Fearing Bravely: Risking Love for Our Neighbors, Strangers, and Enemies
Catherine McNiel
Feb 2022 · NavPress
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240
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About this ebook
Jesus commands us to love our neighbors. So why are so many Christians taught to fear their neighbors? The American church is known as a people who are afraid, who have been nurtured through fear into hatred, and who have moved from hatred to violence—or at least to neglect. This fear, too often lived out boldly in the name of Jesus, is a false religion.
God instructs us to welcome strangers. We are not to withhold hospitality or help from anyone in need. So why do we fear strangers, especially those needing hospitality, afraid that their presence may threaten what we have?
Jesus taught us to love our enemies. We are to pray for those who actively harm us. Instead, we create enemies in our minds, seeing anyone who thinks, believes, looks, or lives differently from us as dangerous, a threat to our way of living.
The Christian community exists to declare and demonstrate God’s love and to follow Jesus in practicing love over fear, even in unsafe times and places. It’s time to reclaim our brave fear of God and risk transformative love for the sake of our neighbors, the strangers among us, and our enemies.
We are people of the Kingdom. Fearing Bravely teaches us that we have nothing to fear. Instead, we can respond to our fear problem with a brave love that emerges from choosing to let our fear of God overcome our fear of everything else.
Catherine McNiel writes with conviction, wisely guiding us to recognize our fear and, with God's help, not let it limit us to love courageously all who are among us.
God instructs us to welcome strangers. We are not to withhold hospitality or help from anyone in need. So why do we fear strangers, especially those needing hospitality, afraid that their presence may threaten what we have?
Jesus taught us to love our enemies. We are to pray for those who actively harm us. Instead, we create enemies in our minds, seeing anyone who thinks, believes, looks, or lives differently from us as dangerous, a threat to our way of living.
The Christian community exists to declare and demonstrate God’s love and to follow Jesus in practicing love over fear, even in unsafe times and places. It’s time to reclaim our brave fear of God and risk transformative love for the sake of our neighbors, the strangers among us, and our enemies.
We are people of the Kingdom. Fearing Bravely teaches us that we have nothing to fear. Instead, we can respond to our fear problem with a brave love that emerges from choosing to let our fear of God overcome our fear of everything else.
Catherine McNiel writes with conviction, wisely guiding us to recognize our fear and, with God's help, not let it limit us to love courageously all who are among us.
Ratings and reviews
5.0
1 review
Lisa Schickert Smith
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February 8, 2022
Catherine takes a command that we know well - to love our neighbors, strangers, and enemies - helps us better understand it and apply it to our lives. She asks us to set aside our fear of those who are different and to reach out with brave love. This is not a feel good book about just spreading love out into the world, Catherine admits that it will be hard, but worth it. Each section ends with Brave Steps - that give reflection/discussion questions, practices, and art to look or listen to that help illustrate what you have learned. There were two parts that I will carry with me. The first is that we need to love our enemies - but that does not mean putting ourselves in bad situations or in to stay in traumatic situations. We can love our enemies from afar and pray for them. The second one is a beautiful description about being the salt and the light - not too much or not too little. Her descriptions and deeper knowledge help me to see these descriptions clearer and deeper than before. Catherine's words will stay with me and I hope the continue to compel me to risk love and fear bravely.
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