where is the love fear?

"If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' and again, 'The Lord will judge his people.' It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

this is scary. this passage probably describes a majority of Christians in america, which means that a majority of us will face a "raging fire". many times we just think of Jesus as our "homeboy" and nothing else. just a friend who's always there right when we need him, but never really anything more than that. we fail to fear God, and i'm not just talking about "respecting" God, but actually fearing Him and realizing that He holds our lives in His hands and can do with us whatever He wants. it is because of this lack of fear that we think it's permissible to continue to sin because in the end Jesus will just forgive us, right? what? you didn't know that those who abuse the grace of God will be consumed by a raging fire? i'm not saying God isn't loving or forgiving, but if we live our lives abusing the grace shown to us through the cross, who's to say we'll receive that love and forgiveness? and yes, it does say in the Bible that perfect love drives out fear and that we don't have to fear judgment if we have God's love in us, but it also says shortly after that "If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar." God's grace should lead to change in our lives, where we are set free from sin, not given permission to sin.