[Maximum Joy Series] Perfect LoveSample

Motivation for Love

Some people are easier to love than others. We are imperfect human beings who try to do our best. Unfortunately, we do not always accomplish that. Loving is hard, and to make matters worse, if you pay attention to the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, you will notice that Jesus raised the bar. He showed us that the first and the second commandment (to love God and love your neighbor) were just the start. 

What if I asked you to love your enemies? What if you were asked to bless those who curse you, to do good to those who hate you, and pray for those that despitefully use you and persecute you? The task becomes so much harder, doesn’t it? What do we do, then? We understand that it is not part of our human nature to love the way Jesus said we should. What should motivate us to love this way? To love with agape love? 

“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us” (4:11-12).

The word so (houtwos) implies a comparison. In other words, if God loved us in this sacrificial, giving, initiating kind of way when we were underprivileged foreigners, then we ought to love each other in the same way. Maybe our love cannot be as perfect as Christ’s love, but it can grow in that direction. That is the goal. Just as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Therefore, be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Or as God exhorts through Peter, “Be holy as I am holy” (1 Peter 1:14). These are the lofty goals of the Christian life. Can we do it? No way. Can Christ? He lives in us, and He is the only one who can measure up. 

When we observe His love at work among us, then, in a way we are looking at God, for He is love. When we love as He loved, it is He who lives in us who is the very source of this love. When we are loving each other in this way, God abides in us. Since abides is a term used by John to imply fellowship, this could be a reference to individual fellowship with God, but it might also include a group experience of special intimacy with Him. It’s perfect love. 

This thought leads us to a rather stunning conclusion. It may well be that my most intimate fellowship with God may not occur when I am alone. John certainly says God’s love is perfected when I am reaching out on a horizontal plane. That’s also what makes the world stop in its tracks for a closer look. After all, believers with the love of God in them do many things the world would consider odd. We give our money away, we forgive grave and cruel injustices, we see people as more important than possessions. 

In addition, we ignore barriers of race, class, and culture as we embrace the worth of others who are not like us. We are willing to give up comfort and security to go to the remote and difficult places on the globe. We are eager to die rather than give up our faith. 

Perfect love will lead us to live and experience Maximum Joy.