No fear in love
Day 691, Friday, July 3
1 John Chapter 4
It isn’t always easy to know what to believe. We look around us and we see a lot of competing claims as to what is true—even within the Christian community. It’s tempting to just pick the one that is closest to what we already want to believe.
John gives us a couple of significant guidelines in chapter 4 that provide better markers of what is true. He cautions not to believe every spirit, for there are many false prophets, but draws a sharp dividing line in verses 2 and 3. “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.”
It’s surprising how many people believe that Christianity can be separated from the incarnation: the truth that God himself became flesh and dwelt among us. But without accepting that core affirmation, Christianity collapses into a collection of nice sayings.
The next guideline we get in this chapter comes in verses 16-18. We’re all familiar with the Great Commandment in Matthew 22: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
John condenses that even further into just three words: “God is love.”
He follows up with, “Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
Methodism has always emphasized the goal and the possibility of being made perfect in love. This doesn’t mean we expect to be made perfect in knowledge or in actions, but that we expect to be made to be purely motivated by God’s love for us, and by our love for God and people.
John gives us a clear measure of what love without fear looks like: “In this world we are like Jesus.” That means following where God leads as willingly as Jesus did, speaking God’s truth, and doing what God leads us to do.
Friday meditation
Ecclesiastes 3:18-22
I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”
So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?
Prayer focus
God, remove our fear of judgment, our fear of scorn, our fear of failure and our fear of isolation so that we may be like Jesus.
-Rev. Mark Fleming