The Love of God Perfected in Us
I remember coming to a place in my life that I was no longer satisfied in my relationship with God. Something yearned in me for more of Him. I was born-again, but could I know God more? Was there more to experience? I began reading the Bible with a hungry heart to know this Jesus more. I would soon learn that my hunger was to be filled with God by the Holy Spirit. Daily I sought God in prayer and in His Word. One night my husband, Robert, and I were bowed down in our home before the Lord with our Bibles opened. We asked to be filled with His Spirit (Lk. 11:13). God came down and flooded us with His Presence; we spoke in tongues; and He filled us with His love that was beyond any love that I had ever known. I trembled for three days, and His love compelled me for more of Him, His Word, and to take His gospel and this love to others. I had been filled with God; I had been filled with Love (I Jn. 4:8).
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16). God loved you, and God loved me so much that He gave His only Son, Jesus, to become our sin and to die the death of the cross. We read in John 10:17 Jesus Words, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.” The highest act of the Son’s love to the Father was the laying down of His life for the sheep at His commandment, so the Father’s love to Him as His incarnate Son reached its consummation, and finds its highest justification, in that sublimest and most affecting of all acts. Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13). Jesus laid down His life. We lay down our lives by laying down time in service to others and in prayer. Life is made up of time.
Jesus said, “But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence” (Jn. 14:31). Jesus’ love for God was fully expressed in His obedience to God’s command. Jesus tells us in verse 21, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them (obeys), he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” Do we really love God? Then, we will obey Him.
We that are born again, are born of Love. We have the Love nature. This Love must be perfected in us. “…If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us” (I Jn. 4:12). “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another…” (1 Jn 1:7). It is easy to say, “I love Jesus.” It may not always be so easy to obey God’s Word and His leading. It is not always easy to love the “unlovely.” …But God did. He loved us while we were yet in our sins. First John 2:5 says, “But whoso keepeth his word in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.” Let us be filled with Love in God’s Word, His Presence, and in action. Love never fails and Love covers a multitude of sin (I Cor. 13:8 & 1 Pet. 4:8).