Status Updates From Unafraid: Moving Beyond Fea...

"And thus, I believe it is part of the core DNA of Christians in all times and places to carry this movement forward—inch by inch, mile by mile, country by country—until love turns the world on its head and transforms the globe into an otherworldly kingdom that is far more glorious and beautiful than anything we could have imagined."

"I believe this love is a transforming love, one that purriif ies and beautifies everything it to touches."

"I believe Jesus came to start a movement of love that would spread to all the corners of the world and seep deep into every culture it encountered—a movement he simply referred to as “the kingdom.”"

"This realization—that Jesus’s arrival was proclaimed with the command to “be unafraid”—invited me to ask a new question: If an angel from heaven introduced Jesus with the words “be unafraid,” why do some preachers now introduce God with words that are exactly the opposite?"

"Love always awakens us to a more beautiful reality that we were unable to completely see or grasp before."

"Fear of God doesn’t draw us closer to God; itd rives us ffaar ther away—and any time something dd rives us away from God, that should be a strong sign that such a thing has no place in the Christian faith."

"Is it possible to truly love someone who uses the threat of torture to forrcee laa tionship? At best, such threats might earn a terrified compliance, but they can never earn love—and call me crazy, but I think God is aiming at love."

"...when the Bible describes the opposite of love, it doesn’t describe hate. The Bible says that the opposite ofl ove isa ctually fear—meaning that
where there is love, there cannbeo fear."

"No, fear does not come from God—because God is love, and fear is love’s enemy."

"I think we often avoid and delay this necessary process because of the order of events—naming what we don’t believe in order to discover what we do believe."

"Fear is the ultimate causation of bystander casualties, and a faith Spiritual Midlife Crisis rooted in the fear of God will bring death to places inside us that we didn’t even know could die."

"I think our experience of religion in general, is usually rooted in fear because religions are designed to address the one fear we all hold in common, whether we admit it or not death. When the God we believe in has a list of dos and don'ts and one misstep can land us in torment for eternity worse than deathit’s no wonder that we endup living a fearbased faith, whether we're conservative, liberal, orsomething in..."

"Fear can freeze us in place. Sometimes in life we can deal with fear preemptively, sometimes we can deal with it in the moment, and sometimes fear has a way of bringing life to a screeching-balt until we’re unable to focus on anything beyond the fear itself."

"...you were given the message that you're unable to navigate hard times without life falling apart—but no matter how many times you do this successfully..."

"There is no love in terror, and there is no terror in love. These things are mutually exclusive and cannot coexist together. Either love wins, or fear wins."

"God is like an ISIS terrorist—but like one on steroids."

What a crazy thing to say on page two!