Fearless in love
Jesus told us to live free of fear. He also wants us to be perfect in how we love the world just as the Father in heaven is perfect. How do we become perfect in love? We can begin the journey down the road of perfect love by living lives of obedience to Jesus. He explains to us in the scripture that our obedience to Him shows Him how much we love Him, and that obedience will allow the Father and Him to take up residence within us. That is the secret to living in perfect love, and by living in that perfect love, we will cast off all fear from our lives.
John 14:1 says, “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.” By believing in Jesus, we make ourselves available for Him to claim us as His own and restore us to the Father. Our hope is in Jesus. He is returning to claim us as His own. He said, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you also will be…I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” It is in this hope that we can find faith to believe in Him.
Jesus and the Father are one. Because they are one, if we have the Spirit of Christ in us, we also have the Father. Jesus said in John 14:10-11, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own, but the Father, as He remains in Me, does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.” Jesus said that His words and works were the words and works of the Father. This is important for us to understand if we are to understand and believe that we are capable as Jesus said in Matthew 5:48 of being “perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
If we are capable of being perfect, it is only because the Father lives in us and the words that we speak and the works that we do are the words and works of our Father who lives in us. That is what Jesus said of Himself. We are also children of God, and if we obey the commandments of Jesus, He said that He and the Father will live within us. Because the Father lives in us, we are also capable of being like Jesus in allowing every word we speak and every work we perform to be that of the Father’s. If we do this, Jesus said in John 14:12-14, “Truly, truly I say to you, the one who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” This would include empowering us to love perfectly as the Father in heaven loves perfectly. Loving perfectly is one of the works of the Father that Jesus accomplished while He was in the world. All we have to do is ask Him to love perfectly through us, and He will do it.
This is also possible for us if we love Jesus and obey His commandments as He said in John 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” The gospel of Jesus is the only faith where the author and perfector of that faith died and rose again, and whose spirit lives forever in those who serve and love Him. Because of His inhabitation, all those who love and obey Him have access to the Father. The Father does His works through those who seek His will.
Jesus took it one step further by asking the Father to send His spirit to be with us and in us and to help us to speak the Father’s words and do the Father’s works just as He did for Jesus. Jesus said in John 14:16-17, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, so that He may be with you forever; the Helper is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him; but you know Him because He remains with you and will be in you.” Jesus then goes on to describe the fulfillment of His promise to live in us with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He says, “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. After a little while, the world no longer is going to see Me, but you are going to see Me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I in you. The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him…If anyone loves Me, he will follow My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him. The one who does not love Me does not follow My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.”
So the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all abide in those who love Jesus and obey His commandments, and they will do greater things than Jesus did because the Father does His works according to His will through us. What commandments from Jesus are we supposed to be obeying? Jesus summed up all of the Laws and commandments into two easy to understand but difficult to follow commandments. You notice I said easy to understand because they are not very complicated, but difficult if not impossible to follow unless you have the Father living in you. Sounds a little bit like the chicken and the egg dilemma, doesn’t it?
Let’s take a look at the two commandments first. Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.” Simple enough to understand. You must love God and your neighbor. Got it. But wait! There is more. He goes on to say in Matthew 5:43-48, “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may prove yourselves to be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even the tax collectors, do they not do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Even the Gentiles, do they not do the same? Therefore, you shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Ok, so the loving of your enemies is going to require the perfect love of the Father. Now that we understand how to love perfectly, let’s take a look at the chicken and the egg dilemma.
If we have to love our enemies perfectly like the Father, but first we have to obey Jesus by loving our enemies in order for the Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit to live in us then how can we ever love our enemies? This sounds too difficult, but the Father set everything up to work fluidly. When we give our lives to God, we die to ourselves and ask God to live within us. We promise to obey His commandments. We promise to love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind, and we promise to love our neighbor as ourselves. In that moment, God forgives us of our sin, and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit come and take up residence within us. Now that They are living in us, we can choose to speak only the words of the Father and do only the works of the Father just like Jesus. We must make this decision every day as Paul says in 1 Corinthian 15:31, “I die daily.” If we do this, the Father will live out His will through our lives as He did when Jesus walked this earth.
When we have found our way onto this narrow road, we can walk in confidence and without fear because the Father’s perfect love lives in us, and His perfect love casts out all fear. 1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.” We do not have to fear condemnation because Jesus did not come to condemn us. John 3:17 says, “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.” Through Jesus we get to the Father, and through the Father we have perfect love.
The last thing we should look at is what perfect loves looks like in our own lives. If we know what it looks like we will know if the Father is living His will through us. If our lives do not show this perfect love then we need to repent and ask for the Father’s mercy, so He might take that place in us once again that would allow us to live out His perfect will or love in our lives. 1 Corinthians 13:1-6 describes to us what perfect love looks like, and it warns us what our life will become if we do not have the Father’s perfect love in our lives even though we show the “works” of the Holy Spirit. It says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
If we want to survive what is coming to the earth without fear and if we want to thrive in the face of evil and adversity, we must let the Father’s perfect love work in us. We must obey the commandments of Jesus in order to have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit take up residence within us. Jesus said in John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.” The world might know us by our love for one another, but Jesus will know if we love Him by the way we love our enemies. Living a life without fear means living a life of perfect love.
You can read more about this and other truths by obtaining a copy of “Prodigal to Prince” by Beau Walsh at BarnesandNoble.com or Amazon.com.
