THE GIFT OF DIVINE LOVE - 1 John 4
The Gift of Divine Love
Sunday Evening Prayer Meeting
May 25, 2025
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
On February 9, this year, I wrote the following: “As a minister of the Gospel, if I could impart to others the “key” to love and they were able to always have access to and know the secret of the Grace of that great mystery, my joy would be full. The key is through the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is our true beloved. He loved us so much He gave is His Only Son to deliver us from sin and give us eternal life. When we are in relationship with our “First love”, we will love our other loves more. Our earthly relationships will be healthy and pain-free.
Those greater than me have written volumes about this great mystery. You have heard my testimony that many years ago, that the Lord gave me a vision of the night of a book. On the cover, was “Faith is a Fact, Hope is a Certainty, and Love is a Reality.” In the vision, the book was written by me.
I conclude from that vision that along the journey of life I have then felt, experienced, participated in, and been a partaker of Christ’s Divine Love free from the struggle of earthly love for “God is Love”. It is not possible for him to give us a gift of pain.
John 3:16; 20:21: …God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life… as my Father has sent me, so send I you.
Then on May 15, 2025, I had a vision of God releasing healing and deliverance to His people through the Gift of Love. In order to steward this mandate, I turn to John, the Apostle of Love and His revelations of this amazing gift through which all the gifts of the Spirit operate, and must operate or we are just sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
1 John 1:3: That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship us; and truly our fellowship is the Father and with His Son, Jesus.
The world has no knowledge of the fellowship with the divine love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Nothing in the natural mind of man can perceive the depths of this privilege. What the world determines as fellowship cannot be equated to this holy communion.
In 1 John, the Apostle is confronting Gnosticism which has taken control of much of the young Christian church.
Considering the human mind in its three functions of intellect/mind, will and emotions. We are renewed in all its parts by the indwelling Holy Spirit of God. The intellect is enlightened to believe (Faith), the emotions are controlled by the Holy Spirit, and the will is turned and strengthened to obey.
The tests of being children of God and living in God are obedience, love, joy, and faith.
Jerome (3/27/347-9/30/420) one of the Desert Fathers, tells us that during St. John’s last years “little children, love one another” was the one exhortation which, after he had become too old to preach, he never ceased to give. “It is the Lord’s command, he said, and if this is done, it is enough.”
1 John 4:7-10: Beloved let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God; and knows God. He that does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us because 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.
These three verses define the Divine Gift of Love.
Love comes from God, whether manifested in God or in man, love is of divine origin being God’s own nature, and everyone who loves is born of God. (Of course, not everyone who feels the force of natural affection or physical attraction or the warmth of friendship, have experienced divine love.) Divine begetting preceded the love; divine love is an activity of the implanted eternal life and is therefore a proof that the life and love of God is present.
Satan loathes the bond of fellowship of this divine entity. Companionship is an entering into one another; but not co-dependency. Companions walk beside the other because they are agreed. Each share a depth of Spirit-union which disqualifies the dispassionate, egotistical, jealous, competitive, and self-will of earthly/carnal love.
1 John 1:7: We walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, God’s Son cleanses us from all sin.
1 John 4: 11-16: Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he has given us His Spirit. We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God. We have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love; and he who dwells in love dwells in God and God in him.
He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there are no causes for stumbling in him. Such fellowship in God is the perfect love which passes all understanding. This love is kind, humble, intuitive, responsive, caring, abiding and continuous. Doing the will of God and walking in one’s anointing leads to a type of camaraderie mostly unknown today.
The Church of the 21st century is plagued with jealousy, competition, ambition and a desire for money, recognition, honor, and pre-eminence. The Spirit alone must bring together that which man cannot initiate or imitate.
1 John 4:17: Herein is love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love.
By living in God, love has been brought to its full expression in us so that we may fearlessly face the Day of Judgment, because all that Jesus now is, so are we in this world. As a young Christian, I lived my life in fear that if I did something wrong, that I would bring judgment on me and my family. This was not living in the love of God. The Lord took me through a breaking and broke that off my life. I no longer live in fear of anything. Death has no power over me. All that I will live and walk through on this earth, the Lord will carry me through. I have no fear of life, the future, or the day of judgment.
We will have open faces on the day of judgment “for the true believer filled with God’s love, the day of judgment is not to be feared but looked forward to, for perfect love will have made us completely like Christ.”
Love provides us with no reason to fear the future or to fear punishment from God; or fear the day of judgment.
I do not preach fear, I preach love because when our love is made perfect, there is no fear.
I do preach the “Fear of God,” which is the awe of the majesty, holiness, power and might of God.
Because all that Jesus now is, --- not like Jesus was, but because of grace, we are like he is now; pure and holy, seated in heaven and glorified.
Faith has transferred Jesus’ righteousness to us.
1 John 4:18-19: Love never brings fear, for fear is always related to punishment. But love’s perfection drives the fear of punishment far from our hearts. Whoever walks constantly afraid of punishment has not reached love’s perfection. Our love for others is our grateful response to the love God first demonstrated to us.
1 John 4: 18-19 (K.J.V.): There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear has torment. He who fears is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us.
Anyone can say, I love God, yet have hatred toward another believer. This makes him a liar and a phony, because if we don’t love a brother or sister, whom we can see, how can we truly love God, whom we can’t see? For he has given us this command: whosever loves God must also demonstrate love to others.
Christians will be judged at the judgment seat of Christ, and sinners will be judged at the great white throne. I am not an authority on this; nor do I believe anyone else is an authority. We all read the same scriptures; but it is my persuasion, when we go to heaven, we will be declared “not guilty” by Jesus Christ. We will be rewarded for our faithful service to Christ and for what we did right. Sinners will not go to heaven, and they will be judged at the Great White Throne judgment.
Rom. 14:10: Why do you judge your brother? Or why do you set at ought your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
2 Co. 5:10: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he has done, whether it be good or bad.
Rev. 20: 11-15: I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. The sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
1 John 4: 19-21: We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he that does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen. This commandment have we from him, That he who loves God loves his brother also.
The early disciples were able to walk into the fellowship enjoyed by Jesus and His Father because of the cleansing blood of Jesus. His blood has not lost its power and continues to open that door, but the prospect of such fellowship is rarely mentioned at all in modern churches.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V. – I entered into the labors of F. F. Bruce Bible Commentary and Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible.