In part three, we saw that a mature experience of God’s love for us is the only real cure for insecurity. But knowing the love of God will not help unless we really know both the God who loves us, and the kind of love that he has for us. God is not like our human role models who may fail us. His love isn’t fickle and changing like human love. He is an unchanging God with an unfailing love.

An unchanging God

There are three majestic facets of God’s character around which all of his attributes group. First, God is infinitely strong (2 Peter 1:3). God can do whatever he wants to do. Full stop. His strength is infinite. Second, God is infinitely wise. Romans 16:27 describes him as “God only wise.” That’s referring to the fact that God is only ever wise. He never makes unwise decisions. Never. Since all of God’s choices are based on his infinite wisdom and his wisdom is based on his infinite knowledge, we never need to fear that God will make the wrong choice in our lives. Finally, God is infinitely good. This means that he loves us with an infinite love. These three truths form a kind of bomb shelter where we can run for protection from the bombardments of fear, despair, and discouragement. Because of God’s strength, he can do the best thing for us. Because of his wisdom, he knows what is best for us. And because of his love, he wants to do what is best for us. We must learn to run to this shelter whenever the missiles of insecurity begin to rain on us. In fact, we must learn to live in this shelter.

An unfailing love

If we are going to oust the forces of insecurity that are well entrenched in our lives, it’s going to take a deeper understanding of God’s love than we have previously had. We saw in 1 John that it is “perfect love” that casts out fear. God’s love is perfect. This means that it is mature and complete. This also means that it is unchanging because if you take anything away from perfect love it is no longer perfect and if you improve on perfect love, it was not perfect in the first place. Not only that, but perfect love is always consistent. You cannot do anything to lose the love of God because you did not do anything to gain the love of God.

In 1 John 4:16, the same passage we looked at earlier in this discussion, John points out that “we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.” Both knowing and believing are crucial to living in the security we have as believers. As important as it is to know the love of God for you, you will not be comforted by this love unless you consistently believe the truths you know. And this is where we meet up with pride, an unlikely culprit in a discussion on insecurity.

An unlikely culprit

Someone has defined pride as “living independent of God.” It is pride to think that we can go an entire daytwenty-four hourswith no active dependence on God. No running to him in sincere prayer, no meditation on his word, no worshiping his person. It is pride that keeps us from these things yet these habits are the very seedbed of belief. Romans 10:17 teaches that “faith [or belief] cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” It is the living, powerful word of God that generates belief in our hearts. We desperately need daily interaction with God if we ever hope to walk in the consistent belief that yields security. This is not to say that a believer who is out of fellowship with God is not secure in God’s love. He is. But he certainly won’t feel secure because he has chosen rebellion and unbelief.

Consistent belief must be the daily discipline of every battle-weary soldier who longs to break the chains of insecurity and bask in God’s love for him, but our stubborn pride rebels. God says he loves us with a perfect love, yet we argue that if he loved us, this or that event would not have happened to us. God says that he is sovereignly in control of our lives, but we panic every time something starts to go against our plans. God says one thing, but because we cannot understand how it is true in our finite minds, we choose to live as if what God said wasn’t true. That’s unbelief. Every time we panic in life, we are assaulting the character of God. Think about this. The self-existent God who spoke the universe into existence, the unchanging God, the God who was faithful to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, the God who was faithful to Joseph and David and Danieland you expect this God to change his character and be unfaithful to you?

There is hope for Jonathan and Nicole. There is hope for us. But we must invest the time and energy that it takes to truly know our God and to believe him.

this is part 5 of 5 in the series
Insecurity

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About Jason Harris

Dr Jason Harris is a writer, pastor, and academic. He has authored multiple books, articles, and papers including his book Theological Meditations on the Gospel. Jason has a PhD from James Cook University as well as degrees in theology, music, accounting, and research. Jason has lived in Cairns, Australia since 2007 and serves as pastor at CrossPoint Church. You can contact Jason at jason@jasonharris.com.au.