1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
 
DO you fear God, or do you fear God? Other ways to ask this question are, “Do you dread God, or do you worship God?” “Do you see God as Avenger, or do you see God as Righteous Father?”
   The Bible tells us that God was first a Righteous Father in his relationship with Adam and Eve. He created them. He taught them the right way to live. He gave them the pleasure of a beautiful garden and a joyous relationship with each other. Adam and Eve knew God. They loved him and loved one another. 
   Their perfect love had no room for dread or anxiety. Adam’s and Eve’s fear of God was a relationship that  honored him as a Righteous Father. The first couple worshiped God in spirit and in truth.
   Then their worship turned into dread. In their sin they hid from God. They suddenly saw God as Avenger. The man and woman were afraid of the judgment he promised if they broke his law: Genesis 2:17 “But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Mankind died spiritually that day.
   But God is love. He began his plan to draw us back into the perfect love relationship that casts out all fear. The LORD made a way to refill our hearts with honor for our Righteous Father.
   God has decided to change our heats. We know he is alive in us, and we are alive in him. We believe in Jesus as Savior because God has granted us the knowledge. He is the Master, who shapes his creation to his desire. In perfect love, we have no fear of punishment. We live with confidence in his saving work because we know the depth of his sacrifice and the height of his resurrection. The Lord God’s perfect love has caused him to die for us, so we may now dwell in perfect love. We have what we need to dwell forever in heaven. 
   God’s perfect love casts out all fear of God’s judgment and covers us with the appropriate fear to honor him as our Righteous Father.
           

1 John 4:13-17 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.
 
ARE you like Jesus in this world? To be like someone is to be close to, similar to or the same as. Do these phrases apply to your relationship with Jesus? Through John, the Spirit says they do apply when you believe Jesus is the Son of God. Does that humble you and perhaps cause you to respond, “That cannot be!” It is a most sobering thought, isn’t it? How do we know if we are like him?
   In this world we are like him when we live in love. This world is not a place where God’s love is readily visible. People do not go about their business each day with the goal to show a Jesus-like love to anyone. Most of us Christians don’t have that precise goal, either. Generally, it seems we want to be nice to people. But to live in love can be more than we want to do. To live in God’s love requires time, energy and purpose. Yet, that is how we are to be as Jesus in this world. In faith, through the Holy Spirit, we have God’s love. We are to savor his love and know an inner expression of joy because of this soul-transforming truth. God’s love is a treasure too valuable to hold onto as if we might lose it. As God has generously poured his love over us, we are to be like Jesus and pour love over others. This is an active, deliberate love that makes a difference in people’s lives.     
   When you are close to Jesus, you will be eager to know what he says. The Bible will not merely be a means to measure the amount of time you spend with God. Instead, reading God’s inspired word will give you more time, energy and purpose because you focus your life through the One who lives in you.
   To be like Jesus is to rely on Jesus. You trust him to be true to his Word. You are certain he loves you. You have confidence on the day of judgment. You know that when you stand before Jesus on that day, he will welcome you into heaven. You will not be afraid of the future, eternity or God’s judgment because you know God’s love is in you.
   People of the world do not know how to be like Jesus. You must show them while you are in the world. 

1 John 4:7-9 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
 
GOD is love. In the Greek meaning, love means that God is compassionate, kind, considerate and unselfish.
   And this is not always a gentle, easy love. The love that is God causes excruciating physical pain and suffering. This love required blood and sacrifice, darkness and death, so it would be a complete love. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. This is God’s extreme compassion, kindness, consideration and unselfishness. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice on the cross, so he could atone for all the ways we do not love God.
   The atoning sacrifice in God’s law is the ceremonial removal of sin from Israel. The priest sacrifices one goat and sprinkles his blood on the altar. On a second goat, the priest lays his hands and confesses Israel’s sins. That goat is sent from the camp into the desert carrying the sins of the nation. (Leviticus 16)
   That law was fulfilled in Jesus. He is our atoning sacrifice because the Father laid the sins of the world on his Son. He sent him outside the camp of Jerusalem to place him on the cross – the altar of blood sacrifice. This love is the only way we can personally know God is love. God’s compassion, kindness, consideration and unselfishness is the only reason we do not still live in our sin nature. We are no longer subject to the law that cannot redeem us. We are under the care of the God who loves us. 
   God’s love is the reason we can love him. He has shown us how to be compassionate, kind, considerate and unselfish. Romans 5:7-8 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 
   How must we respond? Of course we must love God, and we must love one another. We love God because he is love. We love others because everyone needs kindness, compassion, consideration and generosity. 1 John 4:11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
   Think about it. When you love others as God loves you, they get to know God is love. 

1 John 4:4-6 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
 
JOHN has been writing about the ongoing struggle between the truth and the lies. Jesus’ church has been assaulted from false teachers pretending to be Jesus’ true teachers. And the world’s culture was dominated with beliefs in the Greek and Roman system of multiple gods. Then there were the philosophies that taught every person has the answer to the truth within themselves. In short, little has changed. The amount of noise against the gospel remains loud and overwhelming.
   Yes the devil influences people in power to wield his deadly venom. He forms words and schemes in people’s minds to assault God’s truth on every side, especially in the church. When we hear and see the evil that is in the world, it is easy to assume the devil is winning the “War for the World” that has raged between God and Satan since Satan’s rebellion.
   But the devil is not as great as the Spirit. This is our Father’s world. Once again John reminds us Jesus has given you and each child of God a Helper to know what is true. How great is the assurance to know you have heaven’s power to defeat the enemy. 1 John 4:4 The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. This is one of those powerful verses we have likely heard. It is easy to memorize and a great defense against challenging circumstances that will assault your faith. When the world boasts it knows more about God’s world than God’s Word knows, you can thank God his power is in you to know what is true.
           Rejoice! Tthe LORD God has granted you a special gift of knowledge. We are from God, his dear children whom he has welcomed into his house. The Spirit is in us. There is no power in the world greater than the Spirit of God. He has transformed you to be a sanctified temple of the living God. He has set you apart from the devil’s delusions, so  you will know God’s life-building words. 

1 John 4:1-3 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
 
THE Bible records in Deuteronomy 34:9 Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. This means that Joshua’s mind and soul – his spirit – was filled with wisdom from God. His wisdom was evident in the way he spoke and acted in obedience to God’s commands. Joshua’s spirit was empowered by the Holy Spirit.
   As we’ve mentioned, warnings against false teachers are common throughout the epistles. False teachers are antichrists. They have a spirit that opposes Jesus’ teachings and his church. You can say they are evangelists of the lie to misdirect people from Jesus’ truth.
   John refers to one lie when he affirms Jesus’ deity, “Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” He said this stand against false teachings that claimed Jesus was  not a real man born the Son of God through a woman. They taught Jesus was only a spirit. He left no shadow or footprint!
   If this were true, there would be no sacrificial death, no atonement, no resurrection and no hope of eternal life. We would have no gospel. The truth that Jesus became a man is crucial to God’s plan to save you.
   Of course, John knew the truth. He knew Jesus was as fully man as any man John had known throughout his long life. John had physical contact with Jesus for three years, and he knew how Jesus rejoiced, wept, prayed, slept and ate. He watched the man breathe his last on the cross. And he experienced the fullness of Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. This would have been an easy lie for John to correct.
   But still the antichrist spirits remained and continue today. Even the most highly educated people today will argue that Jesus was not a man. Or they will deny he is the Son of God. Many will reject he even existed. And many want to reshape his words or delete most of his recorded teachings. The spirit of the antichrists claim Jesus’ truth will not be the way and the life. Instead, his words can be considered as one of many ways to a self-approving life.
   How do you test the spirits? You put their teachings against the Bible. The Bible is tested and true. We don’t have the space here to list the ways the Bible proves itself. But one way you know God’s Word is true is to examine God’s promises of the Old Testament fulfilled in Jesus.
   Read and know the Bible. Gain a spirit of wisdom through the Holy Spirit’s inspired Word. Antichrists are everywhere. God’s truth must be defended.