About 15 years prior to the writing of this article, I developed a longing for a better understanding of the “perfect love” spoken of in I John chapter 4. I would come back to this chapter time after time, knowing I didn’t fully grasp something. Besides, the presence of fear in my life indicated that I was not “made perfect in love” and that bothered me. Verse 18 says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” I wanted to be confidant that my Christian life exhibited this perfect love and that I was “made perfect in love.”
Achieving Perfect Love
According to I John 4:9-10, the first step to achieving perfect love is our salvation, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” In His love for us, Jesus settled our sin debt and made the gift of eternal life available to all who will accept His payment for their sin. And when we accept His payment for our sin, we gain access to His love! 1John 4:15 says, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”
But when it comes to showing love, I thought that in my efforts to love others, I was doing what verse 7 tells us, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”
So what was I missing?
As I read and studied this chapter over and over, I began to note the repeated phrase of “love one another” in verses 7, 11, 12, and 21. One day it finally dawned on me that every time I read that phrase, “love one another,” I was reading it as “love others.” But that’s not what this passage says. To love others is only to give love. If that were what God’s Word said, then it would be His will to constantly give, give, and give more love. Much of the emphasis I was taught in my youth was that ministering meant to constantly focus on others and meeting their needs.
Being able to give selflessly and without expectation is an important part of reaching people who do not know God. It exhibits a level of maturity in ministering. But constant self-sacrifice is not God’s intention for us within a body of believers. “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God” (1John 4:7).
– I John 5:1-3
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
Constant self-sacrifice and rejection of the love expressed by our brothers and sisters in Christ can lead to the commandments of God becoming grievous. Our service becomes grievous. We can’t cut ourselves off from God’s love in the name of serving God in our church body. When we do this, we can’t experience “perfect love.”
This mutual love, perfect love, is the result of obedience to God’s commands. And the natural result of obedience to God is the presence of the Holy Spirit. Obedience allows the Holy Spirit to work directly through a saved person. This is God’s love being perfected in us, as we read in 1John 4:12, “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.” And 1John 4:13 says, “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.”
There are those you minister to that are not capable of returning the love you offer them. I had a cruel experience of this while serving with my husband in a teen Bible club shortly after we were married. I was very inexperienced in ministering to people, and I have always been a person who feels deeply and often takes things too seriously. I was on the phone with one of our teen girls, checking up on her because she’d missed a Sunday riding the bus. In our conversation, I was trying to express how much we cared about her, and I said, “We love you.” Her immediate response was, “You don’t love me!” And she went on about how we don’t even know her, and the conversation ended soon after.
I was shocked and deeply hurt having never experienced such a lack of love before. I now understand that being raised in a home with no Godly love, she wasn’t capable of understanding this love. I was raised in church, surrounded by God’s love, but there are those who have never experienced that.
Fellow Christians, even new Christians, usually know and appreciate the love you show them when you serve in an area from which they benefit. When my husband started pastoring, we learned quickly that most people want to show their appreciation for your service. We also learned to appreciate our church family members as well, each one contributing in different unique ways, frequently desiring to show appreciation to us and to each other. And this is as it should be within a body of believers. This is loving one another.
Love Among Fellow Believers
When the Bible speaks of loving one another, I noticed two things. One is that loving one another refers to love between fellow believers. The lack of this love is easily illustrated by people who live in homes much like my Bible club teenager did. The absence of Godly love results in fear, confusion, mistrust, and rejection. Many times, ministry workers must prove their love by faithfully being there for someone until the person finally realizes they can trust the worker and begin to accept the Godly love offered.
The presence of fear, mistrust, and more within Christian relationships can be because of sin. Whether it be your own sin or sin done to you. We must allow God to renew our minds through His Word and His truth and quench thoughts that do not agree with God’s Word in order to heal and be free of the results of the works of the flesh (Gal. 5:19-21).
Mutual Love
The second thing I noticed is that the words “one another” in the Bible indicate something that is shared mutually. I John 4 teaches us that loving one another is a mutual love between believers. The Greek word for “one another” is allelon, and isdefined using the words “each other, mutual, one another.”
A mutual love is not a love that is only given, but also a love that is received.
When my eyes were opened to the fact that I was reading this phrase wrong, I started gaining a new perspective of what God’s plan for me is among a body of believers. He gives a mutual love within a body of believers.
Loving one another as the Bible teaches in I John 4:7,8 may not be consciously handing out love and accepting it as you would a gift from a friend. But mutual love is that peace and joy you experience when among a body of believers. Have you ever experienced that wonderful feeling of “fitting in” or “belonging” at church, even when you’re visiting a good church while traveling? Or perhaps, the lack of this feeling when you visited a church that does not teach the truth? More than just a feeling, this is the presence of mutual love, the presence of the Holy Spirit.
We know that the first fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:22 is love. And it is a mutual love that we share with our fellow Christians because it comes from the presence of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.
Could this not be the reason that our own personal sin can cause the work of God to be hindered in our lives as well as our fellow believers?
If you grew up in church, you know this and have been taught this, but I hope my study in I John helps you have a clearer understanding of this wonderful aspect of the Christian life. God was so good to give us the fruits of the Spirit! We shouldn’t shun or quench the presence of the Holy Spirit but revel and rejoice in it! We should allow ourselves to receive and enjoy this mutual love because it comes from God and is a true, pure, and holy love that is to be shared among Christians. “Beloved, let us love one another” (I John 4:7a).
