1 John 4:13 - 21
13 We know that we live in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son
to be the Saviour of the world.
15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence
on the day of judgement, because in this world we are like Him.
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because He first loved us.
20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar.
For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen,
cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
21 And He has given us this command:
Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
God has given to every believer a gift that is beyond comprehension! He has given us the Holy Spirit to live inside of us! 1 John has been full of passages that tell us this, and again, in the verse I am starting with, I am reminded that I live in Him, He lives in me, and His Spirit is given to me, designating me as a child of God!
"But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth."
chapter 2:20
"As for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you..."
chapter 2:27
"And this is how we know that He lives in us:
We know it by the Spirit He gave us."
chapter 3:24
"... the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world."
chapter 4:4
I try to comprehend it, but I just can't. Why would God look at His creation, seeing our stubborn hearts of rebellion, and decide to give us a part of Himself, so that we would have an easier time of it? Why would a perfect king decide to live inside of a wretched sinner? I won't stay here, at this point in my writing until I understand it, because, to tell you the truth, I don't think that I will ever understand it! But the very knowledge of that - that I won't be able to grasp it - is exactly what makes me so very grateful for it. It humbles me. I feel unworthy, and yet at the same time, so very thankful that all powerful God would give of Himself so fully to me, little old, undeserving me (and to everyone who believes).
Going on, John reminds his readers that they (I think he means himself, and the other disciples of Jesus) had seen and now testified that the Father sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world. I would have to say that I believe and testify, but they really did see Jesus with their own eyes. In Matthew 16:15, when the disciples were asked by Jesus,
"Who do you say I am?"
Simon Peter answered and said,
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Matthew 16:16
The disciples had walked with Jesus, and lived with Him through some absolutely mind-blowingly amazing times at this point. I believe that Peter spoke the words that some of the others were also thinking by this time. They were yet to be tested to an extreme in this belief, because Jesus was going to be murdered at the hands of evil men, and they would not see the miracle that they would hope for from the Son of God in that moment. John (the author of this book), along with his brother James, once suggested to Jesus that they could call fire down on a town because it did not welcome Jesus. They believed that Jesus deserved to be greatly honoured and highly esteemed. Nothing in His death went as the disciples originally thought it should go for the great Deliverer, the Messiah, the Christ. He didn't go about destroying death in the way that they would have thought. Thankfully, because John was receptive and teachable, as the events of the crucifixion and then the resurrection unfolded, and as he witnessed all of this firsthand, he came to a point where he understood. John 20:8 has John standing by Jesus' empty tomb. He follows Peter inside, and it is as he stands in the empty tomb, looking at the burial cloths, the one that had been wrapped around Jesus' head laying by itself, neatly folded, that
"He saw and believed"
We read this passage in John 20, and if we try, we can imagine it, but John was there! This was a real life event in his own personal life that he was recording. He had spent so much time with Jesus that he knew His ways, His behaviours, the little ways that He did things.
There's a little story about the way a cloth lays, from my own real life experience... I often misplace my kitchen towel when I'm busy preparing a meal. It may lay in any old corner on my cupboards while I'm at work, because I use it so often, and just toss it down as I bustle about. But when I'm done my work, I'll eventually hang it back up over my dishwasher or oven handle, signifying that my work for now is done. But there is one certain place, one certain way that it often lays when I come into the kitchen, and if I see it like that, I just KNOW who put the towel there! My one son often washes his hands at the kitchen sink, and on his way out, he will grab the towel to dry his hands and then toss it on the very edge of my island countertop. When I see it there, I always know without a doubt that it was him and only him. It is the farthest that it can be from my meal making workspace, so I know it wasn't me, but it's also the very last place it can be put (and not end up on the floor) as he's on his way out. No one else in our house does this! I know my life, and I know my son, and this is taken right out of my real life memory bank.
When writing the words in chapter 4, verse 14 in this book all those years later, John was remembering a very real time in his own life. He had seen God's Son in action. He knew the touch of the Saviour, the way He did things that only He would do. He knew he had seen God's Son alive after He was crucified. "He saw and BELIEVED"!
There were people at the time who saw what John saw and chose not to believe. There are people today who will read what I read and choose not to believe, but I believe it is because they didn't know Him like John knew Him! I too believe! Maybe I didn't see like John did, but I have heard it and I have read it and I believe! Because I believe it, I acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God, and because of that, I get to literally become a part of who God is! He lives in me, and I in Him. Colossians 3:3 says,
"...your life is now hidden with Christ in God."
I used to joke with my husband, when my love for him was overflowing but we had to separate for a day of work or whatever, that I wished I could just crawl inside of him and be a permanent part of him, getting to go with him wherever he went, and not having to be apart from him at all. That's what love does, I guess :). And although that obviously isn't possible with my husband, I'm reminded of that as I meditate on the words, "God in him, and he in God". What a picture of fellowship, intimacy, closeness, togetherness...
This love that causes God to give Himself to us so fully, that's our sure thing. We can depend on it, because God's Word is true, and if He said it, it will remain true, because God is unchanging and infinite in His love. We can depend on His love. We can rely on His love. But I do notice a condition. Now, there are verses all over in the Bible that clearly show that God loves EVERYONE. But being able to know that love and rely on it is for those who believe. We have to believe in Jesus as God's Son. We have to acknowledge Him. Those that don't are still loved, still invited to come to Him. He longs for every soul:
"God our Saviour...wants all men to be saved
and to come to a knowledge of the truth."
1 Timothy 2:4
"He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish,
but everyone to come to repentance."
2 Peter 3:9
Once a person comes to the point of coming to repentance, they are saved and will learn to know Truth. Knowing truth is knowing Jesus, for Jesus is "the Truth" (John 14:6). We repent of unbelief, and we acknowledge Jesus as being the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. He is the only Way that we can be saved! Without Him we are in need of being saved. Some people don't realize that they need saving. When the Spirit shows them their need, they are able to choose to believe! This is the condition - the believing. We must believe!
Once we believe, we are secure in God's love. No longer do we need saving; we are saved, by His love and His grace!
"God Is Love"
Three small words. God is Ight. God is Faithful. God is truth. We see a lot of who God is when we study Scripture. Now we see that God is love. To me, that's different than saying that God has a whole lot of love. He IS love! Without Him, there wouldn't be a capability to love. For anyone!
After this phrase we read that "whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him". This reminds me again of real love versus counterfeit love (see my previous blog titled "Love, Love, Love", as I talk about this there). There is a real love that is lived out in a life that has nothing to do with personal gain, even the small gain of making a person 'feel good' for having given something to another. It is a love of total, humble service for another's good, especially another's eternal good. This is that real love that a believer is given access to when his or her life is "hidden with Christ in God". Verse 17 hints at a mystery that I am still trying to understand. "In this way, love is made complete among us". I've been studying Latin recently, and although I don't have a huge grasp on it, I've learned that the meaning of the word complete can be synonymous to the meaning of the word perfected, or finished. So...wanting to understand this verse more fully, I pulled out the humongous concordance my husband recently bought for his own study, and spent a bit of time making sure I knew how to use it. Then, as I looked up the words 'made complete' in this verse, I was rewarded with the Greek to English translation literally meaning "to perfect, complete, finish; to reach a goal, be fulfilled, completed, made perfect". The same Greek word appears again in verse 18, which in English reads "made perfect".
This is what God does among the body of believers as they give themselves over to Him! He allows us to be a channel of His love, and with His Spirit giving us life, we are able to love with the kind of love that He is. This is profound! Right now, even in this life, we are already being sanctified to become like Him! This wonderful work that is going on is what gives us confidence on that day of judgement when we will stand before Him. We will be reminded that God's life in us, and the way we lived our life in Him, was making us complete. His life was perfecting us (slowly, maybe). It was helping us to reach the goal, which is being like Him! When we stand before Him that day, we will be able to see the fruit of love, and that will be the proof that we truly are His children.
This perfect love, you see, overtakes all of our 'natural man' tendencies. Don't we often tend to fear? Don't we often tend to wonder if we're doing enough, if we're really, for sure-ly saved? There is this natural fear in me of standing before perfect God on Judgement Day, and as I gaze on His perfection, suddenly realizing that I didn't quite 'make it'. That's my natural tendency - to be just a little bit (or a whole lot!!) scared of being punished for my wrongs, which will all be so clear in contrast to His sinlessness. Verse 18 says it: "...because fear has to do with punishment". Why are we scared? Because we actually know now that our wrongs, our sins, need to be punished. Deep down, I wonder, do we all actually know this? I'm convinced that if we say now that we don't, we will be proven wrong when we stand before God on Judgement Day. That day, we will see clearly, even if we refuse to see it now. But the miracle of it all is that, remembering the condition, which is that we have to believe, we can be spared that fear of punishment! If there is still fear, it just shows me that I haven't yet been made perfect in love. I'm still on the journey. When I arrive - when I am made complete - I will realize that God's perfect love makes it possible for me to live without fear. Fear will be driven out by this perfect love.
"For God so LOVED the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him will not perish
but have everlasting life."
John 3:16 (NKJV)
Jesus is the answer to our heart's unrest. Our fears, our anxieties, whatever it is that steals our peace - all of that can be erased, "driven out!", when Jesus comes in! If there is a reader out there that has not believed, Oh Lord, that that reader would believe today!
"Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts."
Hebrews 4:7b
My heart is deeply aching at this moment, wondering if maybe there is someone who needs to hear this! My prayer is that if that person will ever come across this little, old blog and read these words, that they will lay aside the only hindrance that keeps them from experiencing God's rest - unbelief - and that they will surrender their hearts to a God who loves them perfectly!
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I want to end with a quick focus on the last few verses of 1 John chapter 4...
"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Romans 5:8
Our love for God can only be a response to His love already freely given. We are able to love only because He has already loved us. He loved us first. I used to think that this meant that we loved Him because of His love for us, which is true, but today I felt that this verse was maybe more specifically referring to our treatment of the people around us. Why do we love them? Because He loved us. He planted His love in us, remember?, making love complete among us. I am convicted to look around at the people in my life. These are people I can see, and these are the people I get to practice with. I am told that if I do not love these brothers (which I consider to be the people that make up the body of Christ - other believers), whom I can see, then I cannot love God, whom I have not seen.
We cannot profess to love God if we hold on to a deep bitterness or resentment (hatred) towards someone else. This is, and has been, such a convicting thought! It has literally changed the course of my life in the past, and probably will a hundred times more in the future as well. I confess that I have held hatred in my heart for another. I may not have wanted to call it hatred, for that is such a strong word, but that's what it's been, if I'm honest. But the cold, hard truth is just laid bare before me in this passage. If I hold on to those thoughts and feelings, meanwhile professing to love God, I am a liar! Liars who refuse to repent do not inherit the kingdom of Heaven (there are multiple references in Scripture that show this).
We've been given a command: "Whoever loves God must also love his brother". There's no way around that command that I see, except to surrender it to Christ. He will help us in our struggle. He will trade in the weeds of unrighteousness in our hearts for the fruit of the Spirit - love. He has done this in me many times. Each time it happens, it's as though a heavy weight has been lifted from my soul. It's a miracle - the miracle of the new life that Christ lives in us when we allow Him access. It reminds me of the verse in 1 John 5:3 that says:
"And His commands are not burdensome"
The threads of obedience to God, of loving those around us if we profess to know and love God, are repeated themes in 1 John. That's why this is such a practical (and sometimes painful) book. Love for our brothers is mentioned in chapter 2:9-11, again in chapter 3:10-15, and now again at the end of chapter 4! Obedience is a constant theme, and it is the mark of true faith. It calls for regular confession (ch. 1:9), and makes me see my constant need for Jesus' cleansing blood. It makes me so thankful to know that when I stumble and fall into sin, I can rest in the "atoning sacrifice" of "Jesus Christ, the Righteous One" (ch. 2:1,2).
In wrapping this up, I want to end with a warning. I have both seen and experienced what hatred can do to a person. Like I mentioned before, I have been guilty of this. I have also witnessed it as an observer, looking at it from the outside. I have seen the way it robs a person of joy. It robs people of all the fruits of the Spirit actually, which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Each one of these wonderful qualities eventually has to flee in the path of hatred. Hatred is a cruel master, and it ends up enslaving you. In the end, no one may suffer the ill effects of hatred as much as does the hater.
My prayer is that those of us who are saying "I love God" will show our depth of love for Him by loving the people He has put in our lives. Some people will be harder to love, but I'm starting to see that I think those are the ones who often need our love so much more (there's this really interesting thing I've found too, and it's that the people that have sometimes been harder to love initially are the ones you end up loving so fiercely with really a very deep and genuine love - right to the very core! I've been rewarded this way from time to time, and am deeply grateful for people in my life where this great and wonderful thing has taken place! How these people have blessed me!). I can say from personal experience that the reward God gives us as we learn to love others is great and oh so freeing! It opens up the gateway for all those fruits of the Spirit to come flowing back into our life. It is a sweet way to live! May God bless all of us in our journey to becoming perfected in love; in becoming more like Him!
I love your example story of the towel at the end of the island. A very good illustration of how we can know someone. Dear, sweet Carson.
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