Friday, November 16, 2022
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:16-19
Perfect Love = No Fear
The feeling we have when we are with someone that we know knows us and loves us is priceless. It involves so many different feelings like peace, joy, comfort, and security. It doesn’t involve feelings like fear.
God wants us to really believe that He loves us – not just talk about it like we believe it but not really believe. When our eyes are opened to the sin in our own lives it makes it hard to believe that He could really love us and it may cause us to not believe that He really does. God truly wants us to respond by knowing through experience and believing the love God has for us. Nothing can make Him stop loving His children. Paul tells us in Romans 8:38-39 that nothing can separate us from the love of God that was in Jesus Christ. We can trust and believe that we are safe in His love forever no matter what. That does not mean we abuse His grace and sin because we know we are safe in His love for us. It means we rest in the safety of that love and lean into our relationship with Him and living a life that glorifies Him in every way.
…whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him “To feel God’s love is very precious, but to believe it when you do not feel it, is the noblest.” (Spurgeon)
We may not always feel loved by God, and those are some hard days, but we have to rest in what we believe and push through the feelings. When we abide in God, He is in us, and we are immersed in His love. It is where we live. But even in this place, our circumstances or conviction of sin can make Him feel so far away.
“Every man that ever was saved had to come to God not as a lover of God, but as a sinner, and then believe in God’s love to him as a sinner.” (Spurgeon)
When we stand before Him on judgement day, we can be confident in the love He has perfected with us. We can have confidence on judgement day if we receive and walk in the His transforming love now. We should strive to be so bound up with Jesus that we are one with Him. There is no fear in perfect love, so we don’t have to fear judgement day. We should fear God in a healthy respectful way, but He is not out to get us for every mistake we make. We should ask for forgiveness and repent for every mistake, but, like a loving father, He still wants the best for us no matter what. As his children, judgement day doesn’t have to be something we fear.
There is no fear in love: The completeness of love means we do not cower in fear before God, dreading His judgment, either now or in the day of judgment. We know all the judgment we ever deserved — past, present, and future — was poured out on Jesus Christ on the cross.
– David Guzik
We should be sharing this gospel of true love every chance we get. His love offers redemption and healing, and safety. We love Him because He first loved us. He gave us love – and then we were able to learn. We love Him in return. He loved us when we were sinners, He loves us even more now. We can rest well in His love and all it means for us.
