Love With Actions And In Truth

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
1 John 3:16-18 (NIV)

I am still in the subject of love. What is love? Many people talks about it but very few know its true meaning. If you happen to be in a religious church, they will tell you they love you but what they really love is your money. So, if you happen to hear a religious preacher or a theologian telling you that he loves you, you should hold tightly to your wallet and run!

Verse 16 above tells us what love truly is, according to God’s personal opinion. In his view, love is real action. Jesus showed his love by laying down his life for us. Please note that Jesus had physically laid down his physically life at the physical cross. He did it openly for everyone to see. He did not do it spiritually. The God of the Bible is capable of doing things physically and promise blessings that can be proven including health and wealth.

This is the difference between the true believers of Jesus Christ and mere worshippers of theology. A true believer dares to believe what God says is true, including those things that can be proven physically like health and wealth. In contrast, theology worshippers can only believe in a God who promises things that cannot be proven. This is the reason why they despise health and wealth. Health and wealth become a stumbling block to them because these things can be proven objectively.

When they see believers who dare to believe in those things, they will persecute them with terms like, “prosperity gospel” as though God is allergic to prosperity.

The second part of Verse 16 tells us that since Jesus can lay down his life for us, we also ought to do the same for others. Does this mean we must also die? If that is true, I am out of here. I am not interested in joining a religion of death. Thank God, he explained it in the following verse, Verse 17.

Verse 17 tells us the meaning of laying down our lives for our brothers and sisters. When we have the love of God in us, we will have a natural pity to our brothers and sisters who are poor. We will to help them provided we have the material possessions to do so.

Do you see the implication here? All believers regardless of the rich or poor, who have the love of God in their hearts will have pity on others who are poor. They will want to help them materially. However, only the rich (with material possessions) can really do it.

This is another way of saying that God wants every believer to be rich in lots of material possessions.

In other words, Verse 17 is not a promotion for communism. God is not a communist.

Finally in Verse 18, we are exhorted in not just keeping our love in words only. Love is real action. If you have the love of God in your heart, you should act now. If are poor, God wants you to get rich so that you can used your riches to help the poor. If you are already rich, God wants you to be richer so that you can help even more poor people.
Don’t be selfish. This is the true meaning of love.

No Fear In Love

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.
1 John 4:18 (NIV)

This is another verse form the Bible that exposes the corruptions in theologically infested churches. The main characteristic of a theologically infested religious church is the use of threats and blackmails to strike fear in the hearts of their members.

In the minds of religious preachers, fear is the only weapon used to ensure obedience of their drones (congregation). They will say things like, if you don’t read the Bible, pray, serve in the church, confess your sins, live a holy life, give money to the church, go for missions or any other stuff in the list, God will not be happy with you. There is no limit on the perverted things God can do to you when he is not happy.

What is your choice? Do you dare to make God unhappy? So, if you don’t want to be the victim of God’s perversion, you better obey the preacher. Give him any amount of money he wants and go for missions.

Ironically, even when you manage to live a holy life and obey everything the preacher said, you are still subjected to some perversions. Only this time, there is a different name. It is called “sufficient grace”. Remember Paul? Paul was so dedicated and worked so hard for God. How did God reward him?

Paul was so privileged that he received a disease called “thorns in the flesh”. Are you inspired to obey God?

The above are the things you will get from religious churches. They couldn’t be further from the truth.

The truth is, God is not a pervert. He will never do perverted things to anyone. 1 John 4:18 tells us that there is no fear in love. The moment you can truly believe that God loves you, you will not have fear in your heart. You can go to God boldly and tell him everything you want without the fear that he will send you to hell for saying a wrong word. This is true freedom.

This is the way I live right now. I have stopped being politically correct with God. I can say anything I want to him without worrying that I might end up in hell. This includes words like, “no”, “not interested”, “ what is in for me?”, “how much will I get from this?” and any other words that can cause the theologians to shout, “blasphemy!” I can face God with openness and honesty. Why else can do the same?

The second part of the verse says, “But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” Why punishment? It is a common religious belief that if you do wrong, God will punish you. This is the real reason why religious people appear to be moral. Their morality is caused by the fear of punishment.

We Christians do not have to live like that. Jesus had taken all our sins at the Cross. If God really needs to punish anyone for our sins, he will have to go for Jesus because all our sins become his. Thank God for the Cross.

This means even if we live immorally, we will still not have to fear punishment from God because of what Jesus has done to us. So, when we live holy lives and have high morals, we do it as a reflection on our true nature. In other words, we do good because we are good. In contrast, religious people do good to avoid punishments. Who do you think is truly holy?
Through his love, we live our lives boldly for the glory of our God. We are free to acquire all the prosperity we ever desire. If we happen to make mistakes and sinned, all we have to do is to pick ourselves up and move on. We do not have to fear punishments from God because we have his love in us.

The last part of the verse tells us that the moment we have fear, we have not made perfect in love. Please note that while the entire verse leans more on the subject on being punished by God, it can also applies to anything that causes fear in us.

What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of not having enough money, being sick or troubles in relationship? All your fears will be gone the moment you are made perfect in God’s love. This means once you have been made perfect in God’s love, you have the capability to overcome all your fears.

You don’t have to wonder on whether God will give you the prosperity you desire, heal your sickness or giving you the breakthrough you need. The love of God guarantees that you will have everything you want.
This is the meaning of being made perfect in God’s love.