Perfect Love

WOW I could not believe that our Sunday school lesson focused on how love can cast out fear.

 PURE LOVE    03.19.17

 

FOCUS VERSE

 

I John 4:18

 

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

 

FOCUS TEXT

 

I John 4:7–21

 

7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

 

For love is of God. He is the fountain, author, parent, and commander of love; it is the sum of his law and gospel: And every one that loveth  is born of God, 1 John 4:7.

The Spirit of God is the Spirit of love. The new nature in the children of God is the offspring of his love. The fruit of the Spirit is love, Gal. 5:22. Love comes down from heaven.

For God is love , his nature and essence are love, his will and works are primarily love.

Not that this is the only conception we ought to have of him; we have found that he is light as well as love (1 John 1:5), love is natural and essential to His divine Majesty.

 

8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

 

9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

 

This is argued from the display and demonstration that he hath given of it; as, 1. That he hath loved us, such as we are: In this was manifest the love of God towards us (1 John 4:9), towards us mortals, us ungrateful rebels. God commandeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, Rom. 5:8. Strange that God should love impure, vain, vile, dust and ashes! He has loved us at such a rate, at such an incomparable value as he has given for us; he has given his own, only-beloved, blessed Son for us.

    

10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

 

Propitiate:  to gain or regain the favor or goodwill of :  appease

 

Herein is love (unusual unprecedented love), not that we loved God, but that he loved us. He loved us, when we had no love for him, when we lay in our guilt, misery, and blood, when we were undeserving, ill-deserving, polluted, and unclean. He gave us His Son to die for us, to die under the law and curse of God, to bear our sins in his own body, to be crucified, to be wounded in his soul, and pierced in his side, to be dead and buried for us; and then, For such an end, for such a good and beneficial end to us—that we might live through him (1 John 4:9), might live for ever through him, might live in heaven, live with God, and live in eternal glory and blessedness with him and through him.

 

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

 

The example of God should press us. We should be followers (or imitators) of him, as his dear children. The objects of the divine love should be the objects of ours. Do we really have a choice to refuse to love those whom the eternal God hath loved? We should be admirers of his love, and lovers of his love (of the benevolence and complacency that are in him), and consequently lovers of those whom he loves. The general love of God to the world should induce a universal love among mankind. 

 

12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

 

The Christian love is an assurance of the divine inhabitation: If we love one another, God dwelleth in us.

His love is perfected in us. It has obtained its completion in and upon us. God’s love is not perfected in him, but in and with us.

 

His love could not be designed to be ineffectual and fruitless upon us. It is said to be perfected; so faith is perfected by its works, and love perfected by its operations.

 

Examples of God's Love Operations

 

It may appear that the Lord has allowed years of our life to be "squandered". For example, why He dealt with young David as He did?

            This shephard boy was hand selected by the Lord from all the youths of Israel to succeed David as King. Not even Jessie, his father couldn't believe his other sons were overlooked for his youngest. Yet David was designated as the future patriarch of Israel .

            It sounds great, but when you take a closer look at the story, Saul chased David into the wilderness, where he spent fourteen years of his life running from Saul. You would think  from a human perspective, this time as a fugitive was a waste of David's formative years, that those years could have been spent at the local university studying foreign  relations and diplomacy, in preparation for national leadership. God gave David the Kingdom.  God's ways are not like our ways.

 

God's Timing is perfect, even when He appears catastrophically late.

 

Consider the story of Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus, as told in John 11. The members of this little family were among Jesus' closest friends during the time of His Earthly ministry. It was reasonable with the affection Jesus had for them, if Life threatening emergencies arise, and a urgent note or message gets to Him, saying, "Lord the one you love is sick", they had every reason to believe He would respond rather quickly.

            Can you imagine what it must have been like for Mary and Martha waiting and watching the road for the appearance of Jesus. Minutes dragged into hours, hours into days. The wake was before the funeral, this would have allowed Him to give some type of explanation, but no Jesus. The burial and yet no sign of Jesus. He raised Lazarus  from the dead. God's thoughts are not like our thoughts.

 

God's Word is infinitely more reliable than our wayward emotions. Prov. 18:24 declares He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

 

Look at the martyrdom of Stephen, who was stoned to death for proclaiming the name of Christ. And the disciple James, to whom Acts 12 devotes only one verse: King Herod Agrippa "had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword" (Acts 12:2). Tradition tells us that 10 of the 12 disciples were executed ( excluding Judas, who committed suicide, and John, who was exiled).

 

God is not our servant we are His.

 

These are examples of God's love operating in the lives of His people.

 

To truly define the loving nature of God, we must read the accounts given to us in scripture that expresses His love in operation. This will shed light on His loving characteristic traits.

 

You may at times feel like the victim of a cruel joke, Get over the feeling of betrayal and Know that God is with you.

 

Not only with you but in you.

 

13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.

 

Now God dwells in us, not by any visible presence, or immediate appearance to the eye, but by his Spirit (1 John 4:13). God has a peculiar residence within each of us.

 

This mutual inhabitation is something more noble and greater than we are acquainted with or can fully comprehend. One would think that to speak of God dwelling in us, is a show of arrogance or cockiness. It would appear that these words aren't fit for us as mere mortals. God said it, I choose to believe it.

 

 

14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.

 

15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.

 

This confession seems to include faith in the heart as the foundation of it, acknowledgment with the mouth to the glory of God and Christ, and profession in the life and conduct, in opposition to the flatteries or frowns of the world. Thus no man says that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost, by the external attestation and internal operation of the Holy Ghost, 1 Cor. 12:3.

 

16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

 

God is essential and boundless in love; he has incomparable incomprehensible love for, which he has demonstrated in the mission and mediation of his beloved Son. Jesus dying for us.

 

17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

 

He will give the crown of righteousness to all that love his appearing. And we have this boldness towards Christ because of our conformity to him: Because as he is so are we in this world, 1 John 4:17. Love hath conformed us to him; as he was the great lover of God and man, he has taught us in our measure to be so too, and he will not deny his own image. Love teaches us to conform in sufferings too; we suffer for him and with him, and therefore cannot but hope and trust that we shall also be glorified together with him, 2 Tim. 2:12.

 

18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

 

When love prevails fear ceases. We must here distinguish and judge, between fear and being afraid.

--fear is known to be a disquieting torturing passion, but perfect love casteth out torment, for it teaches the mind a perfect acquiescence (acceptance) and complacency in that perfect love casteth out fear

 

19 We lovhim, because he first loved us.

 

His love is the incentive, the motive, and moral cause of ours. We cannot but love so good a God, who loved us when we were both unloving and unlovely, who loved us at so great a rate, who has been seeking and soliciting our love at the expense of his Son’s blood; and has condescended so that we may be reconciled unto him.

 

20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

 

21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

 

His love is the productive cause of ours. To those that love him all things work together for good, to those who are the called according to his purpose. (Rom. 8:28).

We must love God originally and supremely, and others in him. Now, our Christian brethren having a new nature and excellent privileges derived from God, and God having his interest in them as well as in us, it cannot but be a natural suitable obligation that he who loves God should love his brother also.