God's Love is Perfect! God Is Love!

 

1 John 4:18-21The Message (MSG)

To Love, to Be Loved

^17-18 God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

¹⁹ We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.
^20-21 If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.

1 John 4:1-10 Holman (HCSB)

The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error

4 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

² This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has^[a] come in the flesh is from God. ³ But every spirit who does not confess Jesus^[b] is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist; you have heard that he is coming, and he is already in the world now.
⁴ You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ⁵ They are from the world. Therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.

Knowing God through Love

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ God’s love was revealed among us in this way:^[c] God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. ¹⁰ Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the^[d] propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:18 KJV 

God's love is perfect
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. 
 

  

Jesus you have everything under control! Thank you for your gift of grace...thank you for your peace that passes understanding...help us to overcome fear by having faith in you! Give my brothers and sisters your steadfast love and rest in you, knowing you are for us! Your perfect Love, cast out fear! No matter what comes Lord...we are in your hands! Fill us with your supernatural Love and Wisdom! Amen!