By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us …’
1 John 3:16
We all understand the adage, "you can’t give what you don’t have.” At times in our lives, I'm sure we have all struggled to know and believe the love God has for us. Our experiences in life are meant to lead us to the knowledge of His love, and to the acknowledgment of the work He has done making us accepted in the beloved.
We know many things that we don’t believe. Believing is generally about accepting something as true or real. We can only learn and believe love by the actions of others.
John's conclusion of our verse today reads, ’and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers…’ This isn’t intended to be gender-specific, but rather the concept of loving those within the family of God. For God so loved the world….and we are commanded to love even as He has loved us. That goes beyond our natural family and environment.
When we hold to the world's culture, we are taught and encouraged to embrace the god of self. The love we are told to know and learn is a self-sacrificing love that involves time, money, and effort. This love we are learning is not self-seeking.
Greed is the essence of idolatry. Excess of self is always seen through greed, if we accept the definition of greed as an intense, selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food. It is in these natural appetites that we face the question of how laying down our lives affects us.
We commonly think that hate is the opposite of love, but in reality, it is fear. Hatred is something we wrap in an effort to protect ourselves. Hatred is secondary to the primary response of fear. It is only, I say again, it is only the love of God that has the ability to dispel fear and its torment.
The Apostle John went on to write in His first epistle, 1 John 4:16,
We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. 17: By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because a he is so also are we in this world. 18: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts our fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. He who fears has not been perfected* in love.
Perfected from Helps Word Study is teleios; to complete, i.e. (literally) accomplish, or (figuratively) consummate (in character) -- consecrate, finish, fulfil, make) perfect. Cognate: 5048 teleióō – to consummate, reaching the end-stage, i.e., working through the entire process (stages) to reach the final phase (conclusion). [This root (tel-) means "reaching the end (aim)." It is well-illustrated with the old pirate's telescope, unfolding (extending out) one stage at a time to function at full-strength (capacity effectiveness).]
It is the freedom from fear that eliminates our need to consider ourselves before obeying God.
Concluding our scripture today, John writes a strong measurement followed by instruction in 1 John 3:17.
If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
John went on to write in 1 John 4:19, ‘we shall know we are of the truth and our hearts are reassured before him,’ because we have the world's good and see the need and give into it with open heart and open hands, even as we are aware of what it will cost us.
This is a perfected love. In this perfection, especially in this season, let us endeavour to be someone's great experience of God's love.