God spoke to me. I am
not kidding. Lately, I have been thinking “2 Days.” I only live for two days.
This day and that day, “That Day” being the Judgement Seat of Christ. “For we must all appear
before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due
us for the things done while in
the body, whether good or bad.” 2 Cor. 5:10
So, I’ve been living
this entire week with that day in view, striving to live well each day for the
reward on that day. I keep telling people, “One of my greatest fears is that
when I stand before Christ I will be ashamed of how I have lived.”
Guess
what? John talks about just that. CHECK THIS OUT.
“We have come to know and have
believed the love which God has for us
[paramount]. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
By this [what you just read] love is perfected
with us, so that we may have confidence in
the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.” 1 John 4:16-17
Ok, hold on! How do we
have confidence for That Day, the Day of Judgment? Answer: We abide in love
and God abides in us. Sound like John 15?! Read it again. That is how love
is perfected with us and that is the
source of our confidence on That Day. We have lived in Him and He has lived in us. “As He is [God is love], so also are we in this world.”
Not only was this
passage hitting on perhaps my greatest fear, it was also hitting on one of my
greatest desires: to be perfected in His
love. I had no idea the two were directly connected. So, I kept reading.
“There is no fear in love; but perfect
love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who
fears is not perfected in love.” 1 John 4:18.
I thought, “Huh, that’s interesting…” and then I read
Charles Ryrie’s note on that verse (Ryrie Study Bible, 1995 update). Get a load of this.
“The
believer who has practiced love during his earthly life will be able to
approach the judgment seat of Christ without any shame. Such assurance is not
presumption, because as He is, so also are we in this world; i.e. we are like
Him in love. Love prompts us to seek
others; fear causes us to shrink
from others. Fear brings its own punishment to the one who has not perfected (completed) his love.”
That
quote hit me. I looked at the verse again. That is me. I am “the one who
fears.” My fear truly causes me to shrink from others. Is it not true that it
is during those times when I truly care about another and want to make sure
they are doing well that I have the least fear in talking to them?
My fear is a chief obstacle that
has been keeping me from the 2nd greatest commandment and the
thriving environment of authentic Christian community.
This fear is what has kept me from loving others. I don’t
reach out and love people because I’m afraid, afraid of being blown off, afraid
of being judged, afraid. The more I thought about it the more I realized it might
be the greatest obstacle keeping me from loving others.
Then I thought, HOW DO I OVERCOME THIS? Ask God? This is
what I want: to love others without fear, to abide in His perfect love! And
then I thought, “This is what God wants for me too.” I kept reading.
“This is the confidence which we
have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the
requests which we have asked from Him.” 1 John 5:14-15
I
have found my prayer.
Lord
God, I want your love to be perfected in me. I want to abide in You. You are
love. I want to see You abiding in me. Father, drive out my fear, that fear
which keeps me from You, that fear which keeps me from others. Drive it out.
And help me to abide in love, just as You abide in me. Fill me with You. I ask
this according to Your Will Father. Amen.
The answer to my greatest fear and the satisfaction of one
of my greatest desires is found in my unification with God, namely, being
perfected in His love. Through His Word, He has identified a chief obstacle
in this path: Fear. And by His strength, I will overcome.
“Who is the one who overcomes the
world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” John 5:5
“For I am convinced that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things
to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will
be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.” Romans 8:38-39 Amen.
