Living With Confidence

 

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER OF JOHN

LIVING WITH CONFIDENCE

1 John 4:16-18

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 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.

NIV

John continues with this theme that God is love. This first part is actually considered the second half of verse 16 and why some translations divide it or start a new sentence is strange. But it should be connected to all of this thought as one.

1 John 4:16

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 him.

NIV

So if we live in love, we live in God, and God lives in us. The opposite of that would be living in hate, therefore we would not be living in God nor him in us. But we know how much he loves us and we do love him and so we do live in him and he lives in us. Now does that mean we always do everything in our lives based on love? That would have to mean we never ever get angry or upset, or have any other feelings toward all people other than love. But we also know that is not completely true if we are honest with ourselves. However, the point John is driving at is the love we have for God and knowing that love he has for us. It is this relationship between God and his people that makes love compete. It is because of this we can have the confidence on the Day of Judgment because in this world we are like him. Now that cannot mean we are divine, by any means, but that we have God dwelling within us, rather the following after the ways of the world, we follow after the ways of God. It is our passion to become like Jesus, although we do fail all too often, it is still what we desire. However, the fact is we can have the confidence on the Day of Judgment because of the love of God and because we decided to accept Jesus as His Son. Our confidence is not in the flesh, in how good we are, or how little we sin. Our confidence is only because of Jesus. Because we live in the love of God, having accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we have nothing to fear from God. John makes sure we know that fear is based on being punished. So that if we feared that God would punish us just because we sinned, that would not be living in the love of God. God does not punish us for our sin, in fact, through the blood of Christ, our sin has been taken away. Through the blood of Jesus, there is remission of sin. That is the debt we should pay is death and he paid it for us. We no longer owe a debt for our sin, because of the love of God and so we do not fear him but love him. If we have any fear of God than our love for him is incomplete. But we do love him and he loves us so our love is made complete, it is perfect, lacking nothing. This is why we live with confidence.