The Fear of Letting God Down (and Why You Never Actually Could)
Read The Daily:
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” – 1 John 4:18
Some of us walk around with this low-grade panic in our soul. Like maybe God loves us… but He’s also a little disappointed. Like He forgives us… but barely. So we keep trying to do better, fix ourselves, earn approval, and hope we don’t blow it too bad this time.
But the cross ruins all of that.
Because next to Jesus, there’s a thief. No moral résumé. No fresh start. No time to prove himself. Just a dying man who dares to believe that maybe—just maybe—Jesus still wants him.
And Jesus doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t lecture. Doesn’t hesitate. He just says:
“Today, you’ll be with Me.”
You don’t have to prove anything for Jesus to want you.
You don’t have to fix everything before He’ll forgive you.
You don’t even have to outgrow your doubts before you’re safe in His love.
Let that sink in: He’s not asking for effort. He’s offering eternity.
So maybe it’s time to stop living like God’s love is fragile.
You haven’t let Him down. You were never holding Him up.
Prayer for the Day
God what are you showing me? What am I going to do about it?
God help me to see one person that I can serve through a kind word, random act of kindness, or simple gift today?
Make sure you complete the reading or comment today.
Read The New Testament In A Year
But as he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. “How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes. Before long your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side. They will crush you into the ground, and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not recognize it when God visited you.” Then Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the people selling animals for sacrifices. He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.” After that, he taught daily in the Temple, but the leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the other leaders of the people began planning how to kill him. But they could think of nothing, because all the people hung on every word he said.One day as Jesus was teaching the people and preaching the Good News in the Temple, the leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders came up to him. They demanded, “By what authority are you doing all these things? Who gave you the right?” “Let me ask you a question first,” he replied. “Did John’s authority to baptize come from heaven, or was it merely human?” They talked it over among themselves. “If we say it was from heaven, he will ask why we didn’t believe John. But if we say it was merely human, the people will stone us because they are convinced John was a prophet.” So they finally replied that they didn’t know. And Jesus responded, “Then I won’t tell you by what authority I do these things.” Luke 19:41-48, 20:1-8
Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation. By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. It was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain did. Abel’s offering gave evidence that he was a righteous man, and God showed his approval of his gifts. Although Abel is long dead, he still speaks to us by his example of faith. It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying—“he disappeared, because God took him.” For before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God. And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith. Hebrews 10:26-39