truth showed me that God's perfect love drives out fear. In Him I could finally rest as a child of God, loved because He loved first.
I worked with Spencer Annis, who produced, mixed, and mastered the song. I recorded the vocals in my closet since I live in a duplex with four kids and a husband who wakes up extremely early. We structured the song in a way that allows the verse to breathe so the message of God's perfect love could come forward at the key moments. The hook, “There is no fear in love, in love,” became a kind of meditation for me during a season of transition while settling into yet another home and chapter of life. The line “He first loved us” serves as the climax of the song because it brings the focus back to God as the source of love.