Why does the Apostle John spend so much time talking about love? It is because, as he says in verse 8 of chapter 4, “He who does not love does not know God”. Love is the essential grace which we are to look for, and see if it is in exercise in ourselves. If we are to rightly conclude that we have been saved from our sins, we must know that we have Christian love. If we do not have love, and if we do not exercise that love toward God and the brethren, then we should not fool ourselves in thinking that we are a true Christian. We can also say that we cannot come to have the full assurance that we are a Christian without seeing in ourselves the evidence of love, in our words and our actions towards others. And this is especially true if we do not love our brother in Christ. On the other hand, if we do perceive that we have this true and Christian love, it does not mean that we are perfect in it, but rather that we are learning this new way, which Christ is teaching us. We are learning about His love, and we are learning to love, with that same love. It says in verse 17 that “love has been perfected among us…” This is “love being perfected in us”. Before we partake of the Lord’s Supper, I want to show you first of all, what love being perfected means. And then I want to show you two consequences of the fact that “love that has been perfected among us”; that is – boldness in the Day of Judgment, and the fact that as He is, so also are we in this world.
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Pastor Paul Rendall was born in November of 1951, and grew up in Davenport, Iowa. He went to college at Drake University and the University of Iowa where he received a B.A. degree in Social Work and History in 1974. Paul searched for truth in all the wrong places in college, but...
