PERFECTION OF LOVE (2022)
PERFECTION OF LOVE
Sunday, February 13, 2022, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
1 John 4:18: Perfect love casts out fear.
What is Perfect Love? It is certainly a realm of the Spirit wherein God abides. God is love. Surely none is so blind as to claim that the Church has entered into this heritage of LOVE!
Yet, God wants perfect LOVE here in the earth where it is so desperately needed. Heaven is full of love now; but God wants it here. Jesus taught us to pray, “Your will be done in earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus taught us to pray that prayer because it is God’s intention to answer that prayer. We have discovered that the prayers that are ordained of the LORD, and which are inspired in the hearts of God’s people by the Spirit, are nothing less than the travail of the Spirit of God within the spirit of man to bring forth unto birth and full manifestation the express will of God. It is not a case of you and I getting under some burden of human contrivance, and trying to persuade God to do something that He is reluctant to do. It is moving in God and knowing His will, thus functioning out from His very own heart.
1 John 4:17 states that, love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.
So, love has been perfected among us in Christ Jesus, as He is, so are we!
When Jesus was here, He was the Light of the world. The light shone in the darkness, “And the darkness comprehended it not (Jn. 1:5).
John wrote that the darkness is passing away (1 Jo. 2:8). It is obvious it is getting darker and darker as far as the present world system is concerned. But there shall be light in the homes of the people of God. The Glory of the Lord is rising brighter and brighter upon the chosen. We have the promise of a full rising of the “Sun of righteousness” coming forth into a new day. Our faith is bright in the midst of darkness, because of the promise. Faith which is a fact must then become Hope is a certainty because we anticipate the dawn. Then do we enter into LOVE ---which is the full expression of Faith, and Hope, the very life of God Himself radiating from the lives of His chosen ones.
I become very grieved when I hear the run-of-talk of depression and discouragement out of people’s mouth of how bad things are and you, or we are under attack. I don’t live there. You don’t have to live there either. There is a higher realm in the LORD. It is the realm of total victory.
Wake Up Church! Anything less than total conquest, anything less than a complete and final possession of the heavenly realm (that realm of the Spirit unto which we are called, and in which we wage our warfare), anything less than complete conquest spells defeat. There is no defeat in Jesus.
John said, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning (1 Jn. 2:7-11). Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. He who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
When Jesus was born, the darkness did not apprehend the Light. But now it is not so. The darkness “is passing…” It is a “new Commandment (2:8).” The same Word, but it comes forth in the dawning of a new day. Therefore, it is new. It is the new day of LOVE. Anything less than that is darkness.
The lack of love is only too evident in the world system as well as in ourselves and others, i.e., the Church. The apostle John makes it abundantly clear that walking in the light is WALKING IN LOVE. John didn’t give us any neutral ground. You see, I am able to see into that realm of LOVE, but living there is a continual challenge. LOVE IS LIGHT, and the absence of the light means darkness. If there is no genuine love, God calls it hate. We need to read the Love chapter often, 1 Co. 13. Love is nothing less than the very realm of God, abiding in Him, and participating in His own heart of long-suffering, kindness, humility, meekness, unselfishness, and truth.
“When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away” (1 Co. 3:10).
“Won’t heaven be wonderful?” But God wants this perfection of love here on earth where it is needed. What kind of heaven would someone go to that requires the exercise of “long-suffering,” “kindness,” “meekness,” “humility,” and “unselfishness?” What circumstance in Heaven might arise that would require the exercise of “love suffereth long?” Will Michael the Archangel impose grievous burdens on you that are just too heavy for you to bear? Love is not jealous and envieth not. Will you have to be careful when the rewards are given out, lest you find yourself envying the Christian that has the largest, most beautiful mansion? No! there you will have perfect love and there will be no envy in heaven. Love vaunteth not itself. Love thinketh no evil. That would blow big holes in what some consider the responsibility of their gift of discernment. No critiquing in heaven? Love beareth all things- cheerfully. No complaining, no bad-mouthing, no poor-mouthing, no feeling put-upon.
But God wants perfect LOVE here in the earth. If that were not true, why did Jesus become perfect love and release that perfect love through His life, death and resurrection?
God is not in the least concerned about PERFECT LOVE reigning in heaven. Nothing less could even exist in that realm of PURE LIGHT. He does want, and He will yet have, PERFECT LOVE reigning in the hearts of His people, and to this end we pray, …If we love one another, God dwells in us, and His LOVE is perfected in us (1 John 4:12).
The Son of Man was sinless and spotless from His birth until His death. Heb. 5:8: Though he was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which he suffered. And having been PERFECTED, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.
Hebrews 2:10 It was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation PERFECT through suffering.
As the Son of Man, Jesus had to be perfected through suffering. Then God received Him back into heaven as PERFECT MAN where PERFECT HUMANITY was absorbed back into DEITY---making Him to be both LORD AND CHRIST!
Jesus Christ must needs go back into the heart of God, receive that Name which is above every name in earth, heaven, or under the earth---that now He might come forth again in the Spirit of Truth, who comes from the heart of God, for that Divine glory and power and life that is now inherent in PERFECT GOD and PERFECT MAN---that the PERFECTIONS of the risen and glorified Christ might become our very life. He must needs go away, back to the Father, that in the coming of the Spirit of God into our lives, we would have One who would take the things of Christ and reveal them unto us. Certainly not to reveal to us something that we cannot have! But to show us those things which “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered the heart of man. The things which God has “prepared for those that love Him” (1 Co. 2:5). The Holy Spirit within is there to “search all things, yea the deep things of God” (1 Co. 2:10). He is there in our hearts, not merely to bless us---but to reach out into the vastness of the eternal depths of God, and uncover and reveal those things which He has in preparation for His own.
The Holy Spirit shows the Father unto us in such a way that we know HIM, and knowing Him means abiding in His love and nature.
1 John 4:7: … Love is of God, and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God.
1 John 4:16: …God is love, and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.
Will God cut the circle of life short in order that we might escape the suffering and woe that is upon the earth? No! He uses troubles and tribulations for the completion of His great work. We, too, must learn obedience by the things which we suffer. He has sent forth the Word, the Spirit of Truth, concerning the PERFECTION of the Body of Christ into the realm of LOVE. In this realm of LOVE will be the manifestation of many sons, and His Word shall not return unto Him void. It shall prosper in the thing where unto He sent it forth. The purpose of this manifestation is to bring fruitfulness to the earth which is groaning for the manifestation of his many sons. It shall bring blessing and deliverance to a groaning Creation.
For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree; and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off (Isa. 55: 12-13).
There is a continual increase of the Christ within, and of His LOVE, GOVERNMENT AND PEACE in our lives. There is daily a new unfolding of His Divine purpose. His compassions fail not (Lam 3:22). They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. Men who lack vision are forever bemoaning the “woe is me.” For whatever the number of years I have left on the earth, I am going to preach from the Third Heaven. I am not coming back unless the LORD sends me.
For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron (Is. 60:17).
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V. and N.K.J.V. – I entered into the labors of George H. Warnock (1912-2012), Evening and Morning. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Rev. Warnock.