1 John 4:16-19. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us.
Romans 5:5. ….the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
God is the very nature and substance of love. This real and unique quality of ‘agape’ love contains within it no self-interest whatsoever. Self-interest is the antithesis of the love that is expressed by God. Everything that God is and does is that which perfect love demands.
In contrast, the constant demands of our ‘self’ are expressions of enmity towards God, for self-love is not, nor could it ever be, in harmony with God. It was self-love that caused Satan forever to become the adversary and opponent of God. It was self love that drove Eve and then her husband Adam to disobey God and for sin to afflict all mankind thereafter.
The one and only Son of God is referred to as ‘the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’. In the foreknowledge of the Triune God, the incarnation and death of Jesus was pre-ordained to be the full and sufficient expression of God’s love to perfectly answer the issue of man’s sin and to bring about mankind’s restoration, that all who believe unto salvation might become individually and collectively a visible expression of God’s perfect love.
While Jesus was on earth He was absolutely as one of us. He was fully conscious of self and of self’s desires, otherwise He could not have been ‘tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin’. Hebrews 4:15. By His deliberate choice He laid aside all that was His by right and became the embodiment of the Father’s love among us. Jesus allowed the Father’s love to flow freely through Him at all times that He might perfectly speak, act and be the will of His Father expressed on earth.
A few days after Peter had denied Jesus three times in the judgment hall Jesus met him by the Lake of Galilee. Three times He asked Peter, “Do you love me?” Each time in response to Peter’s affirmation of his love for Him Jesus assigned tasks for him to do. Out of the love of God poured out within Peter’s heart by the Holy Spirit all that Jesus commanded him to do was to be fully accomplished thereafter. How do we know this? At the beginning of Peter’s second letter we read his greeting, ‘Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ’. 2 Peter 1:1, Recovery Version. Peter had become Jesus’ willing slave by choice. His personal freedom to choose was surrendered that he might become Jesus’ love slave.
It is God’s intention that we who love Him ‘lose our self-life’ for Jesus’ sake, that we may become His disciple and become the embodiment of His love. As we allow God’s love to inhabit us to be our outward expression, then we shall know His will, we shall be empowered to do His will and His will shall be performed through us without effort or concern on our part.
Please feel free to share your thoughts below. When you have finished with this post you may return to the main Posts page. https://hisupwardcall.com/posts/