We love him, because he first loved us.

1Jn 4:19  We love him, because he first loved us.

He first loved us.

People don't always feel loved by God, in fact they'll blame Him for their troubles, their misfortunes, their heartaches, their pain. They'll cry, heart wrenching cries of emotional agony and if you ask them if they feel the love of God they are hard pressed to answer yes. And yet, God loved us FIRST.

In all things God has loved us first- allowing us to love Him, giving us the opportunity to LOVE Him. 

As our Creator we were fashioned from His love.  We were not created with indifference. We were not created as an afterthought. We were created out of love, meant to love God and each other.  He loved us first before all things. He loved us enough to allow flesh to enfold His Spirit and He tasted DEATH for us. He tasted separation from God-the FATHER after the two had been together since time everlasting- without beginning and without end.  Why did He endure the agony of that separation? Because He loved us. He didn't want us to endure the separation we'd created for ourselves by sinning, by breaking the bond between us that was forged at creation.  TO repair the break He gave HIMSELF for us and that is something we can hardly begin to comprehend- that is LOVE- the LOVE He first had for us. The love that enables us to LOVE HIM.

We love HIM because HE FIRST loved us.

Such love is something we don't deserve, can't deserve, but it's something we must have - our life, our eternal life is only possible through that love and NO other way.

People who believe there is a way to work themselves into heaven by being good enough are so totally lost, so off track it's tragic. There is NO way to work for salvation. Love is the only way to salvation.

We love Him because He FIRST loved us.

His first LOVING us makes our loving Him possible.  Except He first loves us we don't have a clue what love is, not a clue.

God is love.

Without God there is NO such thing as love. It's true.

We were created with the capacity to love, to return love to God, to give love to others, and to receive love from God and receive love from others.

We have the capacity- the ability to do so and yet so many shun God and HE is the love we can love with- the ONLY love we can truly love with.

All other love we try to manufacture outside of God and His love is an empty self-serving love.

We love Him because He first loved us.

Praise God He loved us first! Praise God that we were created out of His love for us, and redeemed out of His love for us!

All glory to God!

No fear in love

1Jn 4:18  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

Fear- dread-terror.

PERFECT LOVE casts our fear.

Remember this from yesterday--

1Jn 4:12 ...If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

ONLY if God is dwelling in us is HIS love PERFECTED in us, and that happens ONLY if we LOVE one another.  THAT perfected love is what will cast out fear, it will cast out torment. If we are filled with fear, with terror, with dread, then we are not loving others as we should, we are not allowing God to live in us. The more fear we have the less our God is in us.

Some people are naturally (or so it seems) more fearful than others. Some are more apprehensive, some are anxious and filled with anxiety, and fear is a way of life to them. Being somewhat such a person- finding myself having an anxiety attack at ten years old- long before our medical/psychological fields truly knew what they were- I was suddenly experiencing this strange, awful, physical reaction to nothing I could understand at the time, later, MUCH later, I would realize the catalyst was my father leaving us for a week to attend a work function in another state, something ten year old me had never had to deal with- dad was ALWAYS the one that was there even when mom went through a lot of medical stuff. Anyway, here I was thrust into this horror of fear caused by something totally alien to me and my life was altered from that point on.  There was a point in my life I hated to leave the house (praise God that was only a short/dark period of my life) that fear was so incredibly intense and even today I cannot honestly say I have no fear in my life- does this mean God is not dwelling in me, that I do not love others enough, that I don't have the perfect love of God in my life?  It's possible, but then again I HAVE to say this… at the point we allow ourselves to believe that we are perfected, aren't we yet again caught up in self-delusion, self-righteousness?  

Paul said this- and I've gone back to it time and again because I have to-

Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Oh wretched man that I am.  Those words came from Paul, one of God's apostles. Were there ever any closer to God than the apostles? And yet those words describing Himself as wretched, those words calling his body the body of death came from one close to God!

What is the message being given here?

I believe- and I could be wrong- but I believe that we are in a PERFECTION PROCESS, a GROWTH PROCESS, that we are living towards that perfection but it's NOT something that we pull on like a longed for warm coat, button up and never take off. This perfection is a living, breathing thing because this perfection is the LOVE of GOD dwelling in us as we love others!

Perfected love will automatically dispel fear and the greatest fear we COULD have is the fear of losing life eternal with our Savior! Yes?

This should be our GREATEST ever fear. All other things to fear are not to do with our eternal life. When we fear spiders, strangers, birds, germs, death itself, we are fearing things that do NOT affect our eternal life. The thing that affects our eternal life is whether or not we have accepted the love that our Savior has for us, and in accepting that love it LIVES within us as something ALIVE being perfected and the result--  is our LOVE for others -- which in reality is God's love for us alive, perfect. 

To NOT have the love of God in us should be our greatest fear!
To NOT have the forgiveness of our Savior, this should be our greatest fear!
To NOT have the righteousness of Christ standing in place of our filthiness, this should be our greatest fear!
To NOT KNOW GOD, to NOT BE KNOWN BY GOD this should be our greatest fear!

Perfect love- GOD- casts out any fear we have that we should not have eternal life.

We must have FAITH in God, believing in God fully, trusting in our God more than we could ever trust in ourselves.  We have a lot to fear if we are placing our faith in ourselves and not God. We should be filled with terror, dread, fear, horror  if we are looking INWARD for salvation and not outward to our God to be saved.

1Jn 4:18  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

We are perfected by GOD in us, and GOD casts out all our fear.

All by the grace of our God, all by HIS love!  Please perfect us!

When love towards God, and love towards others ceases- sin begins.

1Jn 4:12  No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

1Jn 4:13  Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.

1Jn 4:14  And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.

1Jn 4:15  Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.

1Jn 4:16  And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

1Jn 4:17  Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

IF

IF

ONLY  IF we LOVE ONE ANOTHER will GOD dwell IN US, and HIS LOVE will be perfected in us.

When we find ourselves not loving one another we can be assured that God's love is not being perfected in us.

Selflessness- something we are totally unfamiliar with, most of us any way. The world revolves around us- our needs, our wants, our desires, our  lack of appreciation, the list is endless. The selfishness that exists in us is horrific, is it any wonder that there will be FEW who actually find that narrow path and go down it? It calls for the sacrifice of us in a VERY real way.

Knowing God means LOVING OTHERS.

Loving others means God will dwell in us and HIS love will be perfected in us.

We know that we dwell in HIM and He in us- because he gives us of his SPIRIT.

And WE have seen

And DO testify that the FATHER sent the SON to be the SAVIOR of the WORLD.

We must CONFESS that JESUS is the SON of GOD- and God will dwell in US, and we will dwell in GOD.

We must believe the LOVE God has towards us.

GOD IS LOVE.

If we dwell in LOVE- we dwell in GOD- and GOD dwells in us.

We can have BOLDNESS in the day of judgment if we LOVE- because if we LOVE we are with God and God is with US.

LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.

Ultimately it is LOVE.

When love towards God, and love towards others ceases- sin begins.

Jas 1:14  But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

Jas 1:15  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

When we are drawn away by our own lusts and enticed-  when we are drawn away from loving God, from loving others-we are tempted.  When we begin to follow our OWN desires, our OWN lusts, we are NOT loving others or God.  Once we are convinced to please ourselves first and foremost we begin to sin. When we continue to seek self over God and others, and do not veer from that path it is the path that leads to death.

Self seeking is death. Loving others is life.

Please LORD take these selfish desires from us!

Help us to love OTHERS, to love YOU more and more!

Love truly is the answer, the real answer, the truth. LOVE is God.

LOVE.

Love- not some fairy tale of emotion that satan has made it out to be, but real love, the deep abiding love that gives up self fully through CHRIST.

All through CHRIST.

Live through HIM

1Jn 4:9  In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
1Jn 4:10  Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1Jn 4:11  Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

That we might LIVE THROUGH HIM.

Our Savior - sinless- undeserving of death- took on death the penalty for sin- all for us who deserve death- us who are filled with sin.  We are filled with UNLOVING acts time and time again.

Whether the unloving is towards God or towards our fellowman- we time and time again stop loving one or the other- or both.

Our God has NEVER stopped loving us and this is why He could die for us sinless.

Our God loves us who are completely UNDESERVING. There isn't a single thing we do that can make us deserving, it's totally UNDESERVED love we are given.

NO one has to deserve our love in order for us to give it to them-this is love- the love of God- the love GOD would have us give to one another.

No one need be good enough to get our love.
No one need be Godly enough to get our love.
No one need be nice enough to get our love.
No one need be decent, giving, kind, friendly, sweet, endearing, tolerant, in order to get our love.

It is TRULY the love of God when it is given without it being deserved.

How easy it is for us to give hate for hate, to revile when we are reviled, to despise when we are despised, to be mean when we are being abused. Our natural inclination is to strike out when we are struck.

God's love tells us to love all the more when we are hated, to forgive even more those that despise us, to accept the horrors of abuse heaped upon us without giving into the temptation to return the same hated behavior to those giving it to us.

How incredibly easy it is to be defensive, to stand up for ourselves and tell ourselves that it's good and right to not allow ourselves to be mistreated- verbally, physically, emotionally, mentally.

1Jn 4:11  Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

This is the love we are to give to each other, always. Every person no matter how ungodly seeming is NOT beyond our ability to love with GOD'S love. If we choose NOT to love another because of our perception of them (even if it is a correct assessment and admitted by them personally) then we are possibly being ungodly to one that God is in the process of converting.  Paul is an example. Would Peter, John, James or any of the Apostles have looked at Paul when he was in the throes of actively persecuting those who believed on Christ, and thought for a moment he would be a great instrument in God's hands? Would Stephen who died as Paul stood by holding the coats of those throwing their deadly stones at him, murdering him, have thought there is one God is molding and shaping for His work? Paul was a hater, a terrible, terrible hater of Christ followers. Paul wanted to hunt down these Christ followers and destroy them all.  Would we look at those who seem as far from Christ as you can get and believe they could be God's chosen? We tend to condemn, not love. Christ died for ALL, each person has the opportunity to choose to believe in Christ Jesus their Savior. When we do NOT love even the worst of the worst- we are condemning them as unworthy and yet Christ Jesus died for them too! It is the devil's influence filling even the most vile of people, and we need to pray for those we least want to pray for, those least deserving in our thoughts, in our beliefs.

As God loved us we MUST love each other!

I don't know about you, but I know I'm very, very undeserving of the sacrifice my Savior made for me.

We must love and to love we must know God, we must understand as far as we are able the sacrifice our Savior made for us- this is the love of God.

Please Lord, please, help us to LOVE.

Love is of God

1Jn 4:7  Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1Jn 4:8  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love

LOVE one another.
For LOVE is of GOD.
Everyone that LOVETH- is born of GOD and knows GOD.
He that LOVES not - does not know GOD.
GOD is LOVE.

Love - God.
God - Love.

LOVE-

Mat 5:43  Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt LOVE* thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
Mat 5:44  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Mat 5:45  That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Mat 5:46  For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
Mat 5:47  And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

G25 LOVE*
- Transliteration: Agapao
- Phonetic: ag-ap-ah'-o
- Definition:
1. of persons
a. to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly

To welcome- not to turn away, not to refuse.
To entertain- to engage pleasantly.
To be fond of- to feel kindness towards.
To love dearly- to care for exceedingly.

People don't love not really love, not anymore.

There is a guardedness, a barrier erected and that barrier is made up of SELF.

To love is to give of self- selflessly- without reservation- without making sure that one you are attempting to love is deserving of that love. If we pause to consider whether or not another is deserving of our love- that isn't love at all.

Mat 24:12  And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

1Jn 4:7  Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1Jn 4:8  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love


Our love cannot be self-centered, our love must be God's love- unconditional- loving when not loved- not just loving when we feel loved, or feel like loving.

Please LORD please, take our selfishness, our selfish hearts away from us and fill us with YOUR love, YOUR SPIRIT, YOU.

Help us to KNOW YOU GOD, so that we may love, truly love.

Spirit of truth and spirit of error

1Jn 4:4  Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
1Jn 4:5  They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.
1Jn 4:6  We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

Greater is HE that is in US than he that is in the world.

Always God will be greater than Satan. 

We live in a world that Satan rules. You look around and it doesn't take very long at all for a person to realize that our God of love has allowed man's choice to sin, man's choice to listen to Satan, to rule this world. Only our God's mercy has preserved us, us who will love the LORD with all our hearts, believing in Him over all.  We are preserved by God. Our eternal life is preserved by our Savior. Everything that happens to us does so for a reason. When we read the book of Job and realize the extent of the horrors He endured, we know that all we endure is likewise for reasons beyond our ability to comprehend.

God is greater in us, greater than Satan will ever be.

Hearing God, listening to His truths, this is something we MUST do.

There is a spirit of truth and a spirit of error.

Truth and error.

God and the world possessed by Satan.

There is so much falsehood in the world, so much. We have to cling to the truth. We have to cling to Christ. We have to keep our God alive in us through faith, and not be OF the world. Not seek to be OF the world, but OF GOD. Actively seeking God not encouraging the worldly ways above Him which is so easy to do!

We are of GOD.
We overcome the world because of God in us.
God is GREATER than all.

Jesus Christ is come in the Flesh

1Jn 4:1  Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
1Jn 4:2  Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
1Jn 4:3  And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.


We must confess that our Savior came in the flesh just like we come in the flesh with the ability to sin.

Our Savior was born of a woman who sinned. No where in the word of God are we told that Mary was sinless. She was blessed but so were others in the Bible.

Gen 17:19  And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.
Gen 17:20  And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.

Ishmael was blessed by God.

Gen 24:1  And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age: and the LORD had blessed Abraham in all things.

Abraham was blessed.

This is what was said to Mary-

Luk 1:28  And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

She was HIGHLY FAVORED.
The LORD was with HER.
She was BLESSED among women.

No where are we told she is sinless, no where at all. 

Abraham wasn't without sin and God blessed him.
Ishmael wasn't without sin and he was blessed.

You can be blessed and have sinned.

The reason our Savior was taking on OUR FLESH was to feel our infirmities.

Heb 4:15  For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

He could FEEL the same struggles of the flesh as we feel!  Yet HE did NOT sin!  He conquered where we fell. He won where we lost. He did what we could not do. He could HAVE SINNED, but He didn't! He had to PROVE that man in flesh could serve God and their fellowman in love, and He did. This is what He came to do. He FOUGHT the spiritual battle, and it was a fight! A real fight! To think otherwise is to belittle our Savior's achievement. To think otherwise would mean that He didn't have to do things that way, He could have just stayed in Heaven, not begotten as God's Son in human flesh- but God with God- and saved us that way by simply saying the words. It couldn't be that way, to do it that way would have stripped our freedom of choice from us. In making us with that freedom of choice the amazing gift made us in God's likeness. The ability to choose.  And our Savior came to earth, God taking on flesh, begotten of the Father as His Son- and He PROVED that the flesh could conquer death, could conquer sin, He did for us what we could NOT do, and HE DID IT FOR US! He proved it to us that it could be done and IN HIM we are now able to do it-through HIS achievement. When we are CONNECTED fully with HIM by faith, trusting in HIM and HIS righteousness, asking for and receiving forgiveness, repenting of our sinful selves, we are then living in the SPIRIT- connected fully.

If we do NOT confess that our Savior came in the flesh that could sin, then we are not God's, and SO incredibly many people do just that, they do NOT confess that our Savior truly came in flesh. They've changed the flesh He came in, they've altered and made it so that it would have been impossible for Him to sin. They've even claimed that His human mother was sinless that's how far some have taken the humanity of Jesus and changed it to suit their ideas and NOT God's.

The spirit of the antichrist - those who would put their own beliefs in place of God's, taking away the fact our Savior truly came in human flesh and all that means.

Please LORD, please help us NEVER to have the spirit of antichrist in  us! Please, save us from ourselves!

Bless us Lord, keep us Lord, forgive us Lord, save us Lord, help us Lord, heal us Lord!

All through YOU! All in YOUR LOVE!