The Life That Leads To Confidence At Jesus’ Judgment Seat (Part Three)

From the heart of Dr. Robert L. Taylor, Th.D. John has told us, 28 “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. 29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him” (1 John 2:28-29). It’s clearly stated here that this confident experience before our Lord at His review of our lives depends on “abiding” in Him. However, exactly how the experience of confidence is achieved is made totally clear only when we arrive at these words: 17 “By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 19 We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:17-19). Please understand that abiding is an experience of such intimacy and closeness to God, who is love (1 John 4:16), that it should be productive of a confident relationship to Him!! Let’s examine verse 17. What is the “perfected” love of God with us? Understanding this brings “confidence in the day of judgment.” Actually John has already spoken two times of the perfecting of God’s love in believers (1 John 2:5; 4:12). Both of these contexts imply that God’s amazing love reaches its maturity and fullness (perfected) in believers as we learn to pass it on to our brothers and sisters in Christ. In other words, God’s love achieves its goal and reaches its full measure in us when that love is reproduced in us and reflected through us by loving one another. Here, the apostle now describes another aspect of God’s perfecting love, and it’s the attainment of “confidence in the day of judgment.” Be encouraged!