Proper Place

The Holy Spirit, through the apostle Paul, said, “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”

The only place of a proper walk, to have a proper motive, to experience proper character is Christ. He is our life, our Object, and this is the character of our walk. Paul, through the Holy Spirit, said, "To me, to live is Christ, to die is gain.” (Phil. 1:21).

2 Cor. 4:10-11, Paul's desire, through the Holy Spirit, was that Christ would be magnified in and through him. This is what the Holy Spirit was saying about Paul's office (diakonia, a servant attendant, an aid), in Rom. 11:13. God was using Paul and his office to magnify His Son in and through who was the Church's fiercest adversary!

The perfection of communion with God the Father was magnified in and through Christ. His whole desire was to glorify His Father. He, Christ, was and is the divine display of the very nature of God, which is love (1 Jhn. 4:7-20).

Life to Him, while on earth, was because of His Father (Jhn. 6:57). But, as another has said, "Christ was the display, at all cost to Himself, of divine love to men." His Father was His continual delight and object. He manifested His love and display of His Father, His very nature, a nature constant and perfect.

Christ in His love for us gave Himself up for us, but God His Father, as the Object and motive, was what constituted its perfection. His love for His Father was an obedient love, perfect and complete. This, in itself, is our assurance of His love for us, a love that has been completed about us, the very ability to receive the deep love of a loving Father. A love that has no interference from His side.

So, in 1 Jhn. 4:18, He is speaking of the perfection of our acceptance in the Beloved, which is what alone casts all fear out of the soul.

Our eyes are off of self and upon Him, and so perfect love casts fear out of us. In 1 Jhn. 4:17, it is not our love is made perfect, BUT love has been perfected with us. God's love HAS been perfected concerning us. It has found its way and completed its will in blessing FOR Us, and is not satisfied as long as it sees in us the least element of fear remaining.