Fearful love is no love at all

***EDIT: My friend's death was not confirmed as a suicide. There were elements involved with the situation that were very perplexing. This blog was written immediately after the initial word was suicide. Regardless, I do think the Church body is called to show Love to everyone - especially the hurting and depressed.***

I sit here with tears streaming down my face and sobs racking my body because I just found out one of the guys I knew from youth group committed suicide last night.

He was a couple years younger than me and somewhat shy. He was homeschooled and I know his family had moved several times due to his dad's job.

Other kids in the youth group consistently made him the brunt of their jokes - especially about his appearance.
My heart always went out to him and I would get really frustrated because I could see the "jokes" hurt him.

I thought in recent years he had grown in confidence and gained more true friends. I didn't get to see him that much since I graduated out of youth group, but when I'd see him around church he seemed like he was doing better. He even had a longtime girlfriend. He was an excellent pianist and was part of the worship team.

So even though things externally were looking better for him, I guess the scars from everything plagued him internally.

When it comes to knowing someone that took their own life, I would imagine the question "What could I have done differently?" hangs over you like a cloud.

The sorrow of finding out that the person thought their life should no longer go on - that there was nothing for them here that could heal the deep ache that was inside them - breaks your heart.

This whole week I've been realizing that love should be our primary mode in every minute of the day. If we, as a youth group, as a church, had truly been operating in love to everyone - especially this hurting soul - I believe he would have seen his worth.
What was to gain from all the laughs at his expense? Some cool factor among blood-thirsty peers?
How could we have invested in him more?

The old man - our carnal nature - operates out of selfishness. If we are truly renewed in whole by Christ, we need to set aside ourselves and pour out into others. We are such fragile souls that feel the sting of rejection so deeply.  I know I myself have felt the outcast in different youth groups.

As individuals and as the collective body of Christ we are not showing His love. How can we take His salvation that was brought out of His undying love for us and then not pour out into others lives? Why do we still live life out of fear?
Perfect love casts out fear. Fear casts out of love. You cannot have both. We are not fulfilling that  which Christ sacrificed so much to give us.
The body of Christ reeks of fear. We fear opening up to one another. We fear being rejected. We use others as scapegoats to get the attention off ourselves. We do not love our fellow man more than we want to preserve ourselves at any cost.

John and 1st John have some pointed things to say about this, so I will end my blog with those passages because God's word speaks truer than anything else I could write. I can not command you to do anything, but  our Sovereign, Loving Father *commands* us to love.
How often do we think about being Christ's friend? If we are not a friend to Christ, how could we be proper friends to people around us? We NEED to embrace what being a child of God truly means.

John 15: 9-14
⁹ Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. ¹⁰ If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. ¹¹ These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.¹² “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. ¹³Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are My friends if you do what I command you.


1 John 3
¹ See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. ² Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. ³ And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

 ⁴ Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. ⁵ You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. ⁶ No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. ⁷ Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; ⁸ the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. ¹⁰ By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.

 ¹¹ For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; ¹² not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.

 ¹³ Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. ¹⁴ We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.¹⁵ Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. ¹⁶ We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. ¹⁷ But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? ¹⁸ Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. ¹⁹ We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him ²⁰ in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. ²¹Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; ²² and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.

 ²³ This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. ²⁴ The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

1 John 4: 7-21
 ⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. ¹³ By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. ¹⁴ We have seen andtestify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

 ¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷ By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. ¹⁹ We love, because He first loved us. ²⁰ If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. ²¹ And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.