Perfect Love Without Fear

Perfect love will never want the preeminence in everything, it will never want to take the place of another, it will always be willing to take the back seat.  Smith Wigglesworth

You are of God.  Love one another.  Love is of God.  His love has been perfected in us. There is no fear in love. He who loves God must love his brother also.  1 John 4

I think one of the most important things we can learn in this life is to love.  Have you ever thought about how love changes everything? I think sometimes we associate love with the wrong things.  I love my car, my house and my possessions.  I love my hairstyle, my outfit and my favorite shoes. Our perception of love can change everything and it can change the world.  How powerful is that?

We have a gentleman that goes to our church.  Everyone knows him.  I’ve never personally introduced myself to him but I know who he is and so does everyone else at church.  If you ever see him you will know that he knows what love is all about.  The first time I encountered Jerry was when I heard him say “AMEN” at our Rockwall campus.  He heard something Pastor Steve said and wholeheartedly agreed so in the silence of this huge building you heard this deep voice in the back speaking with passion when he said “AMEN”.  That is Jerry. 

Over the years I have watched Jerry move to our Town East campus and become a leader.  The one thing I always see in him is his love for other people.  He is absolutely passionate about God and loving people.  He does the majority of our baptism’s and you can feel the excitement and love flowing off of him in waves.  You can literally see the excitement in his eyes when he lowers the person into the water that he is thankful for another person being saved. 

God created love, it is who He is, it is the very essence of who He is.  We are to love one another with God’s kind of love.  This is not a fly by night, fickle kind of love.  This is an all consuming, until death kind of love. When we find that kind of love there is no fear.  Imagine having no fear in anything because we know we are loved by God.  Imagine having no fear of what will happen to us because we are loved by an amazing God.

   

If you think no one loves you, think again.  God loves You as if you were the only one who existed on this earth.  Love that never ends.  The Love that sends His son to die kind of Love.  Take an example from His Book and accept His amazing love and give it back to someone else. You can change the world.

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, Your love is perfect love.  I want to show that kind of love to other people.  I fail at this over and over again.  If I don’t love my neighbor, brother or sister with this kind of love, I don’t really know what Your love is all about.  Help me to love others as You do.  I praise You for loving me the way you do. 

Scripture: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Knowing God Through Love

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Seeing God Through Love

No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

The Consummation of Love

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.

Obedience by Faith

If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.  1 John 4