Free to Love

God has freed us from sin, including fear, but what has He freed us to do? Our number one calling in this life is to love others. How do we go about doing that?

Show Notes:

What has God called us to do, and how do we do it? How do we discern that illusive will of God for our lives? How do we walk every day listening for His voice and obeying Him? We have been set free from sin, which includes fear, but to what end?

We're going to start this section by dissecting 1 John 4:13-21, and we're going to take it in chunks, beginning with verses 17-18. It says, "In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgement, for we are as He is in this world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love."

Now before you think I forgot that we concluded the fear section last week, I know. This sounds like it's all about fear, and I am going to still be talking about fear in this new context the first couple weeks, but that's because they're tied together. Bear with me.

The first two words of verse 17 are, "In this." To figure out what John's talking about, we need to back up and read verses 13-16. Here, John tells us how we can know that we "remain in Him (Christ) and He in us," that is, how we know that we are saved. Here's the passage:

"This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us: He has given assurance to us from His Spirit. And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent His Son as the world's Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him."

So how do we know that we're saved? First, God gives us assurance by the presence of His Spirit. Second, we see, testify, and confess that Jesus is God's Son and that God sent Him as Savior. Third, we come to know and believe the love that God has for us, and we remain in that love. Onto this stage step the words, "In this" from verse 17.

In our remaining in Christ by these things, love is perfected in us. Time for another ancient language lesson. The word translated "perfect" is the Greek word "teleioō," (tell-eye-ah-oh) which means to complete, accomplish, consummate, or fulfill. It does not carry with it the connotation of removing flaws.

Now let's read verses 19-21. "We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen. And we have this command from Him: The one who loves God must also love his brother." So when we remain in Christ, the love of God is completed in us as we show it to others. We may not be showing it flawlessly, but the point of God's love—that it transforms us and is then displayed by us—is fulfilled.

Because we remain in Christ and show God's love, we can have confidence in the day of judgment (v. 17). This is because when we are sure that we are God's, we can look death and judgement straight on without fear, knowing that it is not our righteousness that will be on trial but Christ's in our place.

One day I was washing dishes in my kitchen. At the time, I was living with eight other girls, and most of the dishes in the sink were not mine. I was not happy about it, but I knew it needed to be done. I was hoping that someone else would notice and thank me or make some other comment about my selfless care for the rest of my housemates. But it wasn't selfless; I wanted that praise. Then I realized that if I chose to do the dishes without any hope of reward, I was showing my housemates true love, and that was proof of the Holy Spirit indwelling me and my growth in the faith. I was ecstatic. All thought of earthly reward or praise flew from my mind, and I started giggling to myself over the soapy water. Christ in me, the hope of glory. That is what doing the dishes proved, and it brought me so much joy.

"There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment (v. 18)." This is a basically a rephrase of the previous verse, but it's talking about more than just not being afraid of judgement. When we are loved by God, we do not need to be afraid at all. This is because His love being shown by us to other people convinces us that we are His and that there is no punishment left for us; it was all paid for by Christ on the cross. So if we are still afraid, it is either because we have not comprehended God's love for us (v. 16) or we have not shown it to others enough (v. 18b) to convince ourselves that we are God's.

There is another wonderful fear-killing side effect of showing God's love to other people. It proves to us that we are not alone. When we go through life on our own and with only our strength, life is terrifying. Anything could happen. We have to look out for ourselves and have no capacity to put others before our own interests. However, when we become believers, we gain a life-long companion in the Holy Spirit. He works in our lives and enables us to care for others in ways we were never able to before. When we see God's love perfected in us as we show it to others, it is a reminder that we are no longer working as an individual against the rest of the world. We are a child of God, indwelt with the Holy Spirit, and given divine purpose. There is nothing and no one in this life that can do us any ultimate harm (Luke 12:4) or can hinder our goals, so long as we are in line with God's will (Luke 16:23-24). That is a mighty weapon in our fight against fear.

A few summers ago is a perfect example of this. In camping, every year a new batch of summer staff comes to camp to serve for three months. This was my sixth summer on staff at a camp, and I have learned that it is a good gauge of how I am doing in conquering fear, because a lot of my biggest fears directly impact how I interact with people. Each year is a new slate with people who have never met me and have no preconceptions or ideas of who I am or should be. Their reactions to me help me know how I am doing.

That summer was a summer of firsts. It was the first summer people sought me out to spend time with me. It's the first summer people told me out of the blue that they enjoyed me and appreciated that I was there. The first time it happened, I thought it was just a fluke, a random comment made by an overly sentimental person. Then it happened again. And again.

I didn't know what was going on or how to handle it. I was forced to conclude that people liked me. The weirdest part about it was that I wasn't trying to be likeable, as I had in the past. I wasn't trying to manipulate people into saying and doing those things.

When I sat down to figure out why people suddenly liked me, I realized that it was because I was effectively living out the truths that I have been preaching to myself for the past three and a half years. I was living like a child of God, loved and cherished, planned for and accepted. When I live that truth, I am free to see the needs of others and serve them. I am free to be joyful in my Father and what He has done for me. I am free to let go and be silly. I am free to have meaningful and vulnerable conversations because I know that God will protect me and use my story for good in other people's lives. In short, I am free to love.

When I do, other people appreciate me. After all, who doesn't like being loved? As I look back at that summer, though, I can clearly see that I was only a vessel for God's love. My part of the process was praying for humility and opportunities to show love, then listening and obeying when they were given. I didn't conjure up the power to pour love from a tired, worn out body. I didn't sit down and try to figure out how each person would like to be loved or who needed it the most. God already knew those things; I just listened and obeyed.

If showing God's love to others is a mighty tool against fear and one of the great purposes of God's love to us, how do we do it? The first and most important step is understanding how much God loves you. Loving other people the way God does can only come from God and from knowing how great and immeasurable His love is for you. You have to get that first. If you don't, you will be pouring from an empty vessel, and it will not work.

Because it is only through God's power that we can show His love, the second step is maintaining a posture of humility. Any time we tell God, "I got this," and try to do something for Him without His grace, we are destined for failure.

One of the things that God has gifted me with is the ability to understand people and circumstances. I see connections everywhere, and I recognize where behaviors are coming from and what the causes of certain problems are. Along with this, God has given me a passion for growth in other people. Any time I get to teach, coach, mentor, or counsel another child of God, I feel fulfilled and excited.

Most of the time when people come to me asking for help, I pray and beg God for His wisdom, because I know that my ability to give any worthwhile advice comes from Him. Sometimes, however, I find myself becoming proud that someone would come to me and ask for help. I tell myself that it's because I am so knowledgeable and wise. I reason that if I have been able to help so many people in the past, I should be fine on this one without God's help. Then I crash and burn.

The same is true for any way you set out to love people. We must adopt a mindset that remembers that we are capable of no good deed apart from the work of God in our lives. Every morning, I try to pray something like this, "God, please help me to see through Your eyes today. Let me recognize opportunities to show Your love to those around me and give me the courage to make the most of those occasions. Give me the grace to think less about myself and more about everyone else." The days I forget to pray go noticeably worse than the days I do. I am prone to feeling depressed and purposeless when I forget, and I feel fulfilled and joyful when I remember, because I can see God using me and working through my life.

After we pray this prayer, we need to be ready for action. When we come to God with a humble heart and a willingness to do what He says, He will give us things to do. He will put someone in your path who needs to be shown His love through a kind word, a helping hand, a listening ear, or a free night of babysitting. Once you start listening to God and doing what He says, the assignments will get bigger. He might tell you to go to a foreign mission field. He may command you to adopt from a local orphanage.

You might be asking yourself, How can I do any of those things? The answer is, you can't. That's the point. Such things are only possible by the power of God's love. When we are afraid, it is because we do not trust God, since we do not understand and trust His power and love. Once we do begin to comprehend His love, it is perfected in us and shown by us to those around us, and we are reminded that it is not we who work but Christ in us. Strengthened by His grace, we step into the world and work His will fearlessly and with great joy, knowing that we are reliant totally on Him and are being daily transformed more and more into His likeness. That is what it means to live a fearless life.

Thanks for joining me on the podcast today. Next week we are going to talk about the dreams we have for our lives and how God uses these to guide us in the direction He wants us to go. I hope you'll join me then.