Perfect Love

1 John 4:15-21 - If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.  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.  In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.  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.  We love because he first loved us. 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.  And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

John had experienced the perfect love of God.  He was transformed by it….made complete in it.  He allowed the love of God to live in him…and cast out all fear of the unknown.  John had allowed the love of God to reside so fully in his heart that all traces of hate ….for anyone on Earth…were erased.  Oh how I wish all of us could grasp this concept…love everyone….in spite of all our human flaws…in spite of the mistakes we make when we allow our human flesh to live in the world.  The answer to world peace is not in some document signed in the congress of the US…or the UN…or the bringing home of every soldier outside the US…world peace will only come when we begin to share the perfect love of God with those around us…when we allow the perfect peace of God to transform our hearts.

Love is an amazing thing…it can turn any age man or woman into mush with just a glance. Love can overlook a multitude of mistakes….work through issues with patience….and trust to the very end.  But John is telling us here that we can take this love we feel for those close to us…the ones we know and have relationships every day….and we can grow in love…that once we allow God’s love to really transform our heart….we will love unconditionally like Jesus.  John is telling us here that if we truly love God….we can no longer use the word ‘hate’….it should become a four letter curse word to anyone who claims to have the love of God in their heart.

I am trying to wrap my brain around this command …does God want me to love the one who murdered…who flew that plane into the twin towers…who stole stuff from Wal-Mart….the woman that caused my first marriage to fall apart? Yes….God wants me to be so in love with him that his love gives me the ability to love everyone…no matter what they have done to me or to my friends or to my country.  I must love the person…not what they have done. I must love the soul that is lost…not what  Satan causes them to do because he has such a grip on them that they do bad things…that hurt others.  Matthew 24:10-12 says,  “At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other,  and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.  Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.  And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Makes me think of that great prayer of Paul to the Ephesians in Chapter 3:14-19   -For this reason I kneel before the Father,  from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Oh father..help me grow in your love like Paul and John ….to be so in love with you that I love everyone…no matter what they have done to me or to those that I love. Forgive me for ever hating anyone…give me the power and the strength to search my heart for anyone I still harbor hate for…and ask you to release this bitter emotion from my heart…so that you can fill this space with more of your love.   Amen.