March 20 - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

1 John 4:7-21

In this time of uncertainty, there is one thing that remains constant – God’s love.  Thank you, 1 John 4 for summing up my faith:

• God is love.
• God loves us.
• God sent his Son to atone for our sins.
• If we acknowledge Jesus is the Son of God, then God lives in us.
• We rely on the love God has for us.
• When God lives in us, we have no room for fear or hate, which allows us to…
• Love one another.

This is what it’s all about.

The past few days have been rough for everyone.  We are all trying to make extreme adjustments amid chaos.  I am so thankful I worship a God who calms my fears and reminds me daily that he will not abandon me!  As Pastor Steve says, I am a child of God living in the unshakable kingdom of God.  While I may feel shaken, I know that:

• God is love.
• God loves me.
• God sent his son to atone for my sins.
• Because I acknowledge Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in me.
• I rely on the love of God.
• God drives out my fear.
• I am called to love one another.

Father, help me love others as you love me.  The next few weeks will be challenging.  Humans sin, but you call us to love and be loved.  I am your child and because of that I want to be an example of your love in the world.  Amen

Perfect Love

1 John 4:13-19

I don’t doubt God’s love for me.  I grew up saying, “I am a child of God,” and I confidently repeat those words often.  My difficulty arises in verse 16, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.”  I know God loves me, but I don’t always rely on it.  When I’m struggling, I tend to look for strength within myself, in others or in things.  I forget where my strength lies.

Maybe that’s why anxiety and fear have played a much larger role in my life than I’d like to admit. When I read in verse 18, “The one who fears is not made perfect in love,” it makes me cringe.  I know I’m not perfect and fear has taken over my heart on too many occasions, but I would like to be made perfect in love. I want the peace that God can bring. So, how does that happen?

The Message translation states, “Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life is one not yet fully formed in love.”  Not YET fully formed – so there is hope.  It’s not too late!  God is working on me and doesn’t give up.  I believe he works on each of us every day.  Some days we get it and some days we don’t, but he loves us no matter what.  God is love and love doesn’t abandon.  One day we will be fully formed in love.

Jeremiah 29:13 talks about finding God when we seek him will all our heart. Father, I am your child.  Continue to transform me each day to know your love more and more.  Cast out my fears, so I may love you perfectly with my whole heart. Amen

Loving the unloved

by Thomas Denegre

Unloved is hell.  There is no worse experience than to be unloved.  Orphan babies left untouched in their cribs die within weeks from unloved. Children who are unloved by their parents develop wounds in their hearts that disable them.  Grievances are stored and cataloged bearing a fruit of rage, bitterness, and resentment. Children join criminal gangs just to get a little love. The unloved despise God and see him as the enemy. They see their condition based on a God who is indifferent. God is considered cruel. How are the unloved to be saved? 

This week’s reading gives us a clue to the answer, for it reads;

16 We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love he has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them. 17 By living in God, love has been brought to its full expression in us so that we may fearlessly face the day of judgment, because all that Jesus now is, so are we in this world. 1 John 4:16-17

For the past twenty years as a Christian leader in the Kairos prison ministry I have experienced a bridge that takes the unloved into God’s kingdom.  Here’s what I discovered.

There are two sides to every bridge.  For me to enter the side of the lost I learned a person doesn’t care what I know, until they know that I care.  If possible, it was important  to understand the person first before being understood.

I noticed a few trademarks of the lost.They live under a banner of pride and self-centeredness. They identify themselves with the wounds of their heart and the heavy load of grievances they carry. It's a false and self-destructive identification.  Being teachable was a problem. They carry deep feelings of anger, rebellion, fear, grief, apathy, guilt, and sometimes humiliation.  By being inwardly focused on their misery, they generally could not see the light touching them.  Sadly, they viewed God as being indifferent, vengeful, condemning, or at worse, despising. Life is viewed as survival; not joyful.

When reaching out to the lost, the biggest failure I made was trying to save them with my own love. I did not have the capacity, nor the ability nor the job description to do it.  Paul expressed this in Romans, “hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Rom. 5:5

 

Clearly it was God’s job to love and to save the lost while nourishing and empowering his saints to carry out the mission. By living in life union with Jesus and having his words living powerfully within me, it was easy to allow God's love to flow through me. By having an intimate relationship with Jesus, I was capable of extending that same relationship to the unloved. More than anything else the unloved want to be loved. When the unloved knew they were genuinely loved, then they refocus their view from themselves to the source of the love.

By relying on the Holy Spirit I’m able to see the lost person as God does. I channel the Holy Spirit by acknowledging the goodness, uniqueness, value, gifts, and love to that person.  I let them know that before the foundations of the earth were made, they were loved.  How precious is that?

To cross the bridge from darkness into light, the unloved person must trust God and believe that he is a God of love and abundant life.. By being affirmed that they are loved, they must take the courage to cross the line from darkness into the the truth. It requires them to open their hearts to God so he can heal their wounds and empty their grievances. 

As saints abiding in God, we have the intimate relationship and love to reach the unloved.  It is through this genuine love that draws the sinner to trust, believe, open their heart, and take the courage to cross the bridge to salvation.

Selfless Love

“Permission to speak candidly?” For years, Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples” felt like an obligation to me; the gospel was a heavy load I’d rather keep bundled on my back than to unpack and share. For one thing, telling others what I’d found in Jesus would make me stand out when what I really wanted was to fit in. And to be perfectly honest, though I had come to trust that Jesus had paid the price of my sins and granted me salvation in His name, there remained enough debilitating doubt to muzzle my message. How frustrating!

Seemingly “out of the blue one day,” I decided to begin to read Scripture daily and to journal whatever response it was stirring within me. Mulling things over at the pace of my pen slowed me down and delved me deeper into the riches of God’s truth. He showed up without fail, His Spirit speaking through His word to teach me new things and, in the process, to show me His intimate love. My soul flooded with hope, my spirit streamed in joy, and I began to open myself up completely to Him, the content of my heart pouring out in torrents of blue gel ink onto dry beds of yellow-lined paper. The more I realized God’s love for me, the more freely it burst inner dams of doubt, flowing now to others through witnessing words and compassionate care.

Love begins with God. “This is love,” taught the apostle John, “not that we loved him, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”¹ When we acknowledge that Jesus is God’s Son, “God lives in [us] and [we] in God,”² and so, “In this way, love is made complete among us.”³ “We love because he first loved us.”⁴

What then does God’s love in us look like? Action, it looks like action. “Freely you have received; freely give,”⁵ said Jesus to His disciples. “Forgive as the Lord forgives you,” wrote Paul to early believers. And as God’s love pours out in compassion, we too “comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”⁶

God never meant for us to share Him in our own power, for we are neither able nor inclined. Instead, “We know and rely on the love God has for us.”⁷ For His selfless love is uncontainable; it overflows our hearts in words of life and acts of care.

Father, you are love. Open my heart to your love; may your love for me overflow in my love for others. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Christ in me is love.

¹ 1 John 4:10
² 1 John 4:15
³ 1 John 4:12
⁴ 1 John 4:19
⁵ Matthew 10:8
⁶ 2 Corinthians 1:3-5
⁷ 1 John 4:16

Read John’s live-breathing lesson on love in 1 John 4:10-19.

Our Source of Love

It was only a couple years ago that I couldn't truthfully say, God loved me.  I don't know what made me so unlovable. I new what the bible said, yet the words had not penetrated my heart.

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. -1 John 4:16

God did not give up on me.  It was a painful journey but now I can say with all my heart that God loves me.  I understand that God is the SOURCE of love. It is so important for us as Christians to understand how deeply loved we are by God.  

The basis of our relationship with God is Love not fear. Think about it though.  Isn’t it so often fear that drives us away from Him. We fear that He will see how messed up we really are and He won’t accept us. We fear that if He does accept us there will be a point where he will say you’ve exceeded your sin quota and now my love stops.  You’ve reached my limit.

We fear that He really isn’t love, but that He is judgement and anger and punishment.

But if we understand that our relationship with God... the starting point, the ending point, and everything in between is based on love...that should draw us to him and entice us to want to know him more.

1 John 4:18 says, “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.”

So if we understand how much God loves us what should our response be?  We need to show that love to those around us.  There is a world out there that does not understand how loved they are by God.

Read the entire passage here 1 John 4: 16-21

1 John 4:7-21

God’s Love and Ours

“God is Love”

If only we could think in those terms, rather than picturing a human form when God enters our minds. I see this Love that is of God as something invisible that constantly floats among us all. It hovers, waiting to be absorbed into our beings. It is always present, but we have to intentionally seek it. This love does not invite itself into us, but is waiting for the invitation to seep into our hearts.

“If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.” (1 John 4:15)

“God is Love”

Acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God is more than just words, it is a way of life. Making that claim brings responsibility.  An obligation to live as Jesus advised before his crucifixion, and to follow the example of his life when he walked this earth. Jesus too was 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.” (1 John 4:19-21)

 “God is Love”

This gift of love we are offered makes everything alright if we make it who we are by living it each day. Deliberately internalizing this true love will offer peace beyond measure and comfort in the face of despair for God will ever be with you.

“Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” (1 John 4:16)

“God is Love”

Read/Listen to 1 John 4:7-21

1 John 4:1-6

GUARD AGAINST PEOPLE THO DISTORT GOD’S TEACHINGS IN THE BIBLE

The Bible is referred to as God’s Word for good reason, yet man, out of ignorance, being misguided, or perhaps for spite, distort and at times re-write the very words of our Lord. In 1 John 4 we are warned of this.

As the co-leader of a teen Bible Study group, I recall playing a game one evening called “Is it from the Bible?” We were all to write down three verses, sayings, or phrases. One was to be from the bible, and two not from the bible. As each selection was read, the group was to determine whether or not they were taken directly from the Bible.

Though there were many that caused thought and discussion, I recall two that resulted in a great deal of debate;

1^st: “God helps those who help themselves.”

2^nd: “God will never give you more than you can handle.”

Without being able to reference their Bible for the game it was amazing to see those teens think, attempt to reference similar scripture, and genuinely seek the correct answer because they honestly wanted the truth revealed.

Sometimes only portions of God's word are quoted, but the missing portion of the verse is what makes the biblical impact. These types of misleading phrases are seen as basically harmless, yet wrong is wrong and truth is truth. When the only exposure some have to God’s word are untruths, they can be very easily lead astray.

John warns us not to believe every spirit “but test the spirits we see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1)

What we believe and how we think will affect what we do and how we act. So let’s be very cautious about what we take in, what we share and how we share it. 

Speaking of the spirit of the antichrist, John says; “You, dear children are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4: 4)

Read/Listen to: 1 John 4:1-6

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