Living His Word

1 John 4:16-18 ERV: ....God is love. Everyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in them. If God’s love is made perfect in us, we can be without fear on the day when God judges the world. We will be without fear, because in this world we are like Jesus. Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love takes away fear. It is his punishment that makes a person fear. So his love is not made perfect in the one who has fear.

God is so identified with love that the Apostle John can say that God is love. God is love and “we live in God and God lives in us” (I John 4:13). It makes sense, then, that if God lives in us, the lives we lead will be lives of love. We are only reflecting the God of love who dwells within us. For John, love is so central to the Christian walk of life that it is his main criterion for determining if someone is a Christian: “Everyone who loves has become God’s child. And so everyone who loves knows God” (I John 4:7).

When the God of love dwells within us we should have no fear of God. This is because God’s “perfect love takes away fear.” People who fear God have not had their love made perfect in God. Fear of God is a sign that one’s relationship to God is not in proper order. For the non-Christian, the key to getting it into proper order is to accept Jesus Christ. If you do that, then John quotes Jesus as saying, “My Father will love them. My Father and I will come to them and live with them” (John 14:23). For those who have already accepted Christ, the key is to have faith that the God of love truly loves us, despite our weaknesses and shortcomings. The key is to take up the shield of faith and quench any fiery darts of fear Satan may throw at us (Ephesians 6:16).

Let us not fear the day when death approaches and the day when God judges the world, for the God of love loves us and dwells within us. Let us allow His perfect love take away all our fear.