Deep Love

1 John 4:7-21

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they 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 them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 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 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

This passage can be summarised as one about God's love for us, our love for one another and how we know that we live in God. 

Look at verse 15-16. "If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God and so we know and rely on the love God has for us." Okay, if we we acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God, we come to know of the love God has for us. 

When does one acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God? From my own experience I can think of 2. 

First is during worship. As we worship and praise God, sometimes God willing, we have this transcendent moment where our heart agrees with the lyrics of praise and we find ourselves in this position of admiration. We find God truly glorious and we confess "Jesus is Lord, Jesus is the Son of God!" So one occasion for the acknowledgement of the divinity of Christ is in a moment of adoration where we are at a loss of words to praise and settle on confessing instead. 

The second is sadly, when I sin. When I sin and fear the wrath of God, when I sin and feel exceedingly unworthy before God and the blood of Christ comforts me. When I think of how His sacrifice is sufficient, when I think of how my life now belongs to Him I see Him once again as Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus' divinity becomes emphasized when I'm feeling helpless and when my sin paints me a bleak picture because I know that it takes nothing short of the Son of God to turn my life around.

In these I know the love of God that I have come to rely on. 

There is another sense in verse 17-18. "This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 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."

The perfect love of God drives out fear and so empowers us to live fearlessly like Jesus in this world. That means to face the suffering, the persecution, the unhappiness that will come to us as it has to Jesus, fearlessly. In other words, when we meet our challenges fearlessly, we come to know God's love for us. So, the trials that litter my life (and yours) are opportunities for us to meet bravely (rejecting fear which comes reflexively) so as to experience and know the love of God for us. 

Yes yes, but just a few days ago I wondered... God yes there is a brilliant design there that these "bad" things turn out to tell me of Your love for me... but seriously.. do You need to talk about Your love so much? I get the idea already!

Then almost immediately, I regretted it because I realised that.. it's probably true that I don't know God's love. God's love has moved some to write poems, has moved many to dance, has kept some awake at night, has caused some to meditate day and night, has brought peace in sleep... it's all written in the psalms, descriptions of how people have reacted to the knowledge of God's love for them. 

I'm nothing like that, it's obvious that I don't know God's love well enough. (Pats myself on the back, knowing God's love has driven some to blog extensively)

Ephesians 3:17-19

17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

The job of the saint is the attempt to comprehend the full measure of the love of God because it is through that comprehension that we will be filled with the fullness of God. Oh come dear Lord, walk me through the means by which you enlighten me about Your love. Teach me that I may come to know it deeply and fully. Help me to know it, that it may compel me and so I may live for You:

"For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

" (2 Corinthians 14-15)