“We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.”
1 John 4:16-17 NLT
The crux of our Christian living is conformation to the mind and ways of Jesus. Do we love as he loved? Do we strive for the things he strived for? Do we pray as he did? Do we deal with conflict as he did? Do we handle suffering as he did? Do we have a relationship with the Father as he did? As we embrace being his disciple, we step more and more into his love. And doing so brings a confidence. It brings hope, not of a salvation of self, but of reconciliation to God. Our sights become set in a future where we can openly long to be in communion with God in like fashion to Eden. This is the promise of the Christian ethic of loving God and man. It promises to bring us back to a surety that the feeling is actionable, meaningful, and honest. Many Christians will never access God in this way because they never viewed how they love for what it is. It is a testimony and a proving ground for a time when God’s presence in our lives will no longer be hindered by the presence of sin in our hearts.
This post first appeared at JoshMcGary.com
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