THE FATHERS LOVE
1 John 4:18 says perfect love casts out all fear!!!!!
So if there is a perfect love there must be an imperfect love. So, when we say we love someone, we are loving them the way we’ve been taught to love and the way we’ve been shown love and that’s 100% of the time the imperfect love.
And unfortunately we have experienced more imperfect love than we have perfect love.
It’s difficult to preach on love because when we do the congregation sits there and stares at you like you’re speaking a foreign language. It’s so hard for us to comprehend the love of our HEAVENLY FATHER. The perfect love!!!
I just read a scripture that should settle all issues of any fear in our lives…1 John 4:18 – Perfect loves casts out all fear.
But because most people never really experience perfect love but only cheap imitations that scripture doesn’t mean anything to them.
Perfect love only comes from the our HEAVENLY FATHER
So until you can receive HIS perfect love it will be impossible to be free from fear and impossible to give that kind of love to others. We can’t give away what we don’t have.
You see people won’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.
Love must be evident in our lives before others can really see the FATHER in us.
You see GOD created ALL OF US to have a desire to be loved, accepted and appreciated. When we don’t get those things as children then fear comes in forms of rejection, jealousy and selfishness. And when we can’t get love, acceptance and appreciation from our mothers or fathers, something that we all long for, then we will begin to give it to ourselves.
That’s when self love, entitlement, selfishness and self-centeredness comes in. Then we grow up as adults and these things cause a lot of turmoil in our relationships.
When you hear people saying things to you like, you only think about yourself. Or you think you should have everything your way, or you should have everything you want. That’s a good sign that you are selfish and love yourself more than you do others.
So if we don’t receive love, acceptance and appreciation when we are young, it will cause us to become selfish, self centered and choose our happiness over anyone else’s happiness. It will cause us to lavish love on ourselves and if there is a little bit left, we will love someone else.
We need the love of the FATHER, pure and unconditional love so we can give it to
The bible says in 1 John 4:7 7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
How do we love like GOD?????
1 Corinthians 13 tells you. Go there this week and read it. Read it everyday until it gets inside you.
Have you ever met someone who knows the bible backwards and forwards but has no love in them? And when they tell you anything about GOD it feels like they are condemning you? It feels like they are taking a hammer and hitting you over the head with the WORD.
I know a man who is very intelligent in the word but every one avoids him in his family. When they have a family get together, the family goes into another room just to stay away from him and he doesn’t understand why. Then he his sister in-law, who had been entrenched in sin of all kinds, got saved. I mean really saved. She fell in love with the FATHER and received HIS love and when she did, she led two family members to the LORD immediately.
She didn’t know any word except John 3:16 but that was all she needed to know to win those two people. Because John 3:16 is all about the love of the FATHER. For GOD so loved the world that HE gave HIS ONLY begotten SON, that whosoever believes in HIM should NOT perish but have everlasting life.
The man who knew the bible backward and forward had the opportunity for over 20 years to win those people, but he had ahead knowledge (the law) and not a heart knowledge, LOVE.
So he didn’t recognize the need of Salvation like the woman whose heart was filled with the love of the FATHER and wanted everyone else to experience it for themselves through Salvation. The love of the FATHER makes you want to give it away. So when people say they are saved and quote all the bible, but never lead anyone to salvation, I have to question if they have true salvation.
When JESUS saw the fig tree and it didn’t bear any fruit, HE cursed it. A tree full of life will produce fruit. The fruit of the spirit is love which produces joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, meekness and long suffering.
The bible says in 2 Corinthians 3:6 – The letter of the law brings forth death but the SPIRIT which is LOVE gives life.
IT IS NOT WHAT YOU DO THAT MAKES YOU WHO YOU ARE BUT IT IS WHO YOU ARE THAT MAKES YOU DO WHAT YOU DO.
JESUS doesn’t just love us, HE IS LOVE!! That’s why it is impossible for HIM not to love us. But if we have fear, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of being replaced, fear of unworthiness, that will always counteract love. And when it does, it causes us to act out in anger, rage and even violence.
Have you ever heard of a crime of passion? That’s when someone kills someone else they say they love because they are afraid they are going to be replaced. If they can’t have you, no one will have you. This is full grown fear and far from love. Or someone walks out of your life because they are going to leave you before you can leave them. When you had no intention of leaving them in the first place.
FEAR IS A LIAR. Fear is not your friend, so stop listening to him.
The FATHER has no fear, so when he looks on you HE doesn’t see what you’re struggling with. HE only sees who HE has destined you to be. HE only sees you victorious in all your ways because HE looks through eyes of love.
Let’s look at Saul in the bible. Today, Saul would be considered a terrorist. He was murdering the Christians, just like we see Isis doing now. Saul was an educated, religious man who knew the first 5 books of the old testament by heart. So he had word, but he hadn’t received JESUS as THE MESSIAH so there was no truth in him. There was no love in him. He was a true enemy of the cross and of Christianity. But when GOD looked at him through eyes of love, HE saw who he would be one day. He saw the Apostle Paul and that’s they way God treated him. HE never sees that Saul had been. He only sees what he’s going to be, NOW that a father’s love.
You will not find anywhere in the bible where JESUS reminds Paul of what he did when he was Saul. Because the FATHER sees our destiny even when we are messing up because HE walks, talks and lives in faith so there is no doubt or unbelief in HIM. If we can just get our words, our minds and our walk in line with this, we would be victorious in all our ways. We fall into a trap of thinking evangelists, prophets and preachers work for God and they are on an assignment, and its just what you do for God when you’ve accepted HIS calling. But when you have the love of the FATHER its who you are, its not what you do. It’s not just the office you sit in.
It is not what you do that makes you who you are, it is who you are that makes you do what you do.
When a woman truly knows the love of the FATHER she will be able to love her husband and family. She will never think that what she does for them is work or a job. She will work tirelessly for her family out of love for them.
Love gives, it never asks for anything in return. Love sees the good in everything and everyone. It doesn’t point out their failures or weaknesses. Love doesn’t keep score. Love doesn’t say I did the dishes 3 times so it’s your turn now.
If things seem to always be about you, then you need to look at your love walk. If you aren’t happy then no one is happy, you need to look at your love walk. If you cant have what you want then you aren’t happy, you need to seek more of the FATHERS love so you will be able to give it to others. There is no effort nor will you ever get waery of you are doing it in love. But if you serve or give out of fear or obligation, it will show in everything you do or say. We will become weary. We will get burnt out and it will become a job to us.
We are talking about the FATHERS love. A love that has no fear in it. Fear will make you focus on darkness all the time. Our issue in the world today isn’t that we have to much darkness. Our issue is we have the lack of light. The bible says in John 8:12 - Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
We finally need to have enough and decide to stop having pride (my way is better than GODS way) and we need to stop having a pity party about how we are entitled to have everything but we aren’t willing to do anything/ When we stop doing all of that then I believe fear will leave because of love and light will be prominent in our lives. Love will come in and replace fear and light will come in and replace darkness.
A great example of how love works is St. Augustine grass. It is the most beautiful and lush grass. It is like walking on carpet. The best part about it is when there is a dead spot in you yard, St. Augustine grass crawls across the yard and when it gets to a place where there is no grass, it fills it.T hen when it comes in contact with weeds or bad grass, it runs it out of that area until it has taken over the complete yard. That is how love is once it is planted in us. Love overtakes and over powers anything in its way and what it comes up against fear, it just grows until it pushes it right out of your life.
PERFECT LOVE CASTS OUT ALL FEAR.
It is not what you do that makes you who you are. It is who you are that makes you do what you do.
When we walk in love and it’s who we are, then what we do will reflect who we are and the love we have. It’s easy to love those who love us but what about those who don’t love us. Let’s read what the bible says we are to do with those who don’t love us. Luke6:27 - 27 “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. 28 Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. 30 Give to anyone who asks; and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back. 31 Do to others as you would like them to do to you.32 “If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them! 33 And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much! 34 And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit? Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return.35 “Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. 36 You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.
This seems impossible to us but if it is in the Word of GOD then HE knows we can do it. But we can only do this though HIS love, the love of the FATHER.
We see Isis killing Christians and nothing seems to be done about it. We ask, where are the Elijahs who call down fire and destroy the enemy of our God? Well the Elijahs of today are men like Leif Hetland. The call him the ambassador of love in muslim countries. He travels there and ministers to millions of muslims. He walks in the pure love of GOD and when the muslims experience that love for GOD they are changed. He is the Elijah of today. He is calling down fire with the love of GOD. He is calling down fire with the love of GOD. He is defeating the enemy of fear with love of GOD. The ture love of the FATHER is something that the muslims have never experienced and when they do. They know it is different than their god.
The people who worship their god is full of fear but the one true GOD is a GOD of love. The love of the FATHER is more powerful and has more authority than you can even imagine. When you see people who walk in the love of the FATHER they seem to be quiet and weak, but they walk in great authority and power because its all about GOD and HIS love and nothing within themselves.
John 4:18 - Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.
HE sent HIS SON because HE loved us so much. He wants us to receive HIS LOVE. Can we open our hearts to HIM? Can we receive HIS LOVE that he freely give sus?