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Lorrikeet
First Epistle of John 4: 7-21 (NIV)
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: in this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
You will have found ample repetition in this passage from John’s first epistle. One verse, however, seems not to be repeated, verse 17: “This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: in this world we are like Jesus.”
I consider it opaqe until I rearrange it. “This is how love is made complete among us.” How? “For while ever we are in this world we increasingly resemble Jesus (love is being made complete).” “As a consequence of becoming more like him, we will have confidence on the day of judgement.”
That is, complete love is to be found only in Jesus. Anything less than the love Jesus has for the Father and the Spirit, anything less than the love that Jesus has for all who follow him in truth is bound to be flawed. He alone is the perfect one, the sinless one. We can aspire to be like him but, until the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in us is complete, inevitably our love will be deficient.
Even so, we should be able to sense the work of the Spirit in our lives. As we become more and more conscious of the Spirit’s indwelling, including the gentle (or not so gentle) guiding of our consciences, we gain the assurance that “he has given us of his Spirit” and then “we know that we live in him and he in us” (verse13).
And in us (verse 16), “God is love.”