Perfected Love
11/20/25 Bible Thought (1 John 4)
Love isn’t just something God does. It is who God is. Love isn’t just an action that God performs but is a very part of His nature.
That “God is love” is the startling contention that the apostle John brings to the table in the 1 John 4.
Yet, though God’s love is part of His nature, it is not divorced from action. His love was proven when He sent His Son into the world to be a sacrifice for our sins so that we might live through Him (1 Jn. 4:9-10).
If God never does another thing for us in this life, He has already done enough that we should never question His love.
Now, that amazing love of God demands a response. Even more, it has a goal that it is striving towards. Twice in this chapter the apostle John writes about love that is perfected, namely a love that has reached its goal.
Firstly, the love of God towards the believer reaches its intended goal when we are willing to love one another (1 Jn. 4:12 see also v7-8).
God’s disposition of love towards the believer is to be reciprocated in our dealings with our fellow believers. If God has loved us in such great fashion, we also ought to love one another.
Yet, even more than this, the love of God has a goal in the life of the believer that goes even deeper.
The apostle later contends that, “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 Jn. 4:19). Now, I have commonly heard this verse referenced when dealing with common fears and phobias that humans struggle with. Perfect love casts out fear, so you don’t have to be scared of the dark, or spiders, or anything! You’re good!
Yet, in context, the one that we are to logically be fearful of is God—specifically to be fearful of the day of judgment. That is, until God’s love has reached its intended goal:
“By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world” (1 Jn. 4:17).
When we truly recognize how much God has loved us and when we understand what it means to be justified, this changes everything.
Logically speaking, because of our sins, the day of judgment should be a horrifying thing. To someday give an account before the living God for the life that we lived, knowing that He sees every secret sin and evil intention of our hearts, is the scariest thing imaginable.
Yet, if we are in Christ, we need not fear because as he is so also are we in this world.
The believer is enrobed with the righteousness of Christ. When Christ took upon Himself our sins at Calvary, He likewise imputed His righteousness to us (see 2 Cor. 5:21). Essentially, we have the very standing of Christ.
As a result, the born-again believer in Jesus Christ has no reason to fear on the day of judgment.
Now, this does not mean that we toss out the reverential fear of the Lord that is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom (see Pro. 1:7; 9:10). However, we no longer should be terrified of the Father’s righteous wrath on that final day.
In other words, terror and reverence both fall under “fear” as an umbrella term. If we are believers who have been saved, terror shouldn’t be a factor in our relationship with God. If we are terrified, we haven’t been perfected in love.
God is a holy, just, awesome and omnipotent God that the nonbeliever should be scared of, but for the believer we must remember that Christ has already borne the wrath of God on our behalf.
He has exhausted sin’s penalty. If we think that there is further punishment reserved for our sins in the future, then we need to take another look at the cross.
Jesus bore the full consequence of our sins in entirety. As such, if we are in Christ we have no need to fear. Instead, we can have confidence.
We don’t go to the grave hoping we were good enough to enter heaven’s glory.
We will never be good enough. If we are banking on our own merits for our hope, then we are utterly hopeless. The bad news is that we are not good enough, nor will we ever be good enough.
The good news though is that Christ was.
He was sinless. He was perfect. The only one deserving of heaven left heaven’s glory behind to become the sacrifice for our sins so that we, who were entirely undeserving, might enter heaven’s glory as a free gift of grace.
We will never merit anything more, and we will never lose what we have. Our standing is in Christ and in Christ alone. It is in Christ alone that my hope is found. For that reason, I can have confidence today, no matter what the future may hold.
Challenge for Today:
Do I still occasionally fear that God will punish me for my sins, or that I might do something that causes Him to no longer love me?
Even if we know the gospel message clearly, we can lose sight of how truly awesome and undeserved this love of God is for us.
Good study. I’m still kinda scared of spiders though.