1John 4:17 - The Heavenly Seed

"In this has been perfected the love with us, in order that boldness we may be having in the day of judgment, that just as that One is, also we ourselves are in this world."

-Like Him.  He made us in His image, right?  And He, this God Who is love, wants us to be more like Him.  That also happens to be the gold standard, the prerequisite for gaining entrance into heaven.  So John is painting this picture of a wondrous dance of faith, of God living and abiding in us, transforming us, His love abiding in us and us abiding in His love, His love flowing out from us to and throughout our assembly.  And when we have this, he says, this abiding love in our hearts and lives, he says love has been perfected with us.  Completed action in the past, with continuing results in the present.  We may not be perfect yet, and we won’t be this side of heaven, but the heavenly seed has taken root and begun to sprout, budding out with life and love all over the place.  This germination has already taken place at some point in this life.  And if that hasn’t happened by the end of this life, then it’s too late.

-Because we want to have boldness, confidence in the day of judgment.  John doesn’t mention this anywhere else in this letter.  A day is indeed coming, a great and fateful day, when all who have ever lived will stand (or rather kneel) before the great throne of heaven, the dead will be raised and the books will be opened and all will be called to account for how they have lived.  A fateful day of reckoning.  And as we stand and kneel before the King of heaven, we will be called to account for whether or not we have received Him as such, and for whether or not we have taken our stand in these twin truths, that Jesus is the Son of God, and that God is love.  Our hearts and minds and lives will need to have taken up residence in these truths, residing and abiding in them if we would stand confindently before God’s throne on that day.  It may be relatively easy to not think about such a day in the here and now, that day semeingly so far off in the distant future.  We can kick the can down the road and tell ourselves that we’ll get around to doing business with God at a more convenient time, just not now.  But what are we waiting for?  Today matters.  Today counts for eternity.  And let us make no mistake, there will be two postures on that day when we come face to face with the God with Whom we have to do.  Some will have this boldness, great confidence that they are fully forgiven, faultless before the throne.  The heavenly seed of God’s love was deposited into their life in this life.  And others, far too many, will not.  They will avert their eyes, look down in discomfort, filled with shame and guilt as they become aware of the full weight and gravity of the situation, of their transgressions and how far short they actually do fall from the manifold perfections of this glorious God.  For in that day, we will all see Him as He truly is - except that for far too many they will only just then be realizing the truth of the matter.  But today matters.  It counts for eternity.  Eternity can begin today.  Today is the day when I or you or anyone can come home to Him in our hearts, receive His offer of love, have this seed of love planted in our hearts and begin this journey of faith, of walking with Him and of becoming more like Him, the God Who is love.

1John 4:16 - INvaded - Is It IN You?

"And we ourselves have known and have trusted the love which God is having in us.  God love is, and the [one] abiding in the love in God is abiding and God in him is abiding."

-God is love.  And if He is in us, if He is living and abiding in us, then His love is IN us.  Which means it should naturally come oozing out of us, out of every spiritual pore and fiber of our being.  It is not simply that He loves us - which is everlastingly and transformationally true on so many levels.  It is not merely this love which comes to us as some outside benevolence.  No, this Love comes to us and INto our space, INvades our entire person.  All up in our kitchen and the whole entire house.  It comes into our heart and mind and soul and settles right down - not for a long winter’s nap, but for an extreme home makeover.  God’s love - the God Who IS love, all love, all the time - takes over.  His love overtakes us and overwhelms us (or should) in such a way that we will never be the same.  It has us in its grip.  It compels us to be and live differently (cf 2Corinthians 5.14-15)!  We come to not only know in the deepest depth of our soul that God, our almighty Creator, our heavenly Father truly loves us, but we increasingly become ONE WHO LOVES.  (More) Like Him.  A love machine, if you will.  Not a huggin’ kissin’ fiend, but rather one in whom and from whom the unconditional everlasting love of God courses and flows, flowing out like a river of life-giving soul-quenching water in the desert.  

-Isn’t that what our souls are truly thirsting after, love?  Our hearts are love-sick, are they not?  Desperate for love.  We would do anything for love - or just about.  Jefferson Airplane captured it perfectly - “Don't you want somebody to love, Don't you need somebody to love, Wouldn't you love somebody to love, You better find somebody to love.”  It was a counterculture message at the time, that time of free love when people were jumping in and out of relationships like they were so much kleenex.  Good for a single use or two, and then on to the next.  On to the next.  But our heart-of-hearts is designed for more than a one-night-stand (or two), is it not?  We are wired for that true love which will never leave or forsake us, are we not (Hebrews 13.9)?  We each long for that love which bears all things and believes all things and endures all things, love which never fails, do we not (1Corinthians 13.7-8)?  I would suggest that any who say otherwise are actually running from love, running from some kind of pain in their past, or running from what love might cost them - but sadly they are running from the one thing which will truly thrill and satisfy their soul.  Yes, love is costly.  It cost God His Son.  It is hard work.  But naught will suffice for the want of it.  Love IN us - this is life, THE life, the life God has for us, offers us in His Son.  Not love somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, or somewhere in the stratosphere.  We’re talking real love, right here, in me, flowing out to you and back again.  And if we ever get this thing going, it’ll be beautiful, it will be a sight to behold, breathtakingly good and glorious.  Which is precisely the point...  God is love, and He LOVES US!  Do I really know this?  Is it in me?  Is He in me?

1John 4:15 - Whoever...

”Whoever should be confessing that Jesus is the Son of God, God in him is abiding and he in God.”

-Whoever.  Whoever.  In other words, the doors are wide open, to any and to all who would come in.  In fact, Scripture uses this word over and over.  Whoever will believe.  Whoever will call on the Name of the Lord (cf Joel 2.32, Romans 10.13) - and this is not strictly a New Testament concept!  But so it doesn’t matter who you are, or what you’ve done.  It doesn’t depend on the size of your bank account or on the color of your skin or your family or country of origin, or which language you speak (God speaks them all!).  Whoever.  Entrance is granted to anyone who is willing to meet the condition, which in this case is simply to confess that Jesus is the Son of God.

-Confess means to agree with, to say the same thing as what someone else is saying.  Here that someone is God Himself, Who has clearly stated that Jesus is His beloved Son, in Whom He is well pleased, and as such He is to be obeyed as well as revered.  Jesus then is the gate.  All who would gain entrance to those streets of gold must enter through Him.  What do you say about Jesus?  “Who do you say that I am?”, He asks (Matthew 16.15).  That’s the million dollar question, the question of the ages.  This is what separates the wheat from the chaff.  It has launched a thousand ships (of missionaries) and has set brother against brother.  It matters not what the media or the masses say about Jesus - what about you?  Who do you say that Jesus is?

-For the one who is agreeing with God about what He says about His Son - anyone, whoever they are - John says that God is abiding in them, and they in God.  If you want to know if God is really in a person’s life, just ask them who Jesus is.  If you want to know where you yourself stand, put the same question to yourself.  It’s that simple, really - cut and dry.  You can know for certain that God is living and remaining in you, when you are confessing that Jesus is His Son.  Whoever believes in Him will not perish, but rather will be saved unto eternal life, to live forever with God in heaven.  This is a football.

1John 4:14 - Save The Humans

”And we ourselves have seen and are witnessing that the Father has sent the Son [as] Savior of the world.”

-Some say, save the whales.  Or save the bees.  Or save the children.  Or even save the planet.  Some are thinking about quality of life, taking better care of something, saving it from misuse.  Others are on to more of this idea of an extinction level of catastrophe.  So many causes.  So many things to which, for which one could give their LIFE.  But how ‘bout this one?  Save the world.  Not the physical world, per se, but its inhabitants, the 7-plus billion of them.  That’s what Jesus talked about (John 3.17, 12.47), saving humanity one soul at a time (Luke 19.10, 9.56, 8.12; Mark 8.35).  Save the humans.  That’s what He gave His life for.  This is that one ultimate cause which compelled Him to step down out of heaven’s glory, take on fragile human flesh, and enter in to the brokenness of humanity.  He came to save the world, to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19.10).  Me.  Us.  The humans.  He is our Savior.  Curiously, He never once called Himself Savior.  No matter.  There is salvation in no other Name (Acts 4.12).  And curiously, this is the only time John mentions this concept in the entire letter.

-And the stakes could be no higher.  The fact of there being such a thing as salvation, of there being a need to be saved implies some kind of danger.  But here we’re not just talking about missing out on a better quality of life, or even of failing to add a few extra years here and there.  The real danger here is that one would lose their very soul.  So great a peril - so many don’t even know or care to acknowledge the fact that they even have a soul to begin with, this part of them which was made to live on forever after their physical body ceases to function.  Materialism, existentialism - all that appears “real”, what you can see and feel and touch - this all that matters to them.  But are we not so much more than an animated collection of chemicals?  Do we not have the capacity for love and for dreams and all kinds of good and evil, the thoughts and intentions of the heart?  There are myriads of realities which we can neither feel nor see.  For his part, John did see the real Son of God, this One Who revealed the unseen God, Who brought to light the truth that there is a God, that He so loves me and so desires a relationship with me, and He sent His Son to save me from an eternity of being separated from Him.  Sin - my sin, our sin - had made this separation between us and God, and that separation becomes permanent if something isn’t done to rectify the situation.  Forever separated from God, from the One Source of love and light - that is the real danger.  There are no pleasant descriptions of this anywhere in Scripture.  There is no worse fate than this, and it was this danger which compelled God’s Son to climb down out of heaven and up onto that cross.  He is Savior, the One and Only.  Thanks be to God...

1John 4:13 - On Repetition and Redundancy and Repetition. And Pudding.

"In this we are knowing that in Him we are abiding and He in us, that out of His Spirit He has given to us."

-Some commentators skip right over this verse altogether.  It’s only been 13 verses, and already John is reminding us of the truth which he just shared in 1Jn 3.24.  The wording is almost identical.  Here it is slightly modified, however, in that he now uses the perfect tense.  Here it is not, He GAVE us His Spirit.  Here John says, He HAS GIVEN us His Spirit.  The difference is subtle, but significant.  It means not only did God give us His Spirit, sometime in the past, but that there are - or should be - continuing results in the present.  It wasn’t simply this sealing, this divine down payment on eternity.  No, it is this power, this gifting and enabling to be able to love one another and serve and build up one another here in the present, every day, week in and week out, to completely override our own weakness and indifference.  And the difference God’s Spirit makes should be by no means subtle.  This is dry bones come to life.  This is Lazarus raised from the dead and freed from those ratty old grave clothes.  This is the new creation!  Christ lives in me!  The Holy Spirit, this divine Helper, is sent to help us do these greater works, the first and foremost of which is this new-old command to love one another.  And again, this is the proof of the pudding.  This proves to the world - and to us - that God is truly in us, that He lives in us and is abiding in us, that we really do have a personal relationship with Him.

-Some people hate redundancy.  And for good reason.  So do I.  You hate to pay for the same ground twice.  Redundant = unnecessary (or so it would seem).  And this feels redundant.  Great truth, for sure, but it still feels unnecessary for John to repeat himself, especially so soon after he just said this.  It feels superfluous.  BUT... John clearly does not feel it is unnecessary to repeat himself here.  He feels he must in fact do so.  It is the power of repetition.  Repeating something can become annoying at times.  The overplayed song or commercial.  My eldest child, whom I love dearly, is rather fond of finding an otherwise innocuous sound and repeating it incessantly until it becomes truly annoying.  I have no idea where he gets this of course...  :)  But repetition does two things: it signifies a point of emphasis, and it facilitates retention.  No doubt this is in John’s mind (and God’s), as he wants these believers to be able to know for sure that God has accepted them and saved them.  He wants to emphasize this truth, and drive it home into their (and our) thick heads.  So he is repeating himself, variations on a theme.  Look for this holy divine Presence, His power in your life.  Look for these glimpses of the Lord of heaven come down to earth and loving His children - through you.  Look for these evidences of sharing and giving and lives-downlaying in your assembly.  They should be there, right out there in plain sight for all to see.  This is how we know...

1John 4:12 - God's avatars?

"God no one ever has seen.  If one another we may be loving, God in us is abiding and His love in us is having been perfected."

-No, no one has seen God face-to-face, ever (and in fact, no mere mortal in their fallen state can see Him and live - Exodus 33.20).  The magnificent exception of course is Jesus (John 6.46).  Plus if you see/saw Jesus in the flesh you have basically seen the Father.  He said so Himself (John 14.9).  Moses famously did get a glimpse of the divine backside (Exodus 33.21-23), and he was privileged to have unparalleled access to the Lord, direct “face-to-face” conversations with some form of God (Numbers 12.8, Exodus 34.10, Deuteronomy 34.10).  But clearly this had to have been more face-to-back, or face-to-form.  But even ol’ Mo didn’t get a full frontal view of the Lord.  And for the rest of us, before or after Moses - no one.  Not one of us.

-But do you see what John is saying here?  There is this awesome avatar arrangement which could provide the souls around us who were designed for glory the chance to glimpse the embodiment of the glorious God.  And this unprecedented opportunity to manifest the divine essence falls to the people of God, in whom His Spirit dwells.  We can give those around us a glimpse of His perfect love made perfect in us.  If and when we as His beloved children are able to come together and be loving one another, it gives the world the chance to see God, to catch a glimpse of the divine, of what He is like.  Because, again, He is love.  We are not more like Him than when we are loving one another.  This is the way we as God’s people realize the perfection and completion of His love.  This is the way the world knows that God is among us, that He lives among us and in us.  And this is what the world needs now, what it needs from the Church.  Love sweet love, God’s agape love, to manifest itself from every pore and fiber of our being in our relationships with one another.  The New Testament church crushed this out of the park.  It was said of these early believers, “Behold, how they love one another.” They spent time together and ate their meals together and shared their stuff with one another and served together.  They had so much fun and joy with one another, it was almost too much.  The haters said they were drunk.  They did their darnedest to try and break up the party.  But many of those on the outside who got this glimpse of God in their midst by how the first Christians loved one another wanted in.  They wanted some of that.

-How about the ones today, standing on the outside looking askance at Christ, waxing cynical and disillusioned as they observe church-split after church-split on top of corruption and depravity?  Christians hating one another and leaving one another and criticizing one another and divorcing one another and living in unforgiveness towards one another?  Not only do those outside not see sacrificial unconditional love, they get a heaping helping of entirely the opposite.  Don’t you think they would want some of that perfect-God-love also, if only they ever got a glimpse?  Shall we not give it to them, let ‘em have it...?  Well, we need to start by giving it to one another.  Giving love to one another.  Giving to one another, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.  We need to bring our A game.  With all our doing, we need to do this.  By God’s grace and power, we can.  We must.  We will.

1John 4:11 - The Holy Ghost Boot Scoot Boogie

"Beloved, if thus God loved us, we ourselves also are obligated to be loving one another."

-Beloved.  Yes, we are beloved - by John, to be sure, as he has said repeatedly, but more importantly by our heavenly Father.  He loved us thus, by sending His Son to be the all-sufficient sacrifice and pay the just penalty for our sins.  Thus did God love us.

-And thus we have an obligation.  A debt which we owe, and which we must pay.  We HAD a debt, a different one, a much bigger one than this.  Huge.  Unimaginably huge.  Unpayable.  And God stepped up, Jesus stepped down, and paid it.  Our Creditor paid our bill, basically.  He picked up the check.  So now we owe Him in a different way, but we still owe Him big time.  This happens to be the same debt we looked at in 1John 3.16.  This debt we pay in installments.  Now we pay Him back every day by paying it forward to others.  This debt we pay back not because we are guilty, but rather because now we are no longer guilty.  And so we do unto others what God did for us.  We love them.  We love our neighbors, we love our enemies.  And especially we love the ones who have also received this love, who are following Jesus next to us, running right beside us - we love them well.  Sacrificially.  Every day, we go out of our way.  And we love them to the end (John 13.1).  Just like Jesus.  We lay down outlives for them.  Whatever that looks like.  Cuz they are family.

-But no one-way transaction, this.  This is reciprocating love.  A shared imperative.  Yes, it is a plural command - all of you be doing this together.  Be loving one another, John says (but remember, Jesus said it first!).  This is community, ongoing and growing common unity.  Life lived together, time spent (or rather invested) together, life-on-life.  This is sharing, giving AND receiving, meeting one another’s needs - a little bit of messiness and a whole lotta joy (koinonia!).  Indeed, this tango takes two.  Or more.  But certainly more than one.  This is not just you out there on the floor shakin your thing all by your lonesome.  This is a group dance.  A conga line.  Or a line dance.  That’s right - we’re talking a Holy Ghost Boot Scoot Boogie.  This thing simply does not work with just one person.  There is no unrequited love here (which as we all know is the WORST kind of love).  No, you know what this is - it is synergy.  Solo love is a wonderful thing, no doubt, but when two or more begin to get some traction on actually loving one another, then watch out.  Step back and watch God get busy.  The resulting whole will be so much greater than the sum of their individual parts.  Be loving ONE ANOTHER, John says, all y’all.  Yes, brothers and sisters, MY brothers and sisters, all of us, WE are a WE and unto this we are co-obligated.  It’s a shared debt, and we pay it back together.

-There are more than 100 of these "one anothers" in the New Testament, and every last one of them is just a variation on a theme, on this one basic step, which is, be loving one another.  The greatest of these, to be sure.  This is where you live, right here.  This is home.  There is no start the fire, no q-tips, no make the pizza.  Don’t need no pizza, they got food there.  All I’m saying is that this is not rocket science.  This is not complicated.  All the best strategies and buildings and programs will fail to rise above the level at which we fulfill this one, most basic command.  Let’s make sure with all our doing that we are doing this...