LOVE AND HAPPINESS

In our last article, we said that God is perfectly happy because He is LIGHT and in Him there is no darkness. There is complete TRUTH in God. Complete light and truth enables God to love in perfection. That’s why we say that God is LOVE.

We human beings are all born in darkness and inherit the LIE (sin) in its variety of forms. The pure, unconditional, selfless love that gives us perfect happiness and which God intended us to have when He created us in His own image and likeness, was stolen away by Satan. That’s why human love is always conditional, self-seeking, need based and often brings pain and tears. Because we human beings lost contact with God due to sin, we create our own gods and fall into idol worship. We may even seek to quench the longing of our hearts for God in a person whom we idolize. People often marry on this basis and sooner than later, experience disappointment, dissatisfaction and frustration.

God our Father, in a supreme act of pure, sacrificial love, gave His only begotten Son as a sacrifice for us. Jesus, in a pure act of sacrificial obedience to His Father, loved us and gave Himself up for us, to bring us back to God’s original plan and purpose for our lives. What was the power behind God’s ability to make this supreme sacrifice? It was the emotional fulfillment that He constantly experiences in Himself because the Love between the Father and the Son exists in complete light and truth. It is so powerful, that it generates a third person in God, the Holy Spirit, Christ. It is this constant emotional high of pure love in God that generates God’s powerful, energy-packed activity of creation and supreme control over everything that exists. This love (a constant emotional high with His Father) was the power in Jesus that enabled Him to perform the miracles He did and finally to endure the kind of suffering and death He went through for us. With this same power, God raised Him up in triumph and glory!

It is only when, through the Blood of Jesus, we get back into fellowship with God our Father and His Son Jesus Christ, that we can truly love as God loves and enjoy true fellowship with one another. (Read 1Jn.1: 3-4). The pure, unconditional, sacrificial love that we inherit as “sons of God” enables us to give and receive true love from each other that adds up to the fullness of joy that John speaks about (1Jn.1: 5). When he commands us to love one another (1Jn. 2:8), he is actually telling us that we have the ability to do this “because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.” The lie (sin or darkness) from our minds is passing away because of Jesus the true light!
When we come across commands in the Bible given by The Father, His Son Jesus Christ or chosen and appointed men of God like John, we are not expected to obey that command on our own strength of will. That in fact is impossible. A Divine command is always an invitation to enter into the fellowship of God, the only position in which obedience to Him is possible. Apart from Him, we live in the dark. Darkness, as we explained in our earlier article, means the absence of truth or lies running in our minds that give birth to hatred. This situation is described in 1Jn. 2: 9-14. Hatred is actually a result of unforgiveness or fear that could be so deep rooted that it may be difficult to recognize, but causes much suffering and also ill health of mind and body. John says that there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. He who fears has not been made perfect in love (1Jn. 4:18)
Jesus, who alone is perfect love, can cast away the darkness and fear in us and bring us back to the ability to love as God loves us. 1Jn. 4:19 says, ”We love Him, because He first loved us.” This means that it is impossible to love God without first being cleansed by the Blood of Jesus. 1Jn. 1:4 says: “And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.” Lasting happiness and joy comes from genuine fellowship first with God through the Blood of Jesus and then with our brothers and sisters in Him, in light and truth. Praise the Lord!