Living "Not" Loved

I'm taking a short afternoon break from tax season, and as I stumble around my computer I discover some notes I wrote several months ago when I first began pondering the idea of learning to live loved. These were thoughts on what my life has been like, even as a Christian, living without the deep conviction that my Father in heaven loves me as much as He actually does. Here goes:

I have given money out of fear that He would whack me for not doing so, or not giving enough, and the whack would be the loss of a job or loss of finances, or some other way He would get back at me.

I have had my daily (almost) quiet times out of fear that not doing so would bring all kinds or problems my way that day. As long as I was fulfilling my religious duty, I anticipated God bringing good things my way. But I really feared the days when I would oversleep, or for some other reason miss my quiet time. I just knew He was going to discipline (spank) me for my failure.

I have attended church and been faithful to serve in various ministry capacities out of fear that others would question my commitment level, and not think very highly of me any more.

I have been outwardly obedient, and somewhat inwardly obedient out of fear that He would get mad at me and punish me.

I had no idea all those years that fear was such a powerful influence in my life. But now, His perfect love is casting out all that fear. I am learning to live loved. It means I am being set free from my performance based Christianity and I am learning to enjoy His love and delight in me moment by moment. What is really fun is seeing the fruit of learning to live loved. The fruit is obedience in most of the things I used to do out of fear! But the joy in doing those things is far greater than it was before. More important for me though is the freedom I am experiencing knowing I no longer have to perform for God or anyone else. I am loved totally and eternally and there is nothing that can get in the way of that. How awesome is that??!!