Love Perfected -- His Work, Not Just a Feeling

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17)

"Love made perfect" -- I liked this verse, and when I meditated on it, the relief that swept over me was beyond words. I did not have to do anything, because this love was "perfected", or completed

But how is this love "made perfect?" And what is this love, exactly?

When I imagine God the Father as my "Daddy", this revelation really moved me, and I had Scripture to back up this truth:

"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Romans 8: 15)

and

"And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." (Galatians 4: 6)

Yet my thoughts would waver, and my sentiment would whimper out from time to time. Fearful, angry thought would impede the train of peace.

I still needed to understand beyond any doubt why I did not have to do anything:

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10)

"He loved us" through His Son, by sending Him to die for us and to live in us. Paul explains the same very simply:

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2: 20)

It is a terrible limitation for us to discuss God's love for us by omitting or glancing over the highest, the essential, the CRUCIAL element of God's love for us: His Son shedding His blood for the remission of our sins -- all of them, and evermore:

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1: 7)

This Work is Finished -- no matter how you may feel, what you may thinking, or what you have done, you have received sonship before God in Christ. His love is perfect in you, beloved, because now you are in this world as He is! His loved is a never-ending done deal, one that you are called to believe!