GOD IS LOVE Devotion 25 of 34 "And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him." (1 John 4:16) KNOWN AND BELIEVED The phrase "we have known and believed" is the same as saying we have known by believing. Technically, the phrase reads, "we know and continue to believe." Believing, therefore, is not terminated when we come to "know," or begin to see the real nature of our redemption. It continues to be a wellspring of life while we are in the world. The word "known" emphasizes our EXPERIENCE, while "believe" underscores our PERSUASION. It is the manner of the Kingdom that experience always proceeds from persuasion. Thus Abraham fathered Isaac AFTER he had believed the promise. Noah built the ark to the saving of his house AFTER he had believed God's word. Mary conceived Jesus AFTER she had believed the angelic messenger. THE LOVE GOD HAS FOR US Up to this point, God's love has been mentioned in the past tense, hearkening us back to Christ's entrance into the world, and His vicarious sacrifice (4:10,11). But now the love of God is in the present tense: "HAS for us." When the love God HAD for us is believed, it will be received, and will be lavished upon us experientially! We ourselves will be loved, OUR need will be met, and OUR hearts will be abundantly satisfied. God will then take up residence within us, and show us His covenant, as He has promised (Psa 25:14). Until that point, all talk of the love of God is merely philosophical, having no power or effectiveness. THE THREEFOLD ABIDING "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him." Here is a most powerful line of reasoning. Because "God is love," those who are characterized by love have, by that very fact, revealed their association with the Lord. – Tomorrow:
"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love . . . God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." (1 John 4:9,16)
The love God "has for us" has been revealed through the Son in particular, and by means of our faith in the Son. The point being made is that we can have no living association with Christ unless God dwells in us, and that God does not dwell in us except we believe in and upon the Son.
And so it is with us. We will experience the result of God's love for us when we believe that remarkable love is precisely what God has represented it to be.
Here is a threefold abiding. (1) The one in Christ abides in love. (2) The one abiding in love abides in God. (3) God abides in the one abiding in love. It is not to be assumed that a person automatically abides in love. That is something that requires faith. Nor, indeed, is it to be assumed that one automatically abides in God. That is determined by whether or not the individual abides in love. Finally, it is not to be assumed that God automatically abides in the individual. That also is determined by whether or not the person abides in love.
Salvation forges a unity between God and man. It also will, if not resisted, maintain that unity by faith and through the power of the Holy Spirit. At no point does salvation cease to require the activity of the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. Hence, it is sheer folly to imagine it excludes our own involvement.
God will not remain in the person whose nature is fundamentally unlike His own. For Him to do so would be a contradiction of His own character. Further, a person who has no regard for those in fellowship with God and Christ has, by that disregard, forfeited the presence of God Himself. It makes little difference what the profession of such a person may be. If the one abiding in love is abiding in God, the one NOT abiding in love is NOT abiding in God.
Abiding, or remaining, is a critical point in spiritual life. If it was, as some allege, impossible to fall away, the very idea of remaining would have no significance. The word "remain" postulates the danger of NOT remaining, and has absolutely no significance is the individual is locked in Christ. That is why we are given "exceeding great and precious promises" (2 Pet 1:4). If remaining in Christ is not an issue, these marvelous promises are instantly diffused, ceasing to bring solace and encouragement to those who are fighting the good fight of faith. The very concept of a promise postulates struggle, hostile surroundings, and a present absence from the thing that is promised. For a person to boast of the impossibility of departing from the faith in such a condition betrays a fundamental ignorance of both God and His salvation.
Every believer is to give attention to the matter of abiding, or remaining, in Christ. Jesus went so far as to say, "If a man ABIDE NOT in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned" (John 15:6). It is evident that this is not generally known in the Christian world, where departures from Christ have become commonplace. But no person who ceases to remain in Christ is recognized by God. On the day of judgment, when the counsels of the heart are made known (1 Cor 4:5), how will it fare for those who went about upon the earth boasting that it was impossible for them to fall?
The purpose of this text is not to produce suspicions in us concerning others. Rather, it is to confirm to those in Christ that they have eternal life. It is axiomatic that those remaining in Christ are themselves aware of that fact, and draw great consolation from it. Our religion must, therefore, make us more sensitive of our status in Christ Jesus, drawing attention to our faith in, and commitment to, the Lord Jesus Christ. Where this knowledge and sensitivity is absent, the individual is standing on the precipice of eternal ruin.
PRAYER POINT: Father, I thank You for loving me, and ask in the name of Jesus, that You strengthen me to abide in Your love.