I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.” – Blaise Pascal
I ran across this quote by Blaise Pascal while I was trying to remember something else he had once said that I had read and it made me laugh because this is so true. I made this lesson very long, because I did not have the leisure time to make it shorter! I never have time to shrink down my notes like I want to. It’s nice to know I am not the only one in history that has faced this problem. It takes a lot of time to go back through and cut the fat from my notes and I am always running low on time. So my writing continues to be high in fat. Not sure if that is totally good for you. I know we live in a world of low fat and no fat but in the old days the fat was considered the choicest portion of meat that was offered to God. It’s all the extras and usually contains a lot of good stuff and often holds the most flavor. Some of the best cuts of meat contain a lot of fat in them that keep them from being too tough, dry and give a lot of flavor. I pray my writing even though it is long and contains a lot of fat, would be more like that choice piece of meat. There are some parts we will cut off and push to the side because we don’t have the time to consume them. However, for the most part I hope all the extras add flavor.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
Here is the instrument by which we can determine if we are in God and if God is in us – the possession of God’s Spirit.
In our last lesson we learned that as God’s children we are of God, we share His nature. This is a wonderful aspect of our new birth and adoption that we share God’s spirit. He has given it to us freely. Apart from the possession of God’s spirit, we do not belong to God.
Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir. – Gal. 4: 6-7
Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. – 2 Cor. 1:21-22
T.G. Selby once said:
“It is said that the finest rose tree in the world is one in Holland, which a few years ago had six thousand flowers in bloom at the same time. The poor brier in the hedge row might well despair of rivalling that wonderful rose tree and attaining worldwide distinction. But if some kindly hand could transplant it to a choicer soil, and nurture it with needful skill, and if some bud from that wonderful Dutch tree could be grafted into its central fibers, the poor despised growth of the hedge row might hope one day to bear its thousand blooms, and be the wonder of a nation. And poor in all high moral and spiritual qualities as we ourselves may be, grudging in sacrifice, ignoble in spirit, grovelling in motive, yet if God infix His own life within us, no limit can be put to our spiritual development.
The Lord has put his own Spirit in us and grafted us into vine. Because we have God’s own spirit in us we are overcomers. This goes right back up to emphasis John’s point in 1 John 4:4:
“Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)
“For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world- our faith. Who is that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4-5)
Penny’s lesson next week will be focused on our overcoming nature. We are overcomers because of the Spirit that we have in us and because of our faith. Do you truly believe that he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world? Where are you feeling defeated, hopeless, too weak? What might happen if you pray over this verse and grab hold of this truth? Why don’t you believe that? Why do see the Holy Spirit in you as too weak to help you overcome?
The possession of and sharing of God’s Spirit is our assurance which gives us confidence so we can know that we belong to God. God does now want us to doubt our position. He wants us to enjoy the peace, the joy, and the power that comes with knowing who we belong to.
Does God’s spirit possess me? Is he possessing me more and more? Am I yearning to be possessed more and more by it? Yearning to be more kind, more merciful, more forgiving, more loving, more wise, more compassionate, more selfless, more giving, more self-controlled, more faithful then what I currently am?
This is how we know we of God and abide in Him, simply by being possessed by God’s Holy Spirit which compels us to love others as God our Father has loved us. It is a holy and unnatural love that possesses us and creates in us the desire to walk as Jesus walked in his love for God the Father, and others.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
We have seen, meaning John himself and the apostles were eye witnesses to Jesus and this is what they testify to and proclaim now to us.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. – 1 John 1:1-2
Once again we are reminded that it was God the Father who sent his one and only beloved Son into the world. This was to demonstrate the Father’s love to us.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. – 1 John 4:9
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? – Romans 8:32
God sent his Son into the world because no one else was qualified. No one else was worthy enough to be the Savior of the world. Jesus, God’s most beloved, one and only Son, He alone was equal to such a task of saving the world.
Sent – Once again this is a reminder of the pre-existence of Christ, who was with God from the beginning. Jesus was sent.
To be the Savior of the world. Why was Jesus sent? To be the Savior of the World. This really brings home the truth that God so loved the world that he have his one and only Son, his beloved Son. He did not spare his own Son, but have him up for us all. Such is the nature of the love of God that He has so graciously lavished upon us.
The condition of the world
We are reminded that the world needed a Savior. Without a savior the whole world had fallen under the wrath of God without any hope of reconciliation, without any hope of redemption.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16
The world is perishing. Death and decay is continually around us because the whole world is under the curse of sin whose wages is death.
“Let us imagine a number of men in chains, and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of men.” – Blaise Pascal
“When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair.” – Blaise Pascal
We have seen a lot of disasters in the world. We have seen tornados in Oklahoma that left nothing standing behind it. We have seen a few years ago a tsnuami that killed a hundred thousand. We have heard of babonic plagues in history and we have read in our study of Revelation of greater disasters then all of these combined that are still being restrained and will one day be poured out on the world causing one fourth of the earth’s population to be killed, then another third to be wiped out, and then totality in final judgment. It’s hard to picture and imagine greater disasters than these, but there is one. It is the greatest and mightiest disaster of them all. It is the cause of them all, the root cause of all disasters and beneath all sorrows. The greatest disaster of all time, in all the world occurred when sin entered into mankind causing men to no longer be and do what God created them to be and do. It is when death entered the world through sin. It is when we became separated from God as our life source and began to look for our life source in creation and in ourselves instead of to Him. The greatest disaster in the world is the fall of man, in the Garden of Eden, when man put his trust in creation and in himself and his own reasoning instead of trusting God and his word and began to worship creation in place of the Creator. All the other disasters of the earth have stemmed from this one event.
“The flowers are still as beautiful as God meant them to be. The sun still shines yonder with spacious firmament on high. Evening shadows fall and the moon takes up the wonders and tells us whether the hand that made us is divine. Bees still gather their honey from flower to flower, and the birds sing a thousand songs and the seraphim still chant “holy, holy, holy” before the throne of God. Yet man alone sulks in his cave. Made more like God than any creature, has become less like God than any creature…..The mightiest disaster ever known in the world was the soul of man, more like God than anything, and more fitted to God’s sweet music than all other creatures, with the light gone from his mind and the love gone from his heart, stumbling through a dark world to find himself a grave.” – A.W. Tozer, The Purpose of Man: Designed to Worship
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, to be its Savior. To save those who look to Jesus for salvation. To save those who turn around and look to God for life. Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, the substitution and atonement. There is no other Savior. There will be no other way of salvation.
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
A life that abides in God and a life that has God abiding in it, starts with the confessing that Jesus is the Son of God.
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. – Romans 10:9-10
It is this confession that brings about the new birth and the indwelling Holy Spirit. Until we have this Holy Spirit we are not born again. We are not of God until we are of his Spirit.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.- Romans 8:9
The confession here is a heart confession, a knee bending confession that Jesus is the Son of God. It is a confession that you come to the knowledge of that changes everything thereafter. It changes the way you see things. It is when this truth, Jesus is the Son of God grabs hold of you, and you become subordinate to it in every area of your life thereafter. You confess it not just this first time with your lips, but every day with your actions.
They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good. – Titus 1:16
We confess Christ as the Son of God, every time we are obedient to him. Every time we act in faith to please God. Every time we deny ourselves to follow God’s will. Every time we practice righteousness. Every time we pour out our lives in love, our actions confess Christ as they display him in our lives or they deny Christ.
Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:18
Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.” – 2 Tim. 2:19
16 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.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us (1 John 3:16)….. God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8)….. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. – 1 John 4:9
It is through Jesus that we come to know and to believe the love God has for us. There is no other way for us to conceive or imagine this unfathomable, unconceivable, unbelievable great love of God except through Christ. In Christ the love of God is perfectly displayed to us.
Have you come to know and to believe this love? Have you come to rest in it? Have you come to depend upon it? Have you come to receive it? Have you come to enjoy it? There is no greater way for God to show and reveal his love to you then what he has already done. You simply must believe it by faith. How do you overcome your unbelief in it? By faith.
This is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. (1 John 5:4)
The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands” – Martin Luther
If you have not come to know and to believe the love that God has for you, then perhaps it is simply because you have never sought to know it with all your heart knowing this love can be known. Other people have known it, basked in it. Have been melted by it. Ruined and undone by this love of God. Why not you? Does God want you to know his love for you? Yes. He does! This is according to God’s will. This was Paul’s very own prayer for the Ephesians.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph. 4:14-19)
When you seek to know God’s love with all your heart, knowing that it can be known, that it can be possessed and enjoyed, then you seek it in a different manner, with expectant faith.
But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. – Deut. 4:29
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. – Heb. 11:6
God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
God is love. You cannot come to know God apart from encountering his love and coming to know God through his love. God’s very nature is love, no part of Him exists that is not of this nature. His love is a holy love, meaning that it is complete and perfect as God is complete and perfect. God is wholly love. He is nothing else but pure undiluted love. His judgment flows from this wholly love. His wrath flows from this wholly love. His love goes out from him as light goes out from him, continually without end and removing every darkness it encounters. God’s love is as powerful as his light. It is devastating in its nature as light is devastating to darkness and immediately destroys it by its very presence and nature. So great is God’s love that it also devastates all that it encounters that is not of its own nature. It destroys everything that is unloving and hateful, which is called evil and sin. As light destroys darkness so love destroys hate. To encounter the wrath of God is to encounter the love of God in all its glory and might. It is God’s great love that destroys sin.
Since we have all failed to love God and others as we should because of our sin nature, we have all come under this wrath of God that is fueled by His righteous love. There is no greater love then God’s own love to save us. Where do you hide when you have offended Love itself and there is no other Love to be found or had to cover you or to intervene on your behalf? To be saved would require an act of love.
There is no love apart from God. God is Love. He is the very source and definition of love. For God in his great love, not to pour out his wrath against loveless man and his deplorable sinful actions of malice, murder, hatefulness, selfishness, pride, immorality, etc.. would be most unloving and against God’s very own nature.
Love and justice go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin. God is love and God is just. Love executes justice and justice executes love. These two natures may seem to contradict one another but they complement one another. They act in unity.
We have all failed to love. There is no other refuge for us to hide in to cover our offences against love. So God, in his own great love, sent his one and only son to be the Savior of the world, to lay down his life for ours, so that we might live through him. Love intervened. Justice was satisfied. As God poured out his wrath on the cross, he also poured out his love simultaneously because God’s love cannot be separated from his wrath. It is God’s love that destroys sin.
17 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.
It is God’s love abiding in us and our abiding in God’s love that destroys sin in our lives and by this is love perfected with us. We are undone by God’s love.
It is God’s love abiding in us and us abiding in God’s love that breaks our hearts.
It is God’s love abiding in us and us abiding in God’s love that softens our hard hearts.
It is God’s love abiding in us and us abiding in God’s love that gives a new heart.
It is God’s love abiding in us and us abiding in God’s love that destroys sin in our lives. It causes us to hate and despise sin for the hurt our sins cause others.
It is God’s love abiding in us and us abiding in God’s love that causes us to destroy the sin that causes us to act unloving to others. It turns our stomachs. We can no longer find pleasure in the activities we once found pleasure in because they hurt people. We no longer desire to lie because it hurts people. We no longer desire to steal because it hurts people. We have come to know love.
Do you see how powerful love is? It is as powerful as light.
We are growing in love and the more we grow in love, the more God’s love is perfected in us, the less we will sin against others and against God himself. Every sin against others is a sin against God. We will never be sinless but we will sin less. We will be quicker to confess our sins, to seek forgiveness, to give mercy and show compassion to others because we have known love ourselves and have come to love. We will keep the spirit of the law.
so that we may have confidence for the Day of Judgment,
The perfection of God’s love in us give us a confidence on the Day of Judgment. For us as Christians, this is what is called the Bema Seat of Judgment, or the Judgment Seat of Christ. This is not for the judgment of our sins, for our sins have already been judged in Christ. There is no fear of the Great White Throne Judgment Day of God for unbelievers since our sins have already been dealt with and forgiven in Christ. This Day of Judgment is for the rewards of believers.
So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. – 2 Cor. 5:9-10
If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. – 1 Cor. 3:12-15
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. – Rom. 14:12
When we seek to live a life of abiding in God’s love and allowing God’s love to abide in us then we will have confidence on the Day of Judgment. We will have no shame as we stand before Christ. This complements 1 John 2:28-29 from the beginning of this study:
And now little children, abide in him so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.” – 1 John 2:28-29
Abiding in Christ, abiding in God, abiding in love gives us confidence at Christ’s coming so that we do not shrink from him in shame at his coming.
1 John 3:18-19 Continued to build on this truth of confidence before God by saying:
Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him. (1 John 3:18-19)
Once again we saw that it was our love for others displayed through action that gave us a clear conscience and confidence before God in prayer so that whatever we ask we receive from him.
Our confidence and reassurance before Christ on the day of the Bema Judgment Seat of Christ comes from our abiding in God and God abiding in us. It comes from knowing the deep love that he has for us as his children because we abide in now. If we abide in it now how much more will we abide in it then? There is no reason for us to fear this Judgment Seat. Instead we can look forward to it with great anticipation as a Rewards Assembly.
because as he is so also are we in this world.
Why? We can have confidence in the Day of Judgment because as Christ is so are we in the world. If we are abiding in Christ, then we are walking as Christ walked in this world. Once again this goes back to what John has already taught in 1 John chapter 2:
Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. – 1 John 2:4-6
Abiding in Christ means we walk as Christ walked. How did Christ walk? Jesus kept God’s word. He walked in obedience to God’s commands which was in love for God and in love for others and a lack of love for the world (system).
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. .. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. – John 15:9-10, 12-13
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. – 1 John 3:16
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. – John 15:18-20
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” – 1 John 2:15
We have no fear in the judgment of Christ because we walked as he walked in this world. Holding on to this world loosely and holding tightly to the word of God and to our love for others instead.
18 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.
There is no fear in love. No anxiety. No worry. No distrust. Love fears no evil from love. A child fears no harm from a father who he trusts and knows loves him with his life. Fear is self-protection. Love conquers fear. Have you ever played Rock, Paper, Scissors? If you were to play it with these elements, love and fear, love would always conquer fear.
When a mother or father sees their child in danger, in a house or car on fire, they forget themselves, they forget their own fear of being harmed by those flames (which is a healthy fear), and their love overcomes their fear.
The Lord would have us be love driven instead of fear driven. So often we are fear driven instead of love driven. We do not love others more or show love to others more because we are afraid of how they would react, what they would think, how we might appear. Our fear stifles our love. Fear moves us instead of love. However, the more we love others, the less we fear. The secret to overcoming fear is through love.
How is fear preventing you from showing love towards someone? What are you really afraid of?
There comes a time when we recognize that it is fear that is motivating us and moving us that we must stop and consciously act on love instead obeying fear and becoming subservient to it. It feels like the most unnatural thing in the world to do and yet we know in our hearts that it is God telling us to walk in love, not in fear. By this we overcome fear, and gain peace, joy and love in the process.
As long as we are fearful, it shows our immaturity in loving God and others. It shows that we have not yet been made perfect in God’s love. Fear is an opportunity to practice love in our lives. It is an opportunity to die to ourselves and to walk as Jesus walked so that we might grow and be perfected in his love and purify ourselves of fear as he is pure.
For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
There is a healthy fear of God that leads to wisdom and there is an unhealthy fear of God that simply fears punishment. This fear steals our ability to enjoy the love of God that he has for us. When we sin, this unhealthy fear would have us avoid God and hide, where as a love for God would have us run to God as our Father even when we have sinned. We would run to him as one who has the devil, a lion chasing him seeking to devour him. We would run to him for safety because He loves us and we love him. We live the verse in Romans:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39
It is a healthy fear of God when we fear him, we do not fear anything or anyone else. A healthy fear of God breeds courage and boldness in us. We know we have nothing to fear so long as we fear Him. If we do not fear Him, we have everything in the world to fear.
See how knowing God, knowing and trusting in his sovereignty and love for us extinguishes our fear? In trials and tribulations, we know that his loving hand has allowed them for his purposes. We know that nothing happens to us by chance. We know his loving eye is always upon us, he never forgets us. We trust in his love. We trust in his wisdom. In doing so, in our love for Him, our fear vanishes knowing he loves us and no ill can come upon us that has not gone through him first. That is the glory of abiding in Christ and in God. Nothing can touch you without going through God first. If it touches you, then you know God has allowed it even though you may not understand why, you can be sure it is according to his purpose and will which is always good. There is peace in this. It takes away a world of fear and anxiety of the future and what ifs.
Fear has to do with punishment. We have no need to fear punishment since our sins were already punished in Christ. How often have you heard someone say, “God is punishing me? God doesn’t like me? God is angry at me. God hates me” when things in their life go wrong? I hear it all the time. The truth is the majority of these people hate God. They hate his ways. God doesn’t hate them. His mercies are new with them every morning, surround them every day. God does not hate them. God begs them to turn from their wicked ways. The very ways that are causing them pain, punishment. They inflict themselves. They pierce themselves with sorrows that God would have them avoid. But they hate God and because they hate God they do not know the love of God and can not take comfort in God’s love during times of suffering. God’s children on the other hand, those who love God, trust him at all times. They trust in his ways, his discernment and discipline. There is no fear in love. They know that everything God does is to give them a hope and a future according to God’s own plan and purposes for their lives which is better than they can imagine. If not here, then in the hereafter. Their love for God casts out fear. They enjoy peace.
19 We love because he first loved us.
God loved us first!
“but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8
When did Jesus love us?
While we were still sinners. And it wasn’t because he knew that one day we would love him, we would have never loved him, if he had not shown us love first. It was his love for us that birthed love in our hearts for him and for others. God initiates love and draws us to himself by his love. Love begats love, as evil begats more evil in return. No wonder we are not to return evil for evil, an eye for an eye, but Christ calls us to return evil with love!
“But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. – Matt. 5: 39-41
Extraordinary Love that does not respond to evil who tries to make us respond to it in the same manner. We do not allow evil to birth evil actions out of us and reproduce itself through us and thereby spread.
He loved us when we were still sinners: “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)
“Jesus loved you when you lived carelessly, when you neglected his Word, when the knee was unbent in prayer. Ah! He loved some of you when you were in the dancing saloon, when you were in the playhouse, ay, even when you were in the brothel. He loved you when you were at hell’s gate, and drank damnation at every draught. He loved you when you could not have been worse or further from him than you were. Marvelous, O Christ, is thy strange love!” (Spurgeon)
Why do we love God? Because he first loved us. If only those who hate God who see God’s love for them.
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. – 1 John 4:10
We love God.
Our response to God’s love is that we love God. God’s love quickens our dead hearts. Love of God is a mark of a Christian and all of God’s promises are for those who love him.
“There is no exception to this rule; if a man loves not God, neither is he born of God. Show me a fire without heat, then show me regeneration that does not produce love to God.” (Spurgeon)
It is something that every Christian should be unafraid to proclaim: I love Him; I love Jesus. Can you say that? Are you embarrassed to say it? Can you say, “I love Jesus”?
Is it hard for you to confess to others your love for Jesus?
“Look through all the pages of history, and put to the noblest men and women, who seem to still live, this question, ‘Who loves Christ?’ and, at once, up from dark dungeons and cruel racks there rises the confessors’ cry, ‘We love him;’ and from the fiery stake, where they clapped their hands as they were being burned to death, the same answer comes, ‘We love him.’ If you could walk through the miles of catacombs at Rome, and if the holy dead, whose dust lies there, could suddenly wake up, they would all shout, ‘We love him.’ The best and the bravest of men, the noblest and purest of women, have all been in this glorious company; so, surely, you are not ashamed to come forward and say, ‘Put my name down among them.'” (Spurgeon)
“Be out-and-out for him; unfurl your colors, never hide them, but nail them to the mast, and say to all who ridicule the saints, ‘If you have any ill words for the followers of Christ, pour them out upon me. . . . but know this – ye shall hear it whether you like it or not, – “I love Christ.”‘” (Spurgeon)
Our love for Jesus, our love for God is displayed and confessed every time we obey God. Every moment our actions confess or deny our love for God.
…..“If you love me, you will keep my commandments (John 14:15)
….Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. (John 14:23-24)
….but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. (John 14:31)
Confessing Jesus is more then something we say once in our life with our tongue, it’s a continual life long confession that we love him and we belong to him that is demonstrated not only by every word that comes out of our mouth but also by every activity we partake in.
Our Lord told His disciples that love and obedience were organically united. The final test of love is obedience.” – A.W. Tozer
How does your life confess Jesus?
What if you don’t love God as much as you would like?
“Yet we must not try to make ourselves love our Lord, but look to Christ’s love first, for his love to us will beget in us love to him. I know that some of you are greatly distressed because you cannot love Christ as much as you would like to do, and you keep on fretting because it is so. Now, just forget your own love to him, and think of his great love to you; and then, immediately, your love will come to something more like that which you would desire it to be.” (Spurgeon)
What are some ways we can increase our love for God in our hearts?
Get to know him. To know God is to love God, for God is love. The more you know him, the more time you spend with him, the more you will fall in love with him. Our proximity to God has much to do with our love for him. If we never spend time with him and stay at a distance, our hearts will be cold and lukewarm towards him.
“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. – Rev. 3:15-16
Luke warmness towards God, shows were are not attached to him, we have no relationship with him. God commands no less than our love for him.
“And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” – Luke 10:27
20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother
You would think that it would be easier to love God who we have never seen, who always treats us right and loves us perfectly, then it would be to love our brothers who we have to deal with their offences every day. Yet John doesn’t believe so and doesn’t teach this. It is harder to love God who we cannot see and easier to love our brothers who we can see. That is what John says. He even goes as far as to say that it is an impossibility. It’s impossible for us to love God if we do not love our brothers. Anyone who says he loves God but acts hatefully towards his brother is deluding himself about his love for God. He doesn’t love God. He doesn’t even know God (1 John 4:8)
“What a solemn thought, that our love to God will be measured by our everyday intercourse with men and the love it displays; and that our love to God will be found to be a delusion, except was its truth is proved in standing the test of daily life with our fellowmen.” – A. Murray, Humility
“Our love for God is measured by our everyday fellowship with others and the love it displays.” – A. Murray
Our love for others is to be an outward result of our love for God. This is an interesting verse. We can test our love for others by if we love God and obey his commandments. If we do not love God and relate to others according to God’s commandments, our love for others is false.
By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. – John 13:35
Being born of God and abiding with Him gives us the ability to love others. All we have to do is be willing, obey God by working out what God is working in us. Loving someone is a choice of our will. We have the ability since we are in relationship to God, to draw upon the richness of his resources that are freely available to us. God commands us, whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Up to this point, John has given us a series of tests to see if we have been truly born of God. In these series he has emphasized doctrinal belief, obedience and brotherly love. The gospel effects, our mind, heart and actions. If any of these are missing, then something is wrong.
It is easy for us to say, “I love God” and “I know God” or “I have fellowship with God.” and not have any relationship with him. Many attend church every week, give and tithe regularly, volunteer and even serve in a ministry, yet have no real love for God. They do all the right things outwardly it seems, but are cold and dead inside towards God.
If we would be alive towards God, then we must actively pursue a lifestyle of love. Overcoming our fear with love. Practicing righteousness through love. Walking in obedience through love. Faith working itself out through love. As love is the essence of all God is and all God does to his very core, so we seek to make love the essence and center of all we say and do. By doing so, by working out what God is working inside of us, we are being made perfect in love.
Loving others is not a choice but a command. God commands us to love our brother. “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” Once again we are reminded that love and obedience cannot be separated.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments (John 14:15)
Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart, in my heart.
In my heart Lord, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart, in my heart.
Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart, in my heart.
In my heart Lord, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart, in my heart.
Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart, in my heart.
In my heart Lord, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart, in my heart.
Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart, in my heart.
In my heart Lord, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart, in my heart.
