Perfect Love, part 2: The Power to Grow

In my last post, I shared two things from 1 John 4:

Knowing you're loved is the remedy to fear.

Knowing you're loved is the ingredient to boldness.

When you know you're loved by God unconditionally, what is there to fear? John states that it leads to a boldness, a confidence on the day of judgment... a confidence that we belong to Jesus.

If we're honest, there's a lot of Christians in this world that don't know they're loved in this way. They really don't. Oftentimes, it's because they haven't been told. Christianity is presented to them as a "new law," a new list of rules and regulations to keep. 

Although Jesus is presented as Savior to "wipe the slate clean," it's now up to them to live obediently and please God with this obedience. I was listening to one of the most well-known Christian speakers and authors in America one time. You know what he said? "You don't want to give people too much grace, because you don't want them to start thinking they can do whatever they want."

So we skimp on grace. And we skimp on love. We don't dare let people think that they can live however they want, so we essentially present to them a "conditional Christianity" to follow. 

I know, because I've lived it. Taught it. Preached it. 

John, however, realizes where true motivation is found. Where true power is found. Where true sanctification is found.

Knowing you're loved is the power to grow.

We Christians like that word. "Sanctification." It means to become more holy, more set apart. What we fail to realize, however, is where sanctification comes from.

Make no mistake, John gives lots of imperatives. 

Here's some of the things he says that make me sweat:

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. - 1 John 4:8

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[c] he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. - 1 John 4:20-21

In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. - 1 John 3:10

 Those are challenging. Those are difficult. I guarantee you I could preach those verses in a way that scare you to death. I guarantee you I could cause you to doubt your salvation.

You know I could. You've heard sermons like that. The problem is that people don't have a clue what's going on here.

The reason John can make these statements is that he believes in the power of God's transforming love. He says these things because he is confident in the overwhelming, transformative power of a God who loves unconditionally. He makes these bold, crazy statements because he knows that when perfect love casts out fear, the sky is the limit.

I said last week that you can't have the cart before the horse. You have to know you're loved FIRST. And when you do, things begin to change...

You see, God's love is the key to change. The key to growth. The key to sanctification.

We teach and preach, "Obey God, and He will be pleased with you." That's the Law. If you have placed your faith in Christ, He fulfilled the Law for you. God is pleased with you through His Son. The perfect, unconditional love of God rests on you forever.

Here's the Gospel. Notice the difference. "God is pleased with you, so obey God."

The strange, miraculous thing about God's grace is that, when it probably should cause us to sin more, it actually motivates us to sin less. God's grace and love actually lead to MORE obedience, not less.

If you don't understand that, your life will never stop being an endless cycle of conditionality. These verses will never, ever stop scaring the spit out of you. Because you can't live up to them.

But when you begin to get it... when perfect love casts out your fear... when you know you're loved...

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. - 1 John 4:16

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. - John 15:5

Adam is a husband, father, preacher, and teacher

living in Mayfield, KY. You can follow him 

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